Latest / The Bob Lefsetz Podcast / Graham Russell

Transcript

Graham Russell · The Bob Lefsetz Podcast

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Website Podcast. My
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: guest today is Graham Russell Leversa Griham. How'd you end
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: up living in Park City?
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: It's an interesting story. We were playing at the MGM.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: We were doing two weekends in Vegas. This was in
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: nineteen eighty nine, actually in nineteen ninety and normally I
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: would have gone home because I was living in Malibu, California.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Normally I would go home, but I decided to rent
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: a car and just drive north for a few days,
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: with no plans, no where to stay. I just wanted
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: to drive. And when I left Vegas behind, I entered
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: this desert area and I found it really intriguing. And
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: then all the red rocks appeared and I was driving
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: for about five hours and the road was dead straight.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: I thought, wow, this is pretty cool. And when I
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: got to this little town, I got the phone book
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: and I called a real estate agent. So I just
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: I didn't know anybody. I called this gentleman up out
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: of the Yellow Pages and I said, I don't buy anything,
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: but what's going on here? It's kind of interesting and
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: he said, well, you know, it's a very rural area.
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: And we met for breakfast and he showed me some houses,
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: and the first one he showed me was the one
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: I bought, although he showed me about twenty five houses,
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: and I said, I don't want to buy anything. I
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: just want to see what's happening around here, because it
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: was all new to me. The mountains and the serenity
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: and the clowns and the fresh air. I thought, wow.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: And he showed me a lot of houses. And then
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: when he finished showing me, I said, remember the first
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: one we looked at. I said, yeah, I said, I
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: want to go and see that again. But it was
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: just it was a weekender. It was it was just
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: a shell. But he came with one hundred and twenty
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: six acres, which I at that time I thought was
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: a lot of land. In Malibu, I had about five acres,
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: which was a lot of land. And I ended up
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: buying the house. You know. I said, I'm going to
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: buy it, you know, So I bought it. That's how
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: I came to be in Utah thirty four years ago.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: Okay, how close to the town of Park City are you?
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: I'm about ten miles away.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: I happen an old area, which direction, well.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: I'm east of Park City, so it sees, oh, you
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: know the area. Yeah, yeah, it's a beautiful area, you know.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: And when I when I bought the place, it was
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: park City that really nailed it for me because it's
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: a cosmopolitan city, not too big, but it has great
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: restaurants and it's a very liberal place, which I was
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: not looking for, but it added to the mystique of it.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: And so I thought, what these great restaurants around because
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: where I live then certainly there was nothing here, you know, nothing,
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: but that's what I really wanted. So but then if
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: I can be in park City within fifteen minutes at
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: all kinds of restaurants, yeah, that put the nail in
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: the deal for me, you know.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: Okay, Needless to say, in thirty four years, park City
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: has really changed.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: It has it has? And you know, I actually don't
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: go in there that much anyway, as much as I
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: used to because there's a lot of people there now.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: But when when I bought the house, I'm in now
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: the shells, should I say? The agent that I called
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: out the phone book, who became a really good friend.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: We sat in the house and he said to me
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: there were five lots in front that were pretty big lots,
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: and he said, if I were you, if you can
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: afford these lots, buy them now, and nobody you'll ever
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: get any closer. And I was able to buy them,
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: and I'm glad I did now because nobody can get
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: as close as they were even thirty four thirty five
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: years ago. So I kind of was able to buy
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: my little sanctuary. And you know, when because I spent
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: so much time in cities and traveling around the world,
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: it's just wonderful to come back to the peace and
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: the serenity is great for me. But it's not for everyone.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: You know. When I first bought it, Russell would come
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: up occasionally because I put a studio in the house.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: He would he would look out the window and he
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: would say, Wow, it's the quiet is beautiful. But it
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: wasn't for him because he's more he needs a city.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: But for me, it's perfect. You know. I can just
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: listen to nothing, and that's great for me. You know.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: Okay, thirty four years ago, you leave Vegas, you come
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: to Park City, you call that real estate agent. Do
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: you tell him you're in air supply?
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: No, I didn't. I never do to anyone. But if
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: they find out that's that's okay. He did find out
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: once I wanted to buy the house because of finance
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: and all that kind of stuff, and he kind of
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: was shocked. He says, oh my god, I said, yeah,
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: you know, but then they all get used to it.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: They refer to me in this area, or they used
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: to as the movie star that lives upon the hill.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: You know. They say, when I go to the grain
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: store to get grain and bird seed, well now they
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: know me on a first name basis. But when I
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: first used to go, they'd say, are you the movie star?
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: And I'd say, no, I'm actually not a movie star,
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: you know, but they've got used to me. Now now
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: I'm considered a local, which is wonderful.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: Okay, everyone knows the name ere supply, but you know,
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: the two of you, you and Russell have been in
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: the you know, the act forever. But then the other people,
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: are you recognized?
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: You know, yes I am. However, you know, when I
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: get on a plane, I'm recognized. But I'm six feet
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: five and tall, you know, so wherever I go, people
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: go whoa. But when Russell and I are together, we
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: certainly we get recognized, you know, but it's always a
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: positive thing. It's always great. People come up to us
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: all the time and that will say, oh my god,
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: I got married your songs, and you know, there's that
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: and the other, and we'll go, oh, that's fantastic. And
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: people have done that for decades and we've never turned
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: down an autograph or taking a picture ever. And I
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: think that has a lot to do with with our
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: fan base, you know, because it spreads. But we've never
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: said now, I'm not signing anything. We've never done that,
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: and I don't think we ever will, because we're very
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: aware that the people that come to our shows put
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: gas in my car, you know, and they're part of
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: the whole cycle of life. For me. They gave me
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: the place where I live and everything that I own,
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: they've given it me, They've helped me get it. So
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: I will always be grateful and indebted to them for that.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: Do you think that air supply gets the specter deserve.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: I think so. You know, there are when you know,
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: in the eighties, for instance, you know, we had we
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: achieved a lot. At one point, we had as many
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: top fives as the Beatles, you know, for a short
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: space of time, and that to us was quite staggering
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: because the Beatles are everything to us. They were and
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: still are. I think there are other bands that have
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: achieved less than us that get a lot more attention.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: But you know, it doesn't bother us because we prefer
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: to step back and let the music speak for us.
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: You know, we've never been in the magazines. We've never
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: been in Rolling Stone, let alone on the cover of
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: Rolling Stone. In fact, when The One that You Love
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: was number one, Rolling Stone didn't even have in the
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: top twenty in the magazine. They pulled it out because
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: we probably weren't good copy. However, we've kind of got
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: used to it and it doesn't bother us at all
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: because what's important to us are the fans and us
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: getting on stage and playing. That's what we love to do,
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: and we probably do more shows than any other band
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: in the industry. We play one hundred and thirty every
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: year and we're almost at fifty six hundred in our career,
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: and I don't think a lot of artists have done that,
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: or at least are able to play at a very
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: high level. I mean, we're not the Rolling Stones, but
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: for what we do, we do it with a lot
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: of class and we created our own sound and that's
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: what that's what we play.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: You know, since you've done so many gigs, do you
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: find that it's a hardcore fan base that is coming
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: to see you and you actually know these people or
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: is it like air Supply goes to a town you've
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: had a lot of hits. People come as they say,
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: certain acts, you know surprisingly Kenny g you know Fish
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: on the other stream, they have very hardcore of fans.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: What are the fans like for air Supply?
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: They're hardcore the airheads that there's millions of them, and
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: some of them a few, not a lot. I've seen
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: maybe five six hundred shows.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's their legion. And we talk to them because
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: we know them on a first name basis, and we
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: have a as all artists do. Now, we have a
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: VIP thing at sound check and people come get a
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: picture and they listen to soundcheck and we talk to them,
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: you know, and we say why do you keep coming back?
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: And they say, we can't stay away. We don't know
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: what it is, but we can't stay away. If you're close,
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: we have to come and see the show. I don't
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: know why, but you know, after all these years, I think, well,
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: I'm convinced that people go to see shows to hear
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: hit songs. There's no doubt about that. When I go
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: and see McCartney or The Stones, or Peter Gabriel and Sting,
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: who are all my favorites, you want to hear the
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: hit songs, you know. And fortunately we have a lot
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: of them, and we play them all every night that
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: we play, and people know that and they want to
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: be part of your journey, you know, with us. But
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: I think specifically with our music, it's very it's the word,
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: it's very family. It's family music. You know. They have
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: a lot of memories to us. They got married, because
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: we've been together for fifty years. It's their whole family
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: is part of it. They got married to us, they
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: had the babies, they've lost people that you know, we
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: can name any one of a dozen songs that are
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: their favorite songs and we're going to play it for them.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: So it's it's like this nuclear fission that just keeps
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: empowering itself every time we play, you know, it really does.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: Okay, So with this date, why do you play so
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: many shows?
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: You know, it's simply because we love to play, we
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: really do. And we've you know, Russell and I have
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: always said years and years ago, we said we'll stop
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: playing when the people stopped coming, you know. But I
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: think we we offer a message. You know. The songs
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: are great songs for people to live by, and they
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: have they hold incredible memories for everyone, and we're part
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: of that cycle. They come to the show and I
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: see them, you know, when we step on stage, I
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: see them. A lot of them are in tears, you know,
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: they go, oh my god, I can't believe I'm watching them.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: But it's not like it's different than like, although we
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: are a rock and roll band, it's different than most
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: other rock and roll bands. We don't come out and
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: try and blow people's brains out with volume or anything.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: It's a different energy with us, and I'd like to
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: think it's ours alone with our music, you know. But
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: we just love to play, and one of these days
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: we won't be able to for whatever reason, be it
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: a health reason or we just can't do it. And
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: who knows when that's going to be. I mean, if
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: you look at like McCartney and the Stones, or keep
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: referring to them again, because they really wield the power
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: that they're the role models for artists like myself. You know,
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: they're eighty two years old and they're just killing it
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: and they're great. Got Mick Jagger running everywhere. So that's
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: what I want to do. I want to be playing
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: at a very high level when I'm eighty two. I'd
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: love to do that. But who knows. You know, people
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: suddenly have a heart attack or they have whatever and
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: they can't do it. So I think we want to
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: do it for a bit longer. You know. We just
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: love being out there, love we love the industry, and
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: we love our job and we've always been very thankful
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: for being able to do this. You know, I in particular,
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: I come from the center of England, and you know
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: that unless you have great skills and you go to university,
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: your choices of careers are very limited, especially especially then,
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: you know, when I'm in the late sixties, it's very limited.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: A lot of people end up going down the pit,
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: or that the pits have closed now. But I didn't
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: want that. I wanted to be a songwriter from when
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: I was thirteen years old, and I just followed that
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: path that I thought would take me there. And I
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: was really lucky. This should have happened to anyone, any
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: thousands of people, but it happened to me. And I
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: don't know if it was because I never let go
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: of that thought or that dream, I mean, never let
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: go of it, or it was just chance. I don't know,
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: but whatever it is, I just have this incredible life
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: where I'm able to write songs and may earn a
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: living writing songs and do what I love to do.
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: And wow, that's everything for me.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: Okay, there's a lot of stuff there, but let's go
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: back to the live thing. You do one hundred plus
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: shows a year.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: I have been with musicians where the audience absolutely loved
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: it and the people on stage said, oh man, it
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: was a bad night, and vice versa. But usually the
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: audience loves it. So what is your experience? What makes
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: these shows different? Are you looking to, you know, get
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: the Holy Grail once or twice at tour? What's it
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: like being on stage?
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: Oh, it's it's a dream come true every night when
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: we step on stage, especially now, I mean Russell and
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: I we're in our seventies, you know, we we shouldn't
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: be here, you know, in the fifties and sixties, this
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: was before rock and roll, became of age. The only
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: people around then that were a little older was Bill
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: Hayley and the Everly Brothers and those artists. But now
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: that that boundary has been pushed, pushed to infinity by
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: people like The Stones and Paul McCartney. So who knows
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: where it's going to end, and we just want to
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: be a part of that. But stepping on stage, there's
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: nothing like it. I mean, we step on stage and
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: everybody stands up and they're applauding, and we go, oh
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: my god, this is incredible. And once again a night
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: doesn't go by where right at the beginning of the
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: show where I get goose bums right before I come on,
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: and it's just this incredible feeling you can't describe. But
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: every night that we play, it's there, and you know,
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: Russell and I we always say we always look into
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: the audience right before we come on and see what
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: kind of audience it is, But it's always the same
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: people are waiting and then we go on and everything starts,
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: and it's just this incredible feeling that you can't describe.
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: It's nothing else comes close. You can't compare it to
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: anything you know.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: Okay, but are some shows better or worse than other shows.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: And what makes them so well, what you just said
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: is true. They love it anyway. But sometimes for us,
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: you know, Russell will come off and when we have
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: a quick chat, he comes to my dressing room and
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: he will say, oh, I wasn't on tonight. I just
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: couldn't get in into the group, and I say, well,
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: I didn't notice. It becomes a personal, a personal thing,
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: and sometimes I'm like that. I say, god, I didn't
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: I didn't get going tonight. I was thinking I didn't
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: let go. But there that's very infrequently when that happens.
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: But but when it does, you go, oh my god,
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: I should have done this, and I didn't give everybody
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: a one hundred percent. I was held back. But nevertheless, the
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: audience loves it anyway. But our expectations are high and
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: our goals are high, simply because, especially these days, people
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: pay a lot of money to go to shows, you know,
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: and they spend a lot of money that they probably
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: should spend on something else, but they don't. So we
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: want to give them the best show we can give
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: them that's in our power to give them. And when
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: we don't, individually, I get annoyed with myself and I say, well,
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: I'll be better tomorrow night, but an audience wouldn't even notice.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: You know, it's a weird thing, but at least we
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: always want to give one thousand percent every night, you know,
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: and sometimes it's not possible. For instance, if I mean
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: I'm not the lead singer, I sing a few leads,
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: but if I get a cold and my throat's on it,
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: I can't sing. I will say to the audience when
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: it's my first turn to speak, which is usually around chances,
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: I'll say, folks, I got to tell you something. I've
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: got a really bad throw and if I sound out
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: a tune, I'm apologizing now because I never sing out
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: of tune. And I said, if I do, please accept
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: my apologies. I don't because you deserve the best. So
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: I tell them, you know, and because I don't want
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: them to think I'm out of tune every night, because
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: I'm really not.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: Okay, how do you do it?
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: You know?
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: On one hand, you know, on the lowest level, people
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: are in station wagons and vans, and there are people
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: who go in buses. There are other people take a
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: jet into every show. Band members come from their own place.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: They meet at the gig. Then they go their separate ways.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: How does their supply to it?
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: We fly commercial, sometimes, we bus. When we first toward
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: the US and well on our own in nineteen eighty,
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: we were in buses for nine months of the year,
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: and occasionally we'd spend a night in hotel, but usually
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: we'd shower at the show and we'd get on a
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: bus and drive five hundred miles. But we were a
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: lot younger than we thought it was really exciting. That
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: doesn't appeal to us anymore, you know, So we go
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: we fight commercial, or we rent vans. If it's a
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: small distance between shows, which it usually is, it's usually
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: within two hundred and fifty miles, so we rent cars
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: and we'll drive there. But you know, our style of
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: transportation is not super luxurious. We you know, we we
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: can't afford to rent planes and stuff like that. You know,
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: I wish we could, but that's not in our cars,
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: not probably not for in the foreseeable future.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: Okay, So to what degree are you a student of
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: the game, Like, would you know how many people were
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: intending what the grosses or you just pass that off
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: to other people.
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: No, I'm very aware of everything like that. I even
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: know how much merchandise we sell in the night, not
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: because I'm interested in making money. I just want to
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: see if the people are buying things that they're happy
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: with that, and I want to know how many people. Well,
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: we always sell out our show wherever it is, but
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: if we don't, which is really unusual, I want to
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: know why. You know, why didn't we sell out? It's
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: really weird, So I want to know. Plus, it makes
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: you feel good to know that you're selling a show out,
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: be it two thousand seats or thirty thousand. You know,
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: it's just feels good to be able to sell shows out. Plus,
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: we want everybody to be successful. We want the promoter
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: to make money because we want him to book Is again,
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: you know. And that's when I come off stage. My
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: first question to our tour manager is every night, I
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: would say, is everybody happy? Is the promoter happy they've
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: all made money? Yeah, everybody's happy. The producer of the
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: show is ecstatic, And then I'm happy at that point.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: You know, do you know how much merch per head
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: you do? Yeah?
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: I do. I mean ours is not huge, but you
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: know we probably do seven eight dollars ahead with a
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: lot of artists probably do. Like eight hundred.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: Seven eight dollars isn't bad. So what's your view on
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: using hard drives and other recordings in the live environment.
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: We have some some strings, some cellos and stuff on
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: a hard drive, but that's that's about it for us,
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: simply because we've always been a loon. I bound, you know,
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: and I know when I when I sing live, but
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: I'm not the lead singing. Uh. You know, sometimes I
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: push if I get excited, I push, and I may
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: my may go sharp. So I'm I'm reminded reminded by
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: our front of highs front of house engineer. He say,
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: don't push, just sit there, let the microphone do the work.
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: If you get if it's adrenaline, just relaxed. And so
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: I'm very I'm always reminded of that. But we have
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: some cellos and a couple of violins on a hard drive,
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: but on a few songs. But that's that's all. It's
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: very little, you know, simply because I love the live
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: I love the live energy. You know.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: Okay, you've had monster hits and there supply songs are
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: perennials a year in, a year out. Do you still
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: own your right huh.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: We we about five years ago we sold we sold
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: a high percentage of our catalog to Primary Wave, who
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: are one of the companies that people were flocking that artists,
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: vintage artists especially were flocking to. And we held out
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: for a long time and then they came to us
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: and our manager resisted it and he said, he said,
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: I'm changing my mind on it. If you want to
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: do it, then do it, you know, and he gave
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: us his blessing, and he actually engineered the whole thing
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: and we were very happy when we did it. We
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: didn't sell everything. We actually sold seventy percent and so
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: we keep thirty. But you know, we we got a
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: big payment, which for us, it didn't solve any problems.
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: We didn't have any problems financial problems. We've always been
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: very fluid. But it's kind of a backup in case
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: everything stopped tomorrow. Then we don't have to worry about,
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: oh my, you know, what are we going to do? Now?
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: We're okay, we're fine. But it's like you said, we've
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: had a lot of big hits. And throughout all that time,
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: I owned I owned all my own publishing rights, you know,
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: So so I'm in a good place, and Russell Russell agreed,
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: And Russell shares in my publishing, you know, and he
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: always has simply because he's the singer on a lot
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: of these great recordings, you know, and without him, I'm
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: very aware that we wouldn't be where we are right now.
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: It's the singer, it's the songs, it's a lot of things,
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: but his voice is the trademark of air supply, and
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: I always wanted to make sure he gets rewarded for that.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: Musicians are legendarily bad with money. You got a big
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: check from Primary Way, what do you do with the money?
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: Well, we're in a great position because our manager is
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: also our accountant and he has been since we began
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: our career.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: So yeah, it's incredible. And you know, Barry Siegel is
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: his name, and he advises us not only as management
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: to decide what we do in a year, but also
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: accounting and what we do with the money. And he
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: invests for us. But he said to us, you know,
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: I want you to have that money and I don't
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: want you to touch it, which is a very smart thing.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: And so instead of us going through it and buying whatever,
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: he said, No, he's very he's very very frugal. So far,
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: we haven't touched any of it because he wanted us
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: to have it there as a backup in case anything happens.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: Of course that's the smart the smart thing. But with
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: Barry in particular, we have an incredible relationship. Not only
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: are we extremely close friends, we go on vacation together,
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: we have dinners all the time. But we're very close.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: But there's a great trust there and we look after
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: each other, you know. And I don't know if we'd
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: be where we are with that Barry. In fact, we
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: wouldn't for sure.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: So how did you meet him?
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: That's an interesting story when nineteen eighty when Lost in
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: Love was the biggest song in the world, and we
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: didn't have any representation, no manager, no accounting or anything.
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: And Russell and I were, of course still living in
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: Australia and we got a lot of phone calls from
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: lawyers from Los Angeles and money people saying, oh, I
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: know you don't have any representation, I'd like to offer
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: our services and from great people. And we didn't get
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: a call from Barry. He came and knocked on my door.
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: He flew to Australia and he said I'm Barry seeing
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: on I am accountant and would you be interested in
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: talking to me? And at that point he was working
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: with a large accounting firm, but he wanted to go
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: out on his own with a partner. And I took
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: him out in Sydney that night and we got him
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: really drunk and we just left him alone and he
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: had to find his way through through his dodgy area
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: called King's Cross in Sydney and he couldn't remember where
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: his hotel I was. But we we just got on great.
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: And I Russell and I both thought that him coming
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: to Australia knocking on out door and saying I'd love
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: to represent you, you know, and we said, yes, let's
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: do it. And that's that was a long time ago,
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: and that's how we get. That's how it started.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: So unlike most musicians, you haven't had an episode of
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: being seriously ripped off.
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: No, no, we haven't, thanks to Barry. We've had people
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: that have tried to do that, but they they're not successful.
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: You know, Barry Barry Barry's firm, which is PFM Provident
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: Provident Financial Management, became very, very successful in an accounting world.
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: But I believe we're the only artist that he personally manages,
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: although he's company represents the krem Della Creme of artists
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: and actors in the industry. So it's great for us,
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: you know, but we've never nobody's ever tried to rip
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: us off for him, well, they've tried a few times,
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: but Barry just knocks it all down, as it's known.
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: So he's you know, it's something about trust and when
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: you have a career and if you trust someone totally,
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: that's a big that's a big plus for us because
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: we don't spend any time wondering if anybody is ripping
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: us off. We just don't. And you know, it's a
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: wonderful experience that we've had together and we we refer
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: to ourselves as the Three Musketeers.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: Okay, jumping around. You were talking about in the eighties
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: on the road so much. Why were you on the
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: road so much? Today acts have to be on the road.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: I'm talking about you know, act starting up, recording step
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: for a few don't generate that much money. Were people
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: saying you have to go on the road to sell
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: the act, to build the act, to visit the radio stations,
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: or they were saying, you're so hot. This is the
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: time to make money. Why were they having you work
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: so much?
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: We wanted to first up and we had the opportunity.
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: Suddenly we could have our own tour, which a lot
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: of artists they have to wait a long time before
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: they get that. They did say you need to headline
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: your own tour. So we did a theater tour in
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: nineteen eighty. I'll never forget it. I remember each show
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: and we were on a bus. So for us it
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: was exciting too. You know, I was in nineteen eighty,
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: I was thirty years old. Russell was thirty one. So
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: for us it was like, oh my, this whole new
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: life just started. And they said, if you want to
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: work every night, you can work every night, and we did.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: We wanted to. We were on a bus. It was
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: a lot of fun where we had several buses. We
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: were doing the show. Getting on the bus, habit a
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: bottle of wine and life was fantastic. We'd be looking
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: we'd get the billboard positions a week early. Clive Davis
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: would be calling us all the time saying, oh, you've
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: jumped another ten places. So life was incredible. It was
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: what every artist, every musician dreams about. And it suddenly
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: came to us, and we were kind of late in
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: life for it to happen, thirty and thirty one years old,
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: so we didn't look a gift horse in the mouth.
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: Plus we wanted to play. We'd had four years of
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: not earning any money. We were broke before Lost in
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: Love hit in the US. We had no money, even
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: though it was a big hit in Australia. We had
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: several hits in Australia, we weren't earning anything. We couldn't
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: even play in Australia. We couldn't afford to hire musicians
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: or a PA system, so we just weren't working. So
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: suddenly to headline our own tour was a big deal
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: for us, and we wanted to get out there. You know,
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: Lost in Love was you couldn't turn the radio one
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: without hearing Lost in Love at all anywhere, and we
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: had a little taste of that right before we came
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: to the US. We went to Japan because they asked
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: us to come. Lost in Love was released there, and
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: in Australia a gold record is twenty thousand copies. We
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: went to Japan in nineteen seventy nine and we sold
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: a million albums in a week and we thought, oh
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: my god, this is just outrageous, you know, and so
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: we said, yes, that's what we want. And it wasn't
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: the money, because we'd never had any all the fame.
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: It was just being able to do, to have a
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: career and to be able to play and get on
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: stage and having people in the audience. We we had
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: done shows in Sydney where nobody came. Nobody and the
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: problem the guy that was running the pub, you know,
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: he would because we'd do two we were booked for
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: two one hour sets. He'd say, okay, nobody's here. After
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: the first set, I'm going to give you half the money.
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: You can go home, and we say, no, we have to.
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: We want to, you know, sit by the contract. This.
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: We wanted to two shows, two one hour shows, because
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: we needed the money and we were making two hundred
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: dollars a night. It was out. It was stupid, you know,
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: but that's all we had. And then Lost in Love
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: hit and everything changed, you know. That's why we wanted
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: to play.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: Okay, you're in the pub in Australia, literally no one comes. Yeah,
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: how do you keep your attitude up?
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: It was very difficult, but just in case anybody was
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: to walk in, which they didn't. We just did the show,
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: so it was like a rehearsal and we played both
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: sets and it destroys you. It's really it breaks your heart,
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: you know. And at the same time we had a
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: top ten record in Australia lost in it was top
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: ten and we couldn't get anybody at the shows. But
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: our hearts were breaking. But we never gave up. We
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: never said this is I've had enough of this, I'm
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: going to get a job. I think we said. We
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: never did that. We said no, no, we've got to
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: hang on. We've got to hang on, you know, And
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: we did and I'm glad we did.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: So where did you grow up?
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: I grew up in Nottingham in England, which is in
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: the center of England.
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: All I know was Nottingham. Didn't Raleigh bicycles made in
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: notting Yes.
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: He did. My sister used to work for him and
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: dunlocked tires.
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: So what were the circumstances? What were your parents doing
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: for a living?
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: Well, my mother died when I was ten, which was
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: really instrumental in me starting to write songs and writing
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: verse down because when my mother died I didn't speak
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: to anyone for three months. And when I came out
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: because I was I was ten years old, I was
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: in shock. When I started to talk, I would write
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: things down on a legal pad with add it around
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: my neck with a pen and I would write things down.
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: Then I started to put things into verse and make
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: it right for fun. But then when I started to
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: speak to people, would I would show them the verses,
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: you know, say this is what I'm feeling right now,
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: and they they turned into songs. But my father worked
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: in a factory. He had for years and years. We
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: never we didn't have a car or phone. We never
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: went on vacation anywhere. We didn't have anything. But I
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: had a great until when my mother passed away, which
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: changed my whole life. Before that, I had a great childhood.
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: I was happy and just like all the other kids.
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: But I just wanted to be a songwriter from very
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: early age.
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: Okay, was your mother ill or did she die suddenly?
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: She died from cancer. She had breast cancer. But I
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: knew she was ill, but they kept it from me
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: that she was really terminal. And then one morning my
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: dad just said to myself, my two older sisters, he
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: said your mother's gone. And I said, oh, where is
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: she gone? And when she's coming back? And he said, no,
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: she passed away, and I didn't know what that meant.
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: I said, well, what when is she coming back? You know?
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: He said, she's not coming back. That's it. And I
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: was just devastated. And it took me a long long
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: time to get used to the idea, you know, which
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: is you know now, I understand when people when children
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: lose their apparent at an early age, I understand what
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: they're going through. But until you go through that, I
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: don't know if you can understand it. My whole world died,
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: everything died, and it took me a long time to
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: build my life back together.
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: You know, Okay, you didn't speak for three months.
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: People noticed that when they say, or what you don't
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: want to take you to the doctor, they were ribbing you.
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: How are people here?
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: They were trying to comfort me because they realized that
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: I didn't know that it was going to happen, that
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: my mother was going to die. Everybody knew but me
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: that she was going to go, so it was all
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: it was a comfort thing. But I just didn't want
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: anything to do with it. I didn't want to talk
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: to people. I didn't want people comforting me and saying, no,
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: it's going to be all right, because no, it wasn't
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: going to be all right, and I needed to go
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: through it. And even at that early age, I just
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: wanted to be on my own. I needed to deal
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: with it myself. But one must remember in England, where
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: I came from, then I don't ever remember embracing my dad,
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: or my dad coming up to me giving me a hug,
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: or ever saying I love you. It just didn't happen,
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: never happened. So I was on my own. I don't
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: even remember my sisters coming up to me and putting
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: their arms around me. And in fact, my sister was
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: one of my sisters is eight years older than me,
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: and we're very close now. But she said to me recently,
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: she said, I had no idea what you went through.
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: Nobody told you, and nobody tried to help you. And
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: I said, no, they didn't. But on reflection, it gave
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: me great strength and I started to listen to my
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: own voice in my head and it set me on
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: a path to write things down and to write verse.
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: And then I wanted to learn to play the guitar.
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: I got a guitar and I learned to play it
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: really quickly, and the first song I learned was Home
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: on the Range, which is like a two chord song.
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: As soon as I could look, as soon as I
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: could play that, I started writing my own songs. Not
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: knowing what I was doing. I just and that was
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: the beginning. And I would write songs maybe three or
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: four every week, even as a young teenager and right
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: into my adult life, you know. So it became second
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: nature to me, and it became everything to me. It
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: became the shoulder that I could cry on, and it
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: became my life everything, you know. So songwriting for me,
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: it's not just something to do to try and get
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: a song on the radio. I mean far from it.
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: It's just it's the other, my other persona that I
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: talked to, and it's kind of like my twin if
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: you like.
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: Okay, is that when you knew you were going to
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: be a songwriter?
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah it is, yeah, well not when I knew I
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: was going to be. It was when I wanted to be.
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: But you know, I was in the center of England.
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: The last thing anybody needs in the center of England
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: is a songwriter. But I never let go of it.
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: I always wanted my career's person, my career's teacher at school,
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: who I am actually still in touch with. Yeah, she
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: and I said, She said, well, what do you want
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: to be? Do you want to be a doctor or
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: policeman or what do you want to do? I said,
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: I want to be in a band. I want to
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: write songs. And I'm thirteen years old, right, And she says, ha, no,
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: you can't do that. What do you really want to be?
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: And I said, I really want to be a songwriter?
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: So yeah, isn't that weird? It's funny?
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: Okay, a couple of things. You're very verbal thinking, but
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: you're talking about this alone time when your mother pats.
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: Are you someone who likes their own company or you
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: someone like Jerry Maguire always has to have somebody around.
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: No. I like spending a lot of time on my own.
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: I don't know if that's good or bad for anyone,
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: but I always have. Even at school, I was a loner,
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: you know. I know when I was fifteen sixteen, nobody
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: would go out with me on a day to the pictures,
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: the movies, and so I became I was my own
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: best friend, and then I would just The only thing
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: I used to run to was writing songs. I'd dash
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: home from school and i'd listened to this program on
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: the BBC called Pop Go the Beatles. It was on
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: a Tuesday afternoon at five o'clock, and I used to
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: dash home and listen to it. And then i'd listened
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: to that, and then i'd go and write a song,
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: you know, obviously imitating what i'd just heard, but it
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: was a great What I didn't realize what I was
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: doing is I was informing myself. I was going to school.
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: I was going to the University of learning how to
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: write a song, even at thirteen and fourteen. But I
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: loved it. And you know, I would say to a
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: couple of school friends. They'd say, what are you just
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: still writing songs? I said yeah. They say, okay, let
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: me let me have a listen to some. And I
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: was never shy. I usually had a guitar with me anyway,
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: and I would say, okay, listen to this, and I'd
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: play them one or two or three or four songs
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: and they go wow, you know, And so that's how
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: over I overcame my shyness because I wasn't afraid to.
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: I would just stop and play for anybody. You know.
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: Okay, so you're writing songs. I mean you're in England.
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: It's not the same as America. But in America, certainly
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: post Beatles, everybody got a guitar, drums, whatever, and they
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: started to play and they played it high school assemblies
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: and they played parties. Did you play those kind of gigs?
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: A few of them in England? When whenever I could,
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: If my school friends would say, oh, we're having a
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: few people around and I was invited, I always took
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: my guitar just because that was what I did. It
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: was like my date. You know, I had a guitar,
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: and of course if somebody sees you with a guitar,
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: oh you play guitar. There you want to play something? Yeah, sure,
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: so that's how it started. You know. I've never been
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: shy about playing. But I'm not a great guitar player.
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: I just play rhythm guitar and I play enough to
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: get by. I get I know enough guitar to play
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: my songs. But that's yeah. I used to play those
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: kind of things, you know for sure.
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: Okay. One have to ask many musicians play music because
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: it's a way to find girls or girls have been
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: drawn to them. Was that of your motivations? And did
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: it work?
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: It was never a motivation for me at all. In fact,
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: I never even thought about that. It wasn't on my
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: radar at all. I just wanted to play songs. I
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: wanted to play my own songs. And when I joined
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: the band in England and I played drums, you.
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: Know, how did that happen?
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: Well? I loved the Beatles and you know, I bought
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: every record they had. I used to go around to
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: my aunt's and say, the Beatles albums coming out? Can
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: you help me pay for it? You know? And they would.
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: And then I just had this thing of for ringo,
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: you know. And so I would sit on my couch
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: and I would play drums. I had a cardboard box
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: for the bass drum. I bought a cheap second and
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: not even second, and a kick drum pedal hitting a
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: cardboard box. And I had another cardboard box for a
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: tom tom and I would hit the couch and I
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: learned every single Beatles song, all the drums, so to
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: go into I wanted then, I wanted to go into
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: a band, and I joined a band, but quickly I
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: realized that drums weren't for me simply because it it
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: was playing a lot of blues songs, which I didn't
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: care for, and I wanted to play my own songs.
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: I would say to the guys man, hey, guys, how
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: about playing an original song, you know? And they go, no, no,
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: we're a cover band. So that's what was going on
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: in England, and I got really fed up with it,
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: you know, and that's when I decided to leave England
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: because I couldn't get anywhere.
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: Okay, a few questions when you would play your songs,
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: was reaction always positive? Or was sometimes people would the
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: morning people said, hey, I'd rather listen to her hit song.
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: It was always positive, which was great for me because
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: a lot of my early songs they weren't great songs.
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: It was just a young kid trying to learn how
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: to write songs. But even my sisters, when I play them,
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: they say, oh, wow, that's really nice. But so they
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: empowered me. And my school friends would say wow, that's cool,
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: and they would start learning the songs with me and
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: they'd sing with me, and so I knew. I knew
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: the songs were okay. They weren't hit songs, and they
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: were all over the place, but they were finished, and
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: they had lyrics and there was a beginning, a chorus
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: and an ending. So I was very happy with that.
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: But everybody was always positive. Nobody ever said, oh, that's terrible.
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: I think if they had I would have been destroyed.
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: But nobody ever did, Okay, do you still write songs
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: to Oh? Yeah, every day, every day.
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll tell me a little bit more about that.
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, a supply. We just finished our Ladies' album,
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: which is our first in fifteen years, so I don't
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: have a lot of outlet for my songs. So about
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: ten years ago I started to get involved with musicals.
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: I love writing musicals, and now I just finished my
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: twelfth musical simply because I love to write around a story,
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: so I get the story from somewhere and now I'm
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: getting the hang of it, and so it's something that
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: I love to do. I don't know if it's supply
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: after this album, won't make another album. I don't want
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: to say we won't, but this one took fifteen years
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: for us to come around to say, oh, yeah, let's
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: make an album. I don't know if we have that
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: much time left, but I just love writing songs. So
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: people started to come to me with with the scripts
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: and these stories and say, I really want to turn
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: this into a musical. Would you be interested? I say, yeah, sure,
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: So it's good for me. I just love writing songs,
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: you know. And you know the the air supply musicals
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: coming this year, so it's all kind of coming full circle.
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: I mean once again. You know, I just have a
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: great life. I kind of do what I want to do,
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: and you know.
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: Okay, So what happened with the twelve musicals you wrote?
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: Well, four of them were attempts at air supply musicals,
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: but the book, the book that people wrote, I never
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: have anything to do with the book. People would say, oh,
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: the book's not great, you know, But then I try again.
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: But then I wrote three with two gentlemen from here
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: in Utah that were and two of them went on stage,
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: had limited runs, so that was great. So every every
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: musical I'm getting more and more experience. Now, last July,
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: I started to write one about David Copperfield, the Charles
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: Dickens Book, and I finished that in six weeks, and
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: so that's how it has a reading. A second reading
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: in March and I think it's going to open in
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: London in November. That's when I'm tough. So my musicals
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: are getting more and more notoriety. But even if they don't,
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: I just love doing it, you know, it's great. And
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: I enjoyed the readings and they hire all these singers
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: and and suddenly I'm seeing all these people and rehearsal
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: singing all these songs, and wow, that's really cool. But
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: it's great, you know, it's wonderful for me.
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: So how do you write songs? And what's the difference
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: between writing songs for ear supplier for a musical.
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: Because in a musical, the parameters are given to me.
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: There's a story, the script or the book if you like,
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: and I read the book, I absorb it and I
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: think where a song should be, or the author of
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: the book will tell me where the song he thinks
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: or she thinks needs to be. And I like that.
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: They give me a lot of pointers and tell me
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: what should be said in the song. So for me,
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: it's kind of easy because they're telling me what needs
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: to happen in the song, who's singing it, and the
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: parameters of the scene. And then I go and I'll
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: write the song. So it's great for me, but for
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: a supply, I have to come up with everything, which
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: is great too. I have to come up with a
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: story well, because a song is a story that you've
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: got to have a beginning, a middle, and a great
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: ending in three and a half minutes, you know. So
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: that's a challenge for anyone. But that's what writing a
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: song is all about. And I love that too. But
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: there's no doubt I have a gift. I don't know
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: where it comes from, but I can pretty much write
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: a song on demand, you know.
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: Okay, some people eke it out. I mean, Leonard Cohen
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: wrote songs over years. Some of the greatest songs in
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: rock history were written in fifteen minutes. Yeah, So do
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: you work on inspiration or you know, is it something
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: you work on a song and you do a song
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: a day or a song a week. How do you
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: actually do it? Is it more workman like or is
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: it more a lightning bolt?
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: It's a lightning boat. But I'm very aware, after all,
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: you know, I've been writing songs now for over sixty years.
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: That's a long time. So I've kind of figured out
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: a few of the things. But for me and I
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: know a lot of songwriters are different, but for me,
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: I know when it's going to strike. I get a feeling.
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: If I know I've got to write a song, I'll
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: just sit at the piano or I'll sit my guitar
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: and I'll sit there and I think about what I
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: want to write about, and then I just do it.
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: And most of my biggest songs were written in fifteen
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: or thirty minutes. Yeah, Lost in Love was written in
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: fifteen minutes, simply because I know when the muse, if
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: you want to call it, that is there. I just
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: know it, and we have a communication. I just feel
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: it and I get goosebumps, and I say, Okay, I'm
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: going to write this song. And then when it's done,
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: you know, I have my phone going to record it.
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: I don't have any sophisticated recording technique. I just record
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: the song and then I'll go back and I listen
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: to what's on my phone. And I'm always nervous when
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: I go back to listen because I say to myself, God,
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: that was great, but it isn't that great. I listen
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: to my phone and every time I go, yes, I
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: got I've got the essence of it. Then I go
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: back and tidy it up and you know, and finish
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: the lyrics. So it's a great revelation for me, and
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: it's I love it so much because and every time
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: that comes, where that inspiration strikes me, I end up
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: in tears because it's such an incredible feeling and a moment.
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: You know, it's like I get taken over and I
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: just can't. I go into this massive crime thing almost
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: like wow, it happened again. But I don't deserve to
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: have these feelings and to do this. You know, there
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: should be somebody else, but it's not, you know, and
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: I you know, I don't have any training, musical training
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: about anything. It's all intuitive, but it's never let me
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: down so far, and I just love it. I just
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: love it so much.
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: Okay, do you know when you write a hit?
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: I do? Yeah? Well should I say I know when
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: I write a great song? I do yeah, because it
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: happens quickly, and I can just tell after all these years,
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: I go, oh yeah. But if I'm start to write
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: something and it doesn't reach my expectations, I'll stop and
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: I'll never go back to it. It has to happen
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: really fast so I can get that inspiration, that lightning boat.
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: I have to catch it and put it in a
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: bottle so that it's there, And when it is, it's
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: like the most incredible euphoria. It's like, I imagine it's
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: like a bit a drug. I don't do drugs, I
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: never have, but I imagine it's something like that where you know,
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: you go, oh my god, and it's incredible. It's like
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: you want to jump off the roof of your house.
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: You know, lightning doesn't strike every day, So if you
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: want to have an album with ten or twelve tracks,
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: my experience is you can't have lightning strike all those times.
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: No, that's true. But with this new album of ours,
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: we took a long time to record it, simply because
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: we were on the road so much and we wanted
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: to play, so we would block out two weeks or
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: three weeks and we'd go and record. So by the
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: time we came to a recording block, I'd written another
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: half a dozen songs, of which two or three I
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: was really I really knew that they were going to
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: be strong, so in my opinion, but I may be wrong.
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: This album is packed with really strong songs, but it
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: may not be. They may not be songs that people
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: want to hear anymore, because I don't pay any attention
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: to what's current or what's what's going to be a
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: hit or the new flavor of the moment. I just
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: don't pay any attention because if I did, I wouldn't
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: be doing what I want to do. I'm not going
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: to follow another person in their career because mine takes
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: two much time. I don't have time to listen to
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: new stuff because I'm working on songs all the time.
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: And maybe that's a failing, but I don't know. I
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: don't even know what gen x is or what's hip
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: or what's current or any of the new artists at all.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 2: But I'm okay with that, you know, I don't. I
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: don't need to know anymore. And Air Supply takes a
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: lot of my time, but I love it, and it's
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: it's the band that Russell and I created, So why
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: wouldn't I love to to fill that that energy, fill
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: the band with that energy. And the people that work
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: for air Supply, all that crew and the band, they
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: all feel the same way. They just love it and
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 2: it's we all have a part to play, and it's like,
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: you know, when we I mean, I'm digressing. But when
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 2: we go to a show, like I leave tomorrow. We
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: go to Chicago and we have we have three shows
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: in a rown. When I see everybody, it's like, oh,
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: how you doing it? It's great to see you. I
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: mean I saw him four days ago, but we go,
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: oh wow, you know, it's great, what a what a
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: great life.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: How did you feel towards the end of the peak
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: of the air supply career in the early eighties late seventies,
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: when you recorded other people's songs.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you know, we were with Clive Davis for
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 2: a long time, and you know that I think maybe
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 2: eighty five or something. Yeah, it wasn't a good time
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: for me. Although everything was cool, we weren't selling any
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: albums anymore. It was just that time where people were
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: trying to have us hang on to everything. You're right.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: We recorded a few songs that I really didn't care for.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: You know, But I've always said this that Russell is
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 2: such a great singer. He deserves to sing other people's songs,
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: not just mine. He deserves to sing the greatest songs
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: in the world. But when we came on the scene,
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: of course, every man and their dog were sending songs
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: to Clive Davis for us, and some of them were
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: great songs. But then in eighty five or so people
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: thought they could reinventors. But I don't know where they
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: they figured out that we wanted to be reinvented because
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: we didn't. It was just we suddenly weren't on the
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: charts anymore. But that happens to every artist, or most artists,
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: should I say. And it was a weird time, you know.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: All these songs were flying around and we had had
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: different producers for the albums and they said, oh, yeah,
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: record this, and ih, it just wasn't my thing. But
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: we recorded several of those songs that I really didn't
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 2: care for. One of them was a Bruce Springsteen song
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: that Clive Davis said, oh, you should record this. It
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: was called Sandy, and it taught I mean, I'm a
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: Bruce Springsteen fan. I don't mean any disrespect, but this
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: Sandy was about the New Jersey or the Atlantic City
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: Boardwalkers something, and we'd never even been there, you know,
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: And I said, why are we recording this? Because apart
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: from the fact that Clive said we should, why are
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 2: we doing this? We know nothing about this And the
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 2: song was a crappy song anyway. You know, every great
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 2: artist writes crappy songs as well as great ones. This
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: was one of those. And I thought, ah, you know,
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: but anyway that we got through that episode and we said,
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: you know, let's go to places that nobody's been to before.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: Let's let's go where they know who we are, and
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 2: let's we went to Taiwan. At Taipei, we went to Vietnam,
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 2: South Korea, they'd never seen a Western band before. We
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: went to China and all these weird places, and it
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 2: was great to see a different point of view, in
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: a different perspective. And we went and talked these places
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: for about five years, and everybody said, even Billboard Magazine said, oh,
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 2: they've broken up. We never broke up. We just wanted
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 2: to do a different thing. You know. We went to
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 2: South America, into cities you can't even pronounce where we
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 2: come into town. There would be everybody came out of
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: their houses, dogs and cats, and people would just be waving,
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 2: hundreds of people like, oh, you know, this is really
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: what music is all about. It's doing things you haven't
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: done before. And then we got used to the fact
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 2: that we weren't going to be in the charts anymore.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 2: It's just it was a fact, you know. So we
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 2: got used to that, and then we decided that we
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 2: just love to play anyway, Let's just play. And that's
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 2: that's when it started. We just played everywhere. We went
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 2: all over and we go all over the world. And
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 2: it's funny because not a lot of artists play all
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 2: over the world, you know, And I'm surprised. I mean,
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 2: of course, Taylor sway up the stones. Do not very
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 2: few really venture out of the US and go overseas.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 2: I'm surprised, you know, But we did and it was wonderful,
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 2: you know. We we were up there and had a
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 2: photo shoot at the Great Wall of China and the
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: President of Taiwan gave us medals, you know, and he said,
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: when you come to Taiwan in the future, you don't
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 2: need to show your passport. You come straight through and go,
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: oh okay. So it was just not being in the
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 2: charts was a part of our career that we hadn't
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 2: thought about when we were in the charts. But you know,
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 2: then we went into a different a different phase, and
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 2: here we are, we're still in that next phase.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: Okay, whose idea was it to tour all these disparate places?
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: It was Russell and mine. It really was we. You know,
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 2: when when my daughter was born in nineteen seventy, took
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 2: way before the man. The first song I heard was
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 2: a song called without You, which is which Nielsen's version,
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 2: and I've always loved that song. And in I think
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 2: nineteen eighty eighty eight or something, I said Harry, Harry
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 2: Masleum was producing, and I said, you know, Harry, I
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 2: want to record with at you. And he said, what
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 2: have I done? He thought, what did you want him
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 2: to do? I said, no, we want to record the
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 2: song without You. So we recorded it just because it's
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 2: one of the most beautiful songs ever written. And the
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 2: story behind it is tragic how it came to be written.
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 2: But anyway, we recorded it and it was on an
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 2: album that we recorded with Harry, and it became this
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 2: massive hit everywhere except the US, and then when people
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 2: heard our version, everybody else started to record it, you know,
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 2: Maria Carey, et cetera, all that. But it was a
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 2: big hit for US, especially in South America and in Asia,
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 2: and we said, okay, let's go down there. And it
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 2: was everything happened all over again for us. So that
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 2: introduced us to South America and places even in Asia
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 2: we hadn't been before, so it was a great thing.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 2: And then once they got used to us again, another
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 2: generation discovered us. All the all the old albums started
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 2: to sell, and then everything became what it is now.
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: Really, okay, tell me about a couple of places you
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: went there were really quite an experience.
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 2: Uh do you mean the places are an experience?
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: I mean I I you know, I like places that
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: are very different, where they don't speak English. I went
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: to Bogata once and literally everybody I interacted with it
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: had a family member killed, and there were a lot
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: of things, you know. Yeah, there are some other places.
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: I thought, you know, we have unique experiences that you
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: don't encounter in the United States. Oh sure, So I
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: was wondering if maybe you had a couple of experiences
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: you could tell us about.
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 2: Of course, Well, we played in Metagine. We played there
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 2: two or three times. The first time we went there,
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 2: the promoter was not a gangster, but he was he
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 2: knew what he was doing. And we were in our
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 2: transport going to the hotel from the airport and there
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 2: were a couple of guys on the roadway that will't
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 2: looked like they're laying down. They were resting or something.
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 2: And I said, to that our promoter, what's going on there?
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 2: He said, oh, he's just gone, you know. I said,
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 2: what do you mean he's going? He said, oh, he's
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 2: dead And I said really and he said yeah. And anyway,
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 2: we he took us out that night and he said,
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 2: I want I'd like you to take you out, you know,
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 2: to a club and all that we used to go
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 2: out in those days, not anymore. And then we said okay, yeah,
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 2: and we had a security to security guards with us,
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 2: and he said, we're going to go to this, to
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 2: a club that I go to all the time, and
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 2: I want you to meet my partner. So we go
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 2: to this. We pull up to this club and this
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 2: massive iron gates and on each side there's a there's
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 2: a guy in a suit with a machine gun and
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 2: we start freaking out, whoa And the gates open. We
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 2: go and say, just don't worry, everything's great, and we
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 2: go inside and it's a private club and there's you know,
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 2: the guy greets us and he says, yeah, we're going
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 2: to have a great time. You know, whatever you want.
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 2: What do you want, you know, booze, broads or blow
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 2: and we said we don't want any of those. So
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 2: we go in and he got a dinner for us
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 2: and on the table in the center at the table
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 2: is like a big ball and it looks like sugar
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 2: or salked and it's cocaine, you know. And he said,
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 2: dig in whatever you want to do. But we've never
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 2: been into that, you know. But some of our band impruded.
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 2: But it's like whoa, you know, and all these guys
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 2: walking around with you see the guns sticking out of
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 2: the chest. So it was really heavy. And when we
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 2: wanted we did the show and the promoter's partner wanted.
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 2: He wanted us to do a TV show because we
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 2: had bo guitar coming up. And we said, no, we
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 2: don't want to do that, you know, and he said, well,
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 2: I think I think you should. I said, no, we
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 2: don't want to. We don't want to do a TV show.
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 2: It was a day off, you know, and he said,
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 2: you're going to do the TV show. He said, first
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 2: of all, I have your passports. He said, if you
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 2: don't do the TV show, you're going to stay in
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 2: this hotel until you do. And we said, oh really,
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 2: and he said yeah. So we ended up doing the
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 2: TV show and then we left. Once we were in
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 2: we were in Vietnam and it was the first time
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 2: we'd gone there, and everybody was freaking out. They've never
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 2: seen a band before, and we had to go before
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 2: for all these generals and they were all in military dress,
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 2: didn't speak a word of English, and I think it
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 2: was like a dozen of them, and they said, through
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 2: an interpreter, we want you to play your show. I said,
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 2: what are you talking about. He said, we want you
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 2: to play your show. I said, We're not doing that,
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 2: and I kind of dug in, you know, I said,
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 2: you know what, We'll do our sound check. They can
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 2: listen to that. They didn't speak a word of English,
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 2: and we did the sound check and they said no,
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 2: and the interpreter came up and he said, now you've
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 2: got to play the whole show. I said, I'm not
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 2: playing the whole show. And I said they can shove it.
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 2: I don't care if we don't play it. And I've
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 2: had enough and I put my guitar down and I
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 2: walked out and I went back to the hotel and
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 2: everything was fine. Nobody said anything, and we did the
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 2: show and we left. But they they want to see you,
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 2: you know, under their own terms. But I says, no,
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 2: it's not going to happen. And I was just said, no,
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 2: it's not going to happen. So and it didn't. When
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 2: when we played China the first time in ninety six,
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 2: they'd never seen a band before, a Western band, and
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 2: we would go in the audience for the One that
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 2: you Love, and the promoter said, well, you can't go
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 2: in the audience here, you know. And it was a
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 2: big twenty thousand seat arena and when we got there
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 2: there was soldiers all around the perimeter, every six feet
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 2: with machine guns, you know, army people, and you know,
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 2: during the show, we came to the One that you Love,
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 2: and you know, I started it and Russell and I
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 2: looked at each other and I said, are we going
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 2: and he said yeah. So we got down off the
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 2: stage and we walked around. We went into the audience
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 2: and all everybody freaked out and the soldiers were they
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 2: didn't know what to do, but we just walked around
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 2: the wholes and everybody was fine. They were waving, and
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 2: we went back on stage and finished the song finished
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 2: the show, and they said, you can never come back
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 2: to China again. You can't do that. Of course, we
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 2: went back many times, but that was just what goes
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 2: on there, you know, and it's part of getting people
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 2: in the in the zone. You know, this is what's
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 2: happening people, but they're very reluctant to to to share
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 2: what's going on in the West, very careful about it,
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 2: you know. But it was a great experience, and after
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 2: that we've been back maybe half a dozen times to
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 2: China and it's great now. Of course everybody screams and chants,
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 2: but in those days they didn't do that, you know.
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 2: So we were kind of pioneers, if you like, with music.
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 2: But they wouldn't let any band whose lyrics or image
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 2: is considered contrary to the communist way of life, you know,
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 2: they they would We had to send all our lyrics
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 2: in they had to be okayed, and what we were
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 2: going to wear. We had to show pictures of what
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 2: we're gonna wear. And we couldn't swear on stage. We
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 2: don't anyway, and we always cool. We never wear jeans
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 2: on stage. So we passed all the auditions, but you know,
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 2: we gave him a couple of things to think about,
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 2: but we had to, you know.
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back to Clive Davis. He is very
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: controlling of his artist careers. Yes, your experience, good beat
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: or otherwise.
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 2: It was good with Clive, and he had a lot
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 2: to do with our success, you know. He All Out
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 2: of Love was a big hit in Australia two years
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 2: before it was released in the US, so you know,
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 2: it was a hit, and so the song had been
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 2: okay by everybody. But he came to me and he said,
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 2: you know, we got to change some of the lyric
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 2: a couple of lines in the corpse. Originally it was
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 2: I'm all out of love. I want to arrest you, right,
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 2: which is really weird now I think about it. And
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 2: he said, we can't. You can't have that here and
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 2: I said, but it was a hit already, it says,
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 2: yeah in Australia, not in the US. He said, you've
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 2: got to change that, and he said, what about I'm
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 2: so lost without you? And I sort of think thought
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 2: about it, you know, and the guy that was my
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 2: publisher pulled me aside and he said, listen to Clive.
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 2: He said, if you change that line, it'll be the
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 2: mass the biggest hit you'll ever have, and he said,
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 2: it's up to you. He says, change the line. What
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 2: the hell you know? And he said, Clive's right, it
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 2: may not get played, and so I said, okay. So
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 2: Clive got a credit, a writing credit on the song,
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 2: and he always donates it to charity. So instead of,
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 2: you know, a part of me said, God, somebody's trying
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 2: to mess with my songs. But then I thought, if
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 2: it's going to be a big hit, it's going to
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 2: be part of our legacy. So I said, yeah, let's
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 2: do it, you know. And you know, that was the
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 2: beginning of a great relationship with Clive. But then I learned, whatever,
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 2: if Clive suggests something, it's not merely a suggestion. He's
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 2: really telling you that you should do this. And all
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 2: the artists that he's worked with went through the same thing.
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 2: I had some stories, you know about that, And there
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 2: was one Eric Carmen was one of them, and he
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 2: was on Arista and Clive Clive wanted to wanted him
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 2: to sing a Billy Joe song. You know, I don't
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 2: know which one it was, but Eric says, now I'm
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 2: not doing it, you know. Anyway, he had a single
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 2: coming out and it came in the charts really fat,
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 2: and I spoke to her, so I know this is true.
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 2: He said, well, if he said, if you don't record
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 2: this song, the single just just come out for you
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 2: is going to die. And eric'sas now, it came in
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 2: the chart at like seventy with the bullet. Sure enough,
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 2: next week it just disappeared. So I learned that Clive
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 2: likes to have things his way, you know. But by
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 2: the same token, he gave us a great career, you know,
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 2: and he's always been very respectful to us and we
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 2: to him. We've never spoken derogatory about Clive. I mean
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 2: all the artists he's worked with, whether he has a
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 2: lot to do with their career or not, I mean
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 2: it's pretty much everybody. But with us, he was great.
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 2: You know. He came, he flew out. We were mixing
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 2: the one that you loved, and he wanted to know
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 2: what was going on with that because this was our
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 2: second album, which is very important, you know, we'd had
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 2: threest fives. He flew out to the he came to
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 2: the studio in Los Angeles and he sat right in
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 2: the middle of the console and he said to Harry,
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 2: who was producing the track. He says, okay, I'm ready
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 2: to hear it, you know, and he played the one
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 2: that you look a rough mix and he just sat
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 2: there with his eyes closed and he didn't say anything
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 2: for like two minutes. And I said, oh Jesus with one.
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 2: And he turned around and he said, it's going to
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 2: go to number one and it'll win. You were grammy,
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 2: he said, and he said that he walked out and
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 2: he was right, and we went, oh, okay, that that
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 2: just gave us another ten years on our career, you know.
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 2: So he was he was something else like.
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: Well, you know the first yeah, the hit in Australa yea.
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: And he says, it didn't you know, work with Lyric
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: in America. Now you have success in America. To what
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: degree did he ask you to change or do things
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: that you would not plan to do? Well?
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 2: After all out of love? There was nothing after that,
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 2: you know, with the one that you love. He never
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 2: touched it. He said, it's perfect, it's going to go
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 2: to number one, and it did. So I think I
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 2: don't think it was it was never ego with Clive.
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 2: It was just he wanted his way. He was the president.
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 2: Of Arista Records, which was an independent record company, and
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 2: he had a lot of success with Barry Manilow. And
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 2: you know, we went to see him in New York
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 2: in the early days in like nineteen eighty or eighty one,
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 2: because we'd go and he wanted to take us to
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 2: lunch whenever we were playing in New York. We were
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 2: in his office and there was this young African American lady,
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 2: she was really young, waiting to see Clive. It was
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 2: Whitney Houston and and we were you know, we said, oh,
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 2: I'm Graham and Russell. She knew who we were. She said, oh,
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 2: I'm really use and I'm I'm going to make a
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 2: record with Live. And Clive came out and he introduced
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 2: us again to and of course that became history. You know,
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 2: she was just incredible. She was such a she was
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 2: really young, and she was just bouncing with energy and
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 2: I thought, wow, she's going to be a big start.
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 2: And Clive was, you know, she was the new the
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 2: new kid on the block. I mean we still were too,
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 2: but that's what he did when he when he got
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 2: into an artist, it was total and for some reason,
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 2: he just got into us and he loved Lost in
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 2: Love And I asked him how we found lost enough.
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 2: He said, every every Monday morning he'd have a stack
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 2: of singles on his desk and he got one. It
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 2: was Lost in Love from Australia and he said he
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 2: played it and he loved it, and he said, I
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 2: want to buy this, and he bought the rights to it.
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 2: And that was it. Once he got into your space
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 2: and you were agreeing with him, you could do anything.
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 2: You know. He was the man that made careers or
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 2: didn't you know?
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: So how did it end with Clive?
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 2: Oh? It ended great. I mean we left Arista. Suddenly
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 2: we weren't in the charts anymore, and we left Arista
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 2: and we went with Irving as Off. We went from
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 2: one legend to another one, and Irving was great. But
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 2: when we left Arista, we left on great terms. And
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 2: Clive chords. He had a nineteen ninety he had I
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 2: can't remember what it was, something going on at Radio
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 2: City Music w and he had a lot of big
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 2: stars and in he called us and he said, would
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 2: you come and play Radio City for me? You know?
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 2: Of course? Yeah, So Russell and I went and we
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 2: did it. We just we played all out of log
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 2: just one guitar and two voices sounded incredible. And then
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 2: right at the beginning of COVID, uh yeah, he said, well,
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 2: he called me and I didn't know who it was,
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 2: you know, and he said, this is Clive. He said,
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 2: oh really, he said yeah, He said, would you do
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 2: a zoom thing for us? You know, a friend of
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 2: his was doing zooms and he had all these big
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 2: stars singing on zoom. He said, yeah, of course. So
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 2: we have a great relationship with him. He called me.
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 2: It was his ninetieth birthday and he said, what do
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 2: you want to come to this party? We couldn't come.
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 2: We already had shows books. So we have a great
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 2: relationship with him, which is wonderful, you know. But then
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 2: we went from Clive to Irving.
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: And how was that experience?
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 2: It was great, It was wonderful. You know. We went
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 2: to his label Giant, and it was with him we
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 2: had with that you became a massive here. And he said,
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 2: I remember we sat down to a restaurant and we
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 2: had that album and it sold way over a million
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 2: copies overseas, which was huge in those days. And we
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 2: wanted to see if we couldn't record another album. We
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 2: read it and he said, we said, well, we'd like
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 2: to record another album, you know, and he said, go
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 2: and do it. She says, just go and do it,
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 2: and so we did, and that that was even bigger
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 2: than the one with without you on it. It was
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 2: called the Vanishing Race. And so we had great success
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 2: with Irving and he was he was terrific, you know,
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 2: terrific guy.
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back a story. How did you end
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: up leaving the UK for Australia.
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 2: Well, after my mother died, there was two years where
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 2: my dad was just working. Then suddenly he started seeing
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 2: another lady, I mean fairy enough. He was still quite young,
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 2: you know, and then suddenly, without telling us, he got married.
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 2: You know. So I had a bit of an axe
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 2: to grind. And suddenly this lady came to our house
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 2: and he said, we just got married. And she had
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 2: three children too, and I had two sisters and we
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 2: were all going to live in the house that we had.
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 2: That wasn't a big house. It was two up. Oh,
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 2: he had won three bedrooms, an attic up on top
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 2: and then two rooms downstairs in the kitchen. Well, then
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 2: my eldest sister decided to leave and my other sister,
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 2: who was four years older than me, decided to get
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 2: married because she didn't want to live with another person
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 2: in the house. And I really resented it. And you know,
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 2: my dad's knew wife, whose name was Dorothy, had three children,
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 2: so they came into the house. So suddenly I had
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 2: to give my bedroom. I was sharing my bedroom with
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 2: two other boys that I didn't care for. And then
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 2: they started to talk about going to Australia, and I said,
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 2: I'm not really into that. I was doing very well
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 2: at school, you know, academically, I was really doing well,
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 2: writing my songs and everything was great. Then suddenly he said, well,
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 2: we've actually got a date to leave for Australia and
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 2: it's in like a month, and I said really, And
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 2: I didn't want to go. So when it came time,
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 2: when the night before they were going to leave, they
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 2: were going to go on the boat before they were
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 2: going to leave for Southampton on the train to get
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 2: on the boat, I said, I'm going to say goodbye
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 2: to my school friends. And I had a little rocksack
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 2: on my back and I left and I ran away
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 2: and I never saw him for five years, and only
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 2: two people knew where I was. I couldn't tell anybody,
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 2: even my closest friend at school. I couldn't tell because
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 2: I knew if he was questioned by the police, he
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 2: would tell him where I was. So I didn't tell.
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 2: Only two people knew, and for two days I went underground.
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 2: You remember, I was fourteen years old, you know, I
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 2: had no money, but I just didn't want to go
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 2: to Australia and I didn't want to go with his
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 2: new wife and their kids. Then I found out that
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 2: my dad left. He went, so that was the biggest
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 2: relief for me. So then I was on my own
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 2: and I went to my live with an aunt an uncle.
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 2: Then I went to live with another art and uncle.
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 2: I got passed around, you know, and then I started
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 2: to I had a girlfriend and I was seventeen. She
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 2: got pregnant and I had a son. Seventeen years old,
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 2: I had a son, and we decided to go to
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 2: Australia on our own terms. My sister had already gone
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 2: as well, and so we decided to go. And interestingly enough,
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 2: I was ready to go. Then musically I was playing
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 2: drums in this band going Nowhere and do It, playing
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 2: songs I didn't want to play, and I thought it
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 2: would be a nice change and maybe an Australian an
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 2: English musician might have some chance in Australia. So I
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 2: went there and everything was cool. I lived with my
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 2: sister and her husband, and you know, my dad never
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 2: mentioned anything about me running away ever, even to the data.
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 2: He never mentioned it, and neither did his new wife.
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 2: And I never really thought about it. And we became
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 2: very close as a family because I had my family,
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 2: and I started playing guitar and writing songs. Still, I
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 2: was playing in pizza parlors and I was making a
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 2: decent living. I was doing okay, you know, and that's
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 2: but that's how I went to Australia with a family.
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 1: So playing in pizza parlors, you could support your wife
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: and young child.
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I could. So one story, I don't mean to interrup,
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 2: but we went to a this place called Papa's Pizza,
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 2: which is where we lived, and I I saw her
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 2: in the corner. They had this little dice about four
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 2: feet square diace and I said to the guy, the
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 2: manager that said, what's that over there? He said, it's
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 2: a it's a little dice. He said. We used to
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 2: have a singer songwriter come in and not a singer songwriter,
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 2: a singer come in and play cover songs. I said, well,
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 2: you don't do it any much as now. He left
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 2: and I never got around to it. He said, would
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 2: you be interested in I mean, somebody come in and play?
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 2: He said yeah. He said, do you know anybody? I
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 2: said yeah, I said it's me, And so I went
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 2: there and after and he really liked I was playing
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 2: some cover songs Neil Young, you know, Van Morrison, and
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 2: a lot of my songs. But the people there didn't
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 2: care what it was. They just wanted some music. A
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 2: lot of kids throwing pizza around and slurping everything. But
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 2: I was making decent money there, and he said to
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 2: me one about after two or three weeks, he said,
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 2: would you be interested in playing at other Popper's pizzas?
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 2: Because there was a lot of it was a chain.
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 2: I said yeah, sure, I said, okay, would you be
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 2: interested in playing five nights at different ones? I said absolutely?
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 2: So I got paid and I got a big giant
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 2: pizza to take home for dinner. So I ended up
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 2: playing at all these Popper's pizzas, and I was making
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 2: a pretty decent living for then, you know, And I
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 2: was playing a lot of my own songs, some covers
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 2: which I played really well. And then I used to
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 2: start making songs up on the spot because nobody cared anyway,
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 2: and the kids really liked me. They come up and
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 2: pull faces and I would do the same thing, and
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 2: I went down really well and you got great reports.
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 2: And then I started to play universities at lunch time
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 2: and making even more money. And I played folk club
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 2: so I got a bit of a following. So that
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 2: how it began for me.
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 1: You know, so you never from the moment you landed
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 1: in Australia, you didn't get a street job. You just
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: started making music.
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 2: I did have a straight job yet, and the job
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 2: I had, which I loved, It was the best job
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 2: I ever had, except for a supply. And I needed
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 2: a job where I could finish early because my wife
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 2: at the time was one was working, so I needed
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 2: to look after my son, who was five years old,
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 2: and then we had a daughter too that was one
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 2: one year old. I needed to look after them in
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 2: the day so I could play at night. So I
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 2: got a job delivering bread in a truck. You know,
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 2: people want bread early, so I started at four o'clock.
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 2: By seven o'clock seven point thirty, I was finished and
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 2: I could go home, get to sleep, look after the kids,
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 2: and then when my wife came home, I could have
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 2: a nap, oh go and play do my papa's pizza.
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 2: But I had to be in bed early because I
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 2: was getting up at three thirty every day. But I
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 2: loved it because I was my young boss. My round
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 2: was in the mountains in the Dandinong's a mountain range
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 2: in Victoria, Australia, and I loved it. I was on
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 2: my own. I could smell beautiful trees early in the morning.
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 2: All these weird creatures would make all these weird sounds,
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 2: and I was finished early. I would meet the butcher.
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 2: We'd swap bread for meat and dairy and all kinds
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 2: of things. It was a wonderful job. I loved it
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 2: so much. I was really sad when I left. But
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 2: I left to go into Superstar. So that's what that
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 2: was my main job.
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: So tell me about how you ended up going into
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 1: Jesus Great Superstar.
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 2: Well, when I was doing my bread run, I was
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 2: driving my car in the day after I got back
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 2: from my bread run, and I had this really weird
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 2: feeling come over me, and this is true, it's a
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 2: bit weird. I had this incredible feeling welling up from
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 2: my feet up through my whole body, and I started
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 2: to cry, like profusely, and I thought I was having
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 2: a heart attack. I had to pull over. I couldn't drive.
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 2: I was crying and making this ridiculous noise and I
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 2: didn't know what was happening to me. And I pulled
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 2: over and I had my head in my hands, and
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 2: suddenly I lost all hearing. I couldn't hear anything, and
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 2: all I could see the car that I was in disappeared.
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 2: I was just sitting there. Everything was quiet, and it
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 2: went kind of a gray, misty color. And over there
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 2: to the right, I saw this figure and he was
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 2: off the ground. He was about three or four feet
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 2: off the ground and he was and he had a
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 2: beard and a big, long, you know, white rope and
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 2: he came over in front of where the car was,
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 2: and I thought, I remember thinking to myself, don't look
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 2: at me. I will freak, you know. I didn't want
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 2: him to look at me. And he came over. He
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 2: stood right in the middle of the of where the
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 2: road was, and he turned to look at me and
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 2: I'm dying, but I couldn't move. I'm crying profusely. I
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 2: had this incredible feeling over me that I'd never experienced
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 2: until then or since. It was this incredible feeling of love.
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 2: And he looked at me. He didn't say anything, but
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 2: I knew what he was saying, and he said, not speaking,
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 2: he just I knew what he was saying. He said,
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 2: it's not time for you yet, and I don't know
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 2: what it meant. And after he said that, he carried
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 2: on off the ground, just floating, and he disappeared. And
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 2: then gradually the car came back and I could hear things,
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 2: but I had this incredible feeling and it stayed with me,
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 2: and I went home. I didn't tell my wife Linda
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 2: about it for some time because I couldn't. I couldn't.
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 2: I didn't know what it was. I thought I was
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 2: dying or something. But I had this incredible feeling, and
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 2: I started to reach I wanted to read some books,
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 2: so I started a couple of religious books. And then
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 2: this friend of mine that was a guitar player too,
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 2: who I used to speak every couple of weeks, speaks
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 2: on the phone every couple of weeks. He came to
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 2: my house and he said, he said, I don't know why,
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 2: but I could have called you, but I needed to
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 2: come and I have to tell you something. I said,
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 2: what's that. He said, there's a lady. Her name's Dorothy Whittle,
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 2: and he said she's a friend of mine and she
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 2: has a book for you, and you need to go
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 2: and see her. I didn't know who she was. I
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 2: went to her house and then she was about seventy,
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 2: this little lady from the north of England, beautiful, beautiful soul.
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 2: And she said, you've had a weird experience r I said, yeah,
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 2: I have. She said, I got some books for you
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 2: to read, and I said, okay. I said, that's what
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 2: I'm looking for. So I became a verac reader. When
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 2: I came home, would come home from my bread run,
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 2: I'd read a book every day and it was, you know,
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 2: on Comparative Religion, the first book I ever I read
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 2: on it was it was a religious book, but I
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 2: wasn't a religious person and I'm still not. It was
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 2: the power of positive thinking. But it changed my whole life.
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 2: And I read it and I needed more, and I
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 2: read book after book after book trying to find an answer.
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 2: And then one day I went to Dorothy's house because
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 2: she lived near where my work was, so i'd go
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 2: to her place and she became like a library for me,
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 2: and I would swap books. She said when I went
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 2: there wondering, she said, did you see they had for
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 2: Superstar in the paper? I said, no, I haven't seen it.
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 2: She said, they're advertising for singers and in dancers and stuff.
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 2: I said, oh, really, I said, that's not my thing.
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 2: I'm not singer, I'm not a dancer. And she said,
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 2: she said, listen to me, if you go to that show,
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 2: it'll change your life. And when I knew enough to
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 2: know when she said something, I needed to listen, and
• 1:39:13
  Speaker 2: I said, really, she said, it will change your life.
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 2: So I went. I got the paper, I looked at
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 2: the thing. I called them up, and I asked for
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 2: an audition date and I got an audition. I didn't
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 2: know what to sing, so I picked a song and
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 2: I went to the audition. There were hundreds of people
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 2: there waiting to get in, and I thought, oh, the
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 2: chances of me getting an audition, not even getting a part,
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 2: so remote. But because she told me to do it,
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 2: I stuck it out and I waited. I did my audition.
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 2: It took about three minutes. I said thank you and
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 2: I was done, and I thought, thank god, that's over.
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 2: I followed through and I thought, great, now I can
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 2: get on with my life. And I didn't let Dorothy down.
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 2: Two weeks later, I get a cool this is Superstar
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 2: of the Office from Superstar. We're offering you a part
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 2: in the show. You have to leave in two weeks.
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 2: There's a month rehearsal in Sydney and you'll be gone
• 1:40:18
  Speaker 2: for eighteen months to two years. Can you take the job?
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 2: And they told me how much I was going to
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 2: get and I said yes, and I was on top
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 2: of the world. My whole life had changed suddenly. I
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 2: was going to be a professional singer, not singing my songs,
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 2: but singing Superstar music, which is incredible. And so I
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 2: go the first day of rehearsal, I meet this guy
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 2: with the big afro and we sing together for the
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 2: first time and I hear and it was Russell. Of course,
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 2: we hadn't even met nobody, knew anybody in the room
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 2: and he was sat next to me and I went,
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 2: I said, after the rehearse, I said, what an incredible voice.
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 2: You have. He said, oh, really, thank you, He said,
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 2: I've never really sung much before. I said, you sign incredible.
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 2: But an alarm went off in my brain and it said,
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 2: you need to meet him, you need to work with him.
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 2: Because I knew how to write songs, not hit songs
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 2: at that point, but I was never a singer, and
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 2: I knew it. You know, I didn't want to be
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 2: a lead singer, but this guy was. And we became
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 2: such incredible friends from the very first moment we met.
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 2: It was a pluncanny. We had so much in common.
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 2: You know, first of all, we have the same name,
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 2: We're born three days apart. Neither of us had a brother.
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 2: We had a sister. I had two sisters, and you know,
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 2: we didn't have anything else. We grew up with nothing
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 2: and we just hit it off. You know. It was uncanny,
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 2: and that's how that's how it all began.
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 1: Okay, what did your wife say when you said you
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 1: were going to go on the road for eighteen months.
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 2: I must say she was incredibly supportive. She had we
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 2: had two kids, but I was going to make a
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 2: lot of money, well for me then, you know, I
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 2: was assured of making a decent wage and she liked
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 2: that it wasn't any uncertainty, and she was so supportive,
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 2: and I said, I want you to come with me
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 2: when we start touring, not in rehearsal. We were in
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 2: rehearsal for Sydney for a month, but when we went
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 2: we started in New Zealand, and I said, you're coming
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 2: with me, and she did, and she brought the kids
• 1:43:07
  Speaker 2: and straight away she got a job in the show
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 2: selling programs, and so she was earning money. We had
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 2: a babysitter for the kids. Then then she got into
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 2: the office because she was in accounting. She was really
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 2: good too, so she took a job selling programs, became
• 1:43:25
  Speaker 2: really good at that, and then she ended up in
• 1:43:27
  Speaker 2: the office. So she went all over with Superstar working.
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 2: So that was great. The family were there and during
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 2: that time, even from the very early days when I
• 1:43:40
  Speaker 2: met Russell, we said are you inter forming a bat
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 2: and he says, yeah, I'm into it. And he said
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 2: to me, she said, bro, I don't want to write
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 2: any songs, and I don't write songs. I just want
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 2: to sing. And I said that's perfect. I'll write the
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 2: songs and you sing. And it was the most perfect
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 2: scenario that we could even actually, and we were both
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 2: green as grass. We didn't know what we were doing,
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 2: but we just knew we wanted to do it, and
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 2: that's how it began. And it went from there, you know.
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 1: Okay, So what was the experience of being in Superstar
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 1: like and how did that end?
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 2: Well? I knew when we went in that we were
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 2: going to be guaranteed eighteen months, maybe longer. But I
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 2: also knew that Superstar at that time, in nineteen seventy
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 2: five was a big, big show. It was when it
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 2: came to Towan, it took over all the media, all
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 2: the papers, and I knew that it was a stepping
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 2: stone for us. We had to make use of it.
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 2: We had to use Superstar. So straight away we got
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 2: we started singing my songs and a couple of other
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 2: cover songs, and we started and we had the lady,
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 2: another lady in the show that actually got the role
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 2: of Mary eventually, but she was I knew her from
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 2: before my Papa's Pizza days. She was in the show.
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 2: She had a great voice, and she came in with
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 2: us and we had a little trio three part harmonies
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 2: Lack Crosby, Stills and Nash I was playing guitar, Russ
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 2: was playing congers, and we sang all these songs, ninety
• 1:45:24
  Speaker 2: nine percent of in with my songs, and we sounded
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 2: fabulous and people would come by the dress room and say, God,
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 2: you guys sound good. And we started. I would call
• 1:45:36
  Speaker 2: clubs wherever we were in New Zealand say, we're from Superstar.
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 2: We have a little act. Can we come and play? Yeah?
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 2: Of course, because it was a big draw Superstar, we would.
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 2: They would pay us to come and play. We'd do
• 1:45:51
  Speaker 2: an hour set and we sounded so good, and that
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 2: just grew and grew. We ended up doing making videos.
• 1:46:00
  Speaker 2: People would come up to us and say, do you
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 2: want to make a video? Yeah, let us do it,
• 1:46:05
  Speaker 2: and we got this reputation of being with Superstar.
• 1:46:09
  Speaker 1: Just to be clear, Superstar plays every night. When were
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 1: you playing these.
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 2: Gigs, the show would end about ten point fifteen. We
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 2: go to a club at eleven o'clock and play pretty
• 1:46:21
  Speaker 2: much every night. So we got really good at doing this.
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 2: And we were young. We didn't care if if we
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 2: got tired or anything. You know, we weren't We weren't
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 2: doing any drugs, we weren't drinking or anything. We were
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 2: just wanted to play, and we were really good at it,
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 2: and everybody in the show was noticing and they come
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 2: and see, say, god, you guys great. Then suddenly Chrissy
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 2: got the role of Mary. They fired Mary. She got
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 2: the role of Mary Magdan, so she couldn't sing with
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 2: us anymore. So when we got to Brisbane, they high
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 2: had another three people and one of them was this guy,
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 2: Jeremy Paul and he was a bass player and he
• 1:47:08
  Speaker 2: had a great voice. He was our age and we
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 2: said to him, do you want to step in and
• 1:47:13
  Speaker 2: sing with us? And he says, yeah, I'd love to,
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 2: and that that became a supply. That was the first
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 2: one and we made we were We made a demo
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 2: in the pit of Superstar, using the show's drummer and
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 2: the show's keyboard player. We recorded two of my songs
• 1:47:31
  Speaker 2: on a cassette and you know, talk about low fi.
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 2: We just did it live on a little portable cassette
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 2: machine and it sounded amazing. It was no high fire
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 2: or anything, but it sounded great. Russell's voice was incredible,
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 2: and we took that little cassette we only had one
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 2: copy around to all the record companies and they all
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 2: said no. And then the last one we took it
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 2: to was CBS Records, and it was a guy that
• 1:48:05
  Speaker 2: had just been made a producer for CBS. He was
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 2: already a famous producer. He had a lot of success
• 1:48:11
  Speaker 2: with other artists. And he listened to it and he said,
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 2: he said, this kind of music isn't isn't happening. But
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 2: he said, something's telling me to sign you guys that
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 2: I don't know what it is. And he signed us
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 2: and we made it. We made a single, and we
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 2: made the album in a week and the single came out,
• 1:48:36
  Speaker 2: it screamed up the charts. It was the biggest hit
• 1:48:40
  Speaker 2: of the year. And nobody knew who we were because
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 2: we were still in the show. And he before the
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 2: record came out, he said, we didn't have a name,
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 2: and he said, what are you going to call yourself?
• 1:48:52
  Speaker 2: We said, we don't know. He said, I need a
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 2: name by tomorrow morning. So that night we were trying
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 2: to think of names, and I had a dream, and
• 1:49:04
  Speaker 2: this is a true story. I dreamt of a big
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 2: billboard and it was pure white and on the perimeter
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 2: with flashing lights or strokes and neon lights going crazy,
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 2: and in the middle of the billboard in big black letters.
• 1:49:19
  Speaker 2: It said air supply. And I told Russell and Jeremy
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 2: in the morning, I said, I don't know what this means,
• 1:49:25
  Speaker 2: but I had this really vivid dream and they said, well,
• 1:49:29
  Speaker 2: we haven't got any names either, let's go with it.
• 1:49:32
  Speaker 2: So that's how we got the name. And that's that's
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 2: it began right there, and the record was going to
• 1:49:41
  Speaker 2: come out, and the producers said, Peter Dawkins was wonderful person.
• 1:49:48
  Speaker 2: He said, there's a friend of his wants to play
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 2: the song at like nine o'clock at night the first time.
• 1:49:56
  Speaker 2: He said, he's given him the right to be the
• 1:49:59
  Speaker 2: first one to play, and so we all wait. You know.
• 1:50:02
  Speaker 2: It was a Sunday, so we were doing a superstar
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 2: show and the guy said, yeah, I've got this band.
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 2: It says, I'm going to play this record first time
• 1:50:12
  Speaker 2: anywhere in the world. You know, I'm going to play it,
• 1:50:15
  Speaker 2: and then I hope you're listening, guys, here here we go,
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 2: you know. So he played it and it sounded amazing,
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 2: you know, first time he had heard a song on
• 1:50:24
  Speaker 2: the radio. And about half an hour later he said,
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 2: my fans have gone berserk. He says, I've got to
• 1:50:34
  Speaker 2: play this song again, and he played it about ten
• 1:50:37
  Speaker 2: times that night and his phones just lit up. Everybody
• 1:50:41
  Speaker 2: wanted that song, and within two weeks it was in
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 2: the top ten. So suddenly this band called Air Supply,
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 2: we're getting all these plays and it became a big, big,
• 1:50:54
  Speaker 2: big hit. It became a classic song in Australia.
• 1:50:57
  Speaker 1: You know, So how do you then with Superstar? And
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 1: then you made a couple of records before you know,
• 1:51:05
  Speaker 1: Clive picked up.
• 1:51:07
  Speaker 2: We did well Superstar. We were told it was going
• 1:51:11
  Speaker 2: to end, so we had about a month's notice, but
• 1:51:16
  Speaker 2: our record was in the charts when it Superstar ended,
• 1:51:18
  Speaker 2: so we were pretty happy about it. We were ready
• 1:51:21
  Speaker 2: to make that move, and so we made the move.
• 1:51:27
  Speaker 2: And they had a show called Superstars in Rock or
• 1:51:31
  Speaker 2: the two big stars were Trevor White and John English
• 1:51:35
  Speaker 2: who played Jesus and Judas, and they were the biggest
• 1:51:39
  Speaker 2: stars in Australia. We become really good friends with them.
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 2: So we were on their show Superstars in Rock, and
• 1:51:48
  Speaker 2: we opened the show and we pretty much stole the show.
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 2: We had top five songs and then suddenly were going,
• 1:51:56
  Speaker 2: oh wow, this isn't a supply. We know who they
• 1:51:59
  Speaker 2: were and so we played with them for about six
• 1:52:03
  Speaker 2: weeks all around Australia. Then we started our own shows.
• 1:52:07
  Speaker 2: So Superstar ended and we went straight into our supply.
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 2: One of the first shows we played on our own
• 1:52:16
  Speaker 2: after we played with John with Superstars in Rock was
• 1:52:20
  Speaker 2: at the Opera House and New Year's Eve on the
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 2: steps of the Opera House, and there were ninety thousand
• 1:52:25
  Speaker 2: people there. We weren't the only act on the build.
• 1:52:28
  Speaker 2: There were a lot of other big acts, but nevertheless
• 1:52:31
  Speaker 2: it was our first big show to a lot of people,
• 1:52:34
  Speaker 2: and we were like whoa, we were so green, we
• 1:52:38
  Speaker 2: had no idea what we do. We hastily put a
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 2: band together and we went on tour and that's how
• 1:52:44
  Speaker 2: it all began. So Superstar ended and air supply began.
• 1:52:48
  Speaker 1: Okay, how'd you end up in Los Angeles?
• 1:52:51
  Speaker 2: Brook, Well, we had a two or three big hits.
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 2: Next year we were touring in Australia, big hits, but
• 1:53:04
  Speaker 2: we couldn't really make any money. And in the end
• 1:53:09
  Speaker 2: we we said, God, what are we going to do?
• 1:53:14
  Speaker 2: You know? And then suddenly Rod Stewart was touring and
• 1:53:20
  Speaker 2: we were asked to open for him because we were
• 1:53:24
  Speaker 2: like the biggest band in Australia at the time, so
• 1:53:26
  Speaker 2: we opened for him. After the first show, Rod came
• 1:53:33
  Speaker 2: to our dressing room personally and he said, I want
• 1:53:37
  Speaker 2: I want you to open for me in the US
• 1:53:39
  Speaker 2: next year, and we went what we couldn't believe it,
• 1:53:43
  Speaker 2: but he meant it, and so we went to the US.
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 2: We opened for Rod. We did about sixty shows and
• 1:53:51
  Speaker 2: we everything was happening for us so fast, and we thought, oh,
• 1:53:54
  Speaker 2: this is it, We're going to break wide open, but
• 1:53:57
  Speaker 2: we didn't. But we learned from Rod. We watched this
• 1:54:02
  Speaker 2: show every night. We became really good friends, and we
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 2: learned so much from him, just about an audience, how
• 1:54:11
  Speaker 2: to handle big audiences. We played everywhere, we opened for him,
• 1:54:14
  Speaker 2: Madison Square, Gardens, everywhere. But then we got we got
• 1:54:20
  Speaker 2: dropped after you know, when that tour ended, we were
• 1:54:23
  Speaker 2: back in Australia and we had no hope. We had
• 1:54:26
  Speaker 2: no shows to do, we had no band, we had nothing.
• 1:54:31
  Speaker 2: We were broke, and I went I decided to go
• 1:54:37
  Speaker 2: away and I just wanted to write some songs on
• 1:54:39
  Speaker 2: my own. So I went to a friend's place in
• 1:54:43
  Speaker 2: Adelaide to get away from everything, and I started to
• 1:54:47
  Speaker 2: write some songs and then I over six month period.
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 2: I called Russell up and I said, I think I've
• 1:54:54
  Speaker 2: got some interesting songs, you know, And he came down
• 1:54:58
  Speaker 2: on a bus. He took her like a twenty two
• 1:55:01
  Speaker 2: hour bus ride to come and see me. And the
• 1:55:06
  Speaker 2: first song I played him was lost in Love, and
• 1:55:10
  Speaker 2: I thought lost in It was a good song, but
• 1:55:13
  Speaker 2: he said stop. He said, this is the song that's
• 1:55:16
  Speaker 2: going to change it for us. I said really, he
• 1:55:18
  Speaker 2: said yeah. I played him that, and I played him
• 1:55:21
  Speaker 2: a few of the songs, Chances, all out of Love.
• 1:55:25
  Speaker 2: He said, okay, let's do it again. Let's put a
• 1:55:28
  Speaker 2: band together. So we did. We released an album we
• 1:55:32
  Speaker 2: Lost in Love on it. It became a big hit,
• 1:55:35
  Speaker 2: but we still weren't making any money. We had a
• 1:55:38
  Speaker 2: gold album, twenty thousand copies of an album, but we
• 1:55:43
  Speaker 2: weren't making anything. We couldn't afford to do anything. So
• 1:55:48
  Speaker 2: I decided, well, we both decided to stop. I wanted
• 1:55:52
  Speaker 2: to go to this music festival in Cannes, in the
• 1:55:56
  Speaker 2: south of France, so I sold a couple of guitars
• 1:55:59
  Speaker 2: to get to go there to try and sell some songs.
• 1:56:05
  Speaker 2: I get to can and I got food poisoning. I
• 1:56:11
  Speaker 2: couldn't get out of bed for three days. I thought
• 1:56:13
  Speaker 2: I was going to die. And by the time I
• 1:56:16
  Speaker 2: got out of bed and walked down the street, the
• 1:56:19
  Speaker 2: whole festival was over. It was done. And I thought, okay,
• 1:56:23
  Speaker 2: here we go. Just my look. And then there was
• 1:56:27
  Speaker 2: a copy of Record World was blowing down the street.
• 1:56:33
  Speaker 2: It's all rubbish blowing. Every everybody had left, and I
• 1:56:36
  Speaker 2: picked I thought, okay, I picked it up. I picked
• 1:56:38
  Speaker 2: it up. On the front cover it said lost in Love.
• 1:56:43
  Speaker 2: I turned to page five. This song is destined to
• 1:56:47
  Speaker 2: go all the Way? And I thought, oh great, somebody,
• 1:56:50
  Speaker 2: somebody's written a song called lost in Love, which is
• 1:56:54
  Speaker 2: our biggest chance of anything. And I thought everything. I
• 1:56:58
  Speaker 2: thought we were sunk. But I turned to page five
• 1:57:02
  Speaker 2: and there's a picture of Russell and myself there on
• 1:57:05
  Speaker 2: that page, and it said air supply going to go
• 1:57:09
  Speaker 2: all the way and is an article by Clive Davis.
• 1:57:12
  Speaker 2: He'd licensed the song without our knowledge. So I thought, WHOA,
• 1:57:18
  Speaker 2: what's going on here? I called Clive, who I didn't know,
• 1:57:22
  Speaker 2: and I reversed the chargers. Because I had no money.
• 1:57:25
  Speaker 2: I called him at Arista Records. He was in I
• 1:57:29
  Speaker 2: called New York. He said he's in Los Angeles. I said,
• 1:57:32
  Speaker 2: can you give me the number? He gave me the number.
• 1:57:34
  Speaker 2: I reversed the chargers. He accepted and he said, are
• 1:57:38
  Speaker 2: you from air Supply? I said yeah. He said what
• 1:57:40
  Speaker 2: where are I said, I'm in the side of France.
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 2: He said, what are you doing there? Get back to Australia.
• 1:57:45
  Speaker 2: We need that album. He said, Lost in Love's going
• 1:57:47
  Speaker 2: to be the biggest song of the year. But as
• 1:57:50
  Speaker 2: soon as I heard that, I knew everything was going
• 1:57:54
  Speaker 2: to be okay. But on my way back, I went
• 1:57:59
  Speaker 2: through Los Angeles. I said, can I come and meet
• 1:58:01
  Speaker 2: you to tell me that this is all for real?
• 1:58:05
  Speaker 2: And he said, yeah, come on, we'll have lunch. I
• 1:58:08
  Speaker 2: went to the Bevery Hills Hotel and his bungalow lunch
• 1:58:13
  Speaker 2: and he kept it and said, you've got to get
• 1:58:15
  Speaker 2: out of it. Get back to Australia, get that album
• 1:58:18
  Speaker 2: right now. And so I went back. We made the
• 1:58:22
  Speaker 2: album and then everything after that became history.
• 1:58:28
  Speaker 1: You know, Okay, Just a couple of questions after the
• 1:58:30
  Speaker 1: Rod Stewart tour, Yeah, did you and Russell think you
• 1:58:35
  Speaker 1: were going to continue?
• 1:58:38
  Speaker 2: No? We well, we weren't going to give up, but
• 1:58:43
  Speaker 2: we just had no money. You know. Russell was working
• 1:58:47
  Speaker 2: on videos with other artists with a fog machine, sticking
• 1:58:51
  Speaker 2: a fog machine in a bass drum. And he was
• 1:58:56
  Speaker 2: actually on a little riverband video for reminiscing, and he's
• 1:59:01
  Speaker 2: sticking the fog machine in the base room. And they
• 1:59:04
  Speaker 2: knew he was a singer, and they said, and what
• 1:59:06
  Speaker 2: are you doing here? You need to get to the
• 1:59:08
  Speaker 2: US because they were a huge little rivermand But I
• 1:59:13
  Speaker 2: just needed to earn some money. I had two children,
• 1:59:17
  Speaker 2: you know, and I wasn't making any money. I needed
• 1:59:22
  Speaker 2: to do something. So the only thing I should think
• 1:59:24
  Speaker 2: of was to sell songs. And somebody recorded Lost in
• 1:59:29
  Speaker 2: Love in Europe, a Greek artist called Demise Rusos, and
• 1:59:34
  Speaker 2: it was a big hit all over Europe. So I
• 1:59:36
  Speaker 2: made a little bit, a few thousand dollars from that.
• 1:59:41
  Speaker 2: But I thought, I've got to sell all the songs.
• 1:59:43
  Speaker 2: I've got to earn a living, you know. But that
• 1:59:46
  Speaker 2: was the only way I could think of. I had
• 1:59:47
  Speaker 2: no skills. I wasn't a tradesman or anything. I had nothing,
• 1:59:53
  Speaker 2: you know. The only skill I had was I knew
• 1:59:56
  Speaker 2: how to write songs, but I was unknown. Nobody wanted
• 1:59:59
  Speaker 2: to buy songs from me, I was unknown.
• 2:00:01
  Speaker 1: How did it end with your first wife?
• 2:00:04
  Speaker 2: Well, when I went with Rod, you know, she knew
• 2:00:08
  Speaker 2: I was going to be gone for six months, which
• 2:00:10
  Speaker 2: I was, and we kind of knew it was going
• 2:00:13
  Speaker 2: to come to an end, you know, we both realized it.
• 2:00:19
  Speaker 2: And once I was there for a month and two months,
• 2:00:23
  Speaker 2: you know, she said, I'm going to go back to
• 2:00:24
  Speaker 2: England and she went back to England with the kids
• 2:00:27
  Speaker 2: and we were okay with it. I said, yeah, it's
• 2:00:32
  Speaker 2: a different vibe now, isn't it. She said, yeah, it is.
• 2:00:36
  Speaker 2: But she was never antagonistic. She was always very supportive
• 2:00:40
  Speaker 2: and I must give her that, and I always have.
• 2:00:42
  Speaker 2: You know. She was wonderful and the only thing that
• 2:00:47
  Speaker 2: was important to us was the children, making sure they
• 2:00:50
  Speaker 2: were okay, and they were, you know, I would see them.
• 2:00:54
  Speaker 2: I went to England to see them. I threw them
• 2:00:56
  Speaker 2: out to Australia all the time, and I always wanted
• 2:01:00
  Speaker 2: to maintain a great relationship with them. And now they're
• 2:01:04
  Speaker 2: in the fifties, so I have a great relationship with them.
• 2:01:07
  Speaker 1: You know, what are they doing.
• 2:01:10
  Speaker 2: My son lives in Tennessee. He works on a big
• 2:01:14
  Speaker 2: ranch actually, and my daughter lives in Brisbane, Australia, and
• 2:01:21
  Speaker 2: she worked for the government on ecosystems and things like that.
• 2:01:27
  Speaker 2: So they're doing really well. They You know, I have
• 2:01:30
  Speaker 2: six grandchildren, so life has been good to me. You know.
• 2:01:35
  Speaker 2: There was that time around Rod's time where I thought,
• 2:01:38
  Speaker 2: oh god, I've got no money, I'm losing my family,
• 2:01:43
  Speaker 2: I've got no prospects. But right when it was darkest,
• 2:01:49
  Speaker 2: there was a light shining. You know.
• 2:01:51
  Speaker 1: So are those the only two kids you have?
• 2:01:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah? They are. Yeah. I didn't want to go through
• 2:01:56
  Speaker 2: it all again, you know, but you ultimately got red, Ma,
• 2:02:01
  Speaker 2: I did. Yes.
• 2:02:02
  Speaker 1: So how did you meet your new wife?
• 2:02:05
  Speaker 2: She was at a show in Rockford, Illinois with her mother.
• 2:02:10
  Speaker 2: She was quite young, and somehow she got backstage and
• 2:02:17
  Speaker 2: we swapped her dresses and I said I'd love to
• 2:02:19
  Speaker 2: She was like sixteen. I said I'd love to write
• 2:02:22
  Speaker 2: to you, you know. And we wrote to each other
• 2:02:26
  Speaker 2: for two years. And when she was nineteen, they were
• 2:02:31
  Speaker 2: looking for somebody to shoot the video of making love
• 2:02:35
  Speaker 2: out nothing at all, and they couldn't find anybody. And
• 2:02:38
  Speaker 2: they said to me, do you know anybody this young
• 2:02:41
  Speaker 2: blonde lady that's kind of very good looking and attractive
• 2:02:46
  Speaker 2: and I said, as a matter of fact, I do,
• 2:02:48
  Speaker 2: and they called her and they said we want, we
• 2:02:52
  Speaker 2: want you to come out and be in that video.
• 2:02:55
  Speaker 2: And when she came out, we we final in love
• 2:03:00
  Speaker 2: because we were thrown together for the first time to
• 2:03:03
  Speaker 2: fun in Love. We got engaged and we got married
• 2:03:06
  Speaker 2: when she was twenty one and ever since.
• 2:03:11
  Speaker 1: Wow, just one other thing, going back to Rod's do
• 2:03:15
  Speaker 1: it you did all those dates, no one came up
• 2:03:19
  Speaker 1: and said, wait, wait, I don't want to sign you.
• 2:03:21
  Speaker 1: There's something going on here.
• 2:03:23
  Speaker 2: Well, we were signed to CBS because we were signed
• 2:03:27
  Speaker 2: to CBS Australia and CBS in the United States were
• 2:03:32
  Speaker 2: really handed us. They were given us. They had to
• 2:03:37
  Speaker 2: look after us, you know, and they really didn't want to.
• 2:03:41
  Speaker 2: They didn't see any future for us. So you know,
• 2:03:43
  Speaker 2: our album wasn't in the stores. We never did any
• 2:03:46
  Speaker 2: press or any interviews. They just didn't want anything to
• 2:03:50
  Speaker 2: do with us. We just happened to be on their
• 2:03:53
  Speaker 2: label and they were handed us and that they had
• 2:03:56
  Speaker 2: to do something with us, but they never did. There
• 2:03:58
  Speaker 2: was nobody that came to the show said hey, guys,
• 2:04:02
  Speaker 2: let's release a single. They never released anything. The album
• 2:04:05
  Speaker 2: was released, but nothing happened. They just didn't want anything
• 2:04:09
  Speaker 2: to do with it, you know.
• 2:04:11
  Speaker 1: And then you know, it was a typical opening act deal.
• 2:04:15
  Speaker 1: The money was so poor that at the end of
• 2:04:17
  Speaker 1: the tour there was nothing.
• 2:04:18
  Speaker 2: Left, nothing left. I think we made maybe five hundred
• 2:04:22
  Speaker 2: dollars a show. But I must say Rad and his
• 2:04:26
  Speaker 2: entourage really did the right thing. You know. We never
• 2:04:29
  Speaker 2: had a sound check. We were just got thrown on.
• 2:04:31
  Speaker 2: I mean, this is his show, you know. But we
• 2:04:34
  Speaker 2: were fortunate enough to be opening for the biggest act
• 2:04:37
  Speaker 2: in the world. We didn't make any money, but we
• 2:04:41
  Speaker 2: became good friends with his whole entourage. We would he
• 2:04:45
  Speaker 2: we would have dinners with them all night, so you know,
• 2:04:48
  Speaker 2: suddenly we'd be I mean, we were nobody, you know.
• 2:04:51
  Speaker 2: Then we'd be having dinner with the biggest act in
• 2:04:54
  Speaker 2: the world at a posh hotel and we'd never been
• 2:04:58
  Speaker 2: used to eating whatever we felt like or drinking fine wise,
• 2:05:03
  Speaker 2: and we would say, you know, we can we have
• 2:05:07
  Speaker 2: this this or that, and they say, whatever you want,
• 2:05:09
  Speaker 2: you know, And it was pretty much two or three
• 2:05:12
  Speaker 2: nights a week was like that. So we really were
• 2:05:16
  Speaker 2: looked after, and they did the right thing with us,
• 2:05:21
  Speaker 2: which was incredible. They could have just you know, they
• 2:05:25
  Speaker 2: didn't need to have us open for them. They didn't
• 2:05:28
  Speaker 2: need us. We needed them. And you would imagine that
• 2:05:31
  Speaker 2: we would break after doing sixty shows with them, but
• 2:05:35
  Speaker 2: we just didn't. And it was meant on reflection that
• 2:05:40
  Speaker 2: it was meant for us to get in the trenches,
• 2:05:43
  Speaker 2: go back and learn your craft. We'd learned a lot
• 2:05:47
  Speaker 2: from Superstar, we'd learned a lot from being with Rod.
• 2:05:51
  Speaker 2: Now we had to learn to be ourselves and to
• 2:05:54
  Speaker 2: get ready for the success that was coming our way.
• 2:05:58
  Speaker 2: But we didn't even know it.
• 2:06:00
  Speaker 1: You know, Well, we've learned a lot here, Graham. Today,
• 2:06:04
  Speaker 1: I think that we've covered the surface at least of
• 2:06:08
  Speaker 1: what's going on, and I think we're gonna stop it here.
• 2:06:12
  Speaker 1: I want to thank you for taking the time with
• 2:06:15
  Speaker 1: my audience, Bobby.
• 2:06:17
  Speaker 2: It's been such a pleasure. Thank you for the invitation.
• 2:06:21
  Speaker 2: When they first had always it's going to be two hours,
• 2:06:24
  Speaker 2: I thought, God, I don't know if I can sit
• 2:06:26
  Speaker 2: still for two hours, but I managed to do it
• 2:06:29
  Speaker 2: and it's been fantastic. Thank you so much.
• 2:06:32
  Speaker 3: Well, you know, once we hit the groove there, you know,
• 2:06:35
  Speaker 3: it's like you you start telling this stray, I can
• 2:06:37
  Speaker 3: as I say we can talk all day. I got
• 2:06:39
  Speaker 3: a few more questions, but we're gonna leave it here
• 2:06:43
  Speaker 3: for now.
• 2:06:44
  Speaker 1: Hopefully I'll see on the road at some point, I hope.
• 2:06:47
  Speaker 2: So, I hope you come and see how show it again?
• 2:06:49
  Speaker 1: Right? In any event, till next time. This is Bob
• 2:06:53
  Speaker 1: Leftstock