Latest / Hey BigHead: The Vegas Local Podcast / George Pajon Jr. on Rock Legends & Vegas Music (Part 2) | 356

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George Pajon Jr. on Rock Legends & Vegas Music (Part 2) | 356 · Hey BigHead: The Vegas Local Podcast

0:00
SPEAKER_05: I see your Foo Fighters uh Pitt.
0:01
SPEAKER_05: Did you go to the show?
0:02
SPEAKER_05: Yes.
0:03
SPEAKER_05: How was it?
0:05
SPEAKER_00: Damn it, you have to ask me that question.
0:07
SPEAKER_05: Oh no.
0:08
SPEAKER_05: First of all, before you get to that, Queens of the Stone Age.
0:11
SPEAKER_05: I love Foo Fighters.
0:12
SPEAKER_05: They're my favorite band.
0:13
SPEAKER_05: How did Queens of the Stone Age do it?
0:14
SPEAKER_05: Because I'm gr they're growing on me tremendously.
0:17
SPEAKER_05: I'm going to tell you right now.
0:18
SPEAKER_00: Queens blew them straight off the stage.
0:22
SPEAKER_00: Straight off the stage.
0:24
SPEAKER_00: I was wholeheartedly because of Queens of the Stone Age.
0:28
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to say this on air so I have to actually follow through with it.
0:32
SPEAKER_00: Because of that Queens of the Stone Age show that I just watched, I'm going to write a record.
0:38
SPEAKER_00: That's how inspired I was.
0:40
SPEAKER_00: Really?
0:41
SPEAKER_00: That's how over the top, like I'm having a religious experience right now.
0:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
0:47
SPEAKER_00: Like this is so.
0:49
SPEAKER_00: And I'm biased.
0:50
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to tell you why.
0:53
SPEAKER_00: There at one point it doesn't exist no more.
0:56
SPEAKER_00: There was the best festival in the whole world was called Big Day Out.
1:00
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
1:01
SPEAKER_00: And it was in Australia and New Zealand.
1:05
SPEAKER_00: And you would do every place in Australia, so all the obvious places.
1:10
SPEAKER_00: So like I think it was six um shows in Australia, two shows in New Zealand.
1:17
SPEAKER_00: And all the bands flew in the same plane.
1:20
SPEAKER_00: Let's start there.
1:22
SPEAKER_00: Love that.
1:22
SPEAKER_00: It was insane.
1:24
SPEAKER_00: I'd imagine all the bands in the same plane.
1:27
SPEAKER_00: So the first year we did it, Coplay hadn't released their album yet.
1:32
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
1:32
SPEAKER_00: So I got to watch Coplay do their first album in its entirety.
1:38
SPEAKER_00: At the drive-in was at this show.
1:41
SPEAKER_00: I loved it at the drive-in.
1:42
SPEAKER_00: Um it was an unfortunate festival that broke up uh what's Fred Durst?
1:47
SPEAKER_00: Limp Biscuit.
1:48
SPEAKER_00: Because they had the crowd was so big and so crazy that they crushed three people.
1:55
SPEAKER_05: Was it before Woodstock or after?
1:57
SPEAKER_05: After Woodstock.
1:59
SPEAKER_00: I you know, I don't know the stats about that, but I was there when they three people died right before Limp Biscuit show, and they left the tour.
2:08
SPEAKER_00: So, and after that, you'd never even hear about Limbiscuit again.
2:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
2:13
SPEAKER_00: Um but on that tour was Queens of the Stone Age first record.
2:20
SPEAKER_00: They were playing rated R from beginning to end.
2:23
SPEAKER_00: And this is my experience with that.
2:25
SPEAKER_00: So I'm at Catering.
2:27
SPEAKER_00: Like we were nobody.
2:28
SPEAKER_00: We were going on at like noon.
2:29
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
2:30
SPEAKER_00: So I had the rest of the day to listen to these amazing bands.
2:34
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm at Catering and I'm hearing uh Feel Good Hit of the Summer.
2:41
SPEAKER_00: I'm I'd never heard this song before.
2:44
SPEAKER_00: This album isn't even released yet.
2:46
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, oh my God, that's that's man, fuck food.
2:51
SPEAKER_00: And I would go to the stage, what is this?
2:54
SPEAKER_00: And I stood side stage for three weeks watching them play that first album from that.
3:02
SPEAKER_00: And that was the first band with the original bass player, with the original drummer.
3:07
SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, it was unbelievable.
3:09
SPEAKER_00: Every day, they would go into this, they would extend parts until the crowd would get.
3:18
SPEAKER_00: It was something that I learned how to do from the doors.
3:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
3:22
SPEAKER_00: The doors.
3:23
SPEAKER_05: They would just extend a part of the song.
3:24
SPEAKER_00: The beginning of a song until people would to the verge of going crazy.
3:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
3:30
SPEAKER_00: Drop the song.
3:32
SPEAKER_00: We need it.
3:32
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
3:33
SPEAKER_00: And Queens would do that.
3:36
SPEAKER_00: And they would go into, they would repeat this hypnotic groove forever and just walk around the stage like they had you in the palm of their hand.
3:45
SPEAKER_00: And it was just like, and no one knew who this band was because the album was just being released.
3:52
SPEAKER_00: And I was just, it changed my life.
3:55
SPEAKER_00: Literally changed my life.
3:56
SPEAKER_00: It was right then that I was just like, you know what?
3:58
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
3:59
SPEAKER_00: Enough with this black IP stuff.
4:01
SPEAKER_00: I need to go back to my roots and do some rock stuff.
4:04
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
4:04
SPEAKER_00: I need to do rock again.
4:06
SPEAKER_00: And that's where it all started.
4:08
SPEAKER_00: Right there.
4:09
SPEAKER_00: And then the next time we played that festival at the driving had broken up, and Mars Volta was now together, and I got to watch them play De Laos in its entirety for three weeks.
4:20
SPEAKER_00: That was my next religious experience.
4:23
SPEAKER_00: I was just like, oh my God.
4:24
SPEAKER_00: This is like this.
4:26
SPEAKER_00: I was sit side stage and Metallica was headlining that tour.
4:30
SPEAKER_00: And by this time we're a little bigger.
4:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
4:34
SPEAKER_00: And I went to school.
4:37
SPEAKER_00: James Hetfield and I graduated from the same high school, down in high.
4:41
SPEAKER_00: And so we were in, we he was a couple years ahead of me.
4:44
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
4:45
SPEAKER_00: But we were inducted into the high school hall of fame at the same time.
4:49
SPEAKER_00: So when you walk down the hallway, there's a picture of me with one of my guitars and a picture of him with one of his guitars.
4:56
SPEAKER_05: That's incredible.
4:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
4:58
SPEAKER_00: And so when I saw that they were headlining, immediately I hung out with them and hung out with James every day.
5:06
SPEAKER_00: And we watched the four of them with me and Fergie would watch Mars Volta every day.
5:12
SPEAKER_00: We would go to catering and we'd all at the same time we meet up and we walk over to Mars Volta.
5:18
SPEAKER_00: I have an actual picture of uh on my side was James, um James, Robert, and Fergie and I.
5:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
5:30
SPEAKER_00: And then I took a picture of Mars Volta, and you can see on the other side Kirk and Lars.
5:35
SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's cool.
5:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
5:36
SPEAKER_00: That's so cool.
5:37
SPEAKER_00: That's pretty cool.
5:38
SPEAKER_05: But don't think I'm gonna let you get away with telling me how the Foo Fighters did at their show.
5:43
SPEAKER_05: Because you're a little hesitant on answering that part.
5:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I am.
5:46
SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna tell you why.
5:48
SPEAKER_00: So I've seen, I've had the same experience with Foo Fighters.
5:52
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
5:53
SPEAKER_00: I've seen I saw Foo Fighters open up for the stones and just wipe the floor with them.
5:58
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
5:59
SPEAKER_00: Just unbelievable religious experience for me.
6:03
SPEAKER_00: But I'll be honest with you, there's no replacing Taylor Hawkins.
6:08
SPEAKER_00: And the band has never been the same ever since.
6:12
SPEAKER_00: And the only thing that can replace Taylor Hawkins is Dave Grohl, who played the stuff.
6:19
SPEAKER_00: Who the reason he got Taylor Hawkins, like Taylor was a basic mirror image of him.
6:27
SPEAKER_00: And the energy and the vibe of those two together does not exist no more.
6:33
SPEAKER_00: So, yes, I'm biased because I've walked out of shows because I don't want to ruin my experiences that I've had with these bands if it's not the same.
6:45
SPEAKER_00: Perfect example.
6:46
SPEAKER_00: When we did uh I don't remember when the name of the what the name of the of the show was, but at Wembley Stadium we did this show for Earth.
6:56
SPEAKER_00: I don't remember what it was, but it was everyone.
6:58
SPEAKER_00: Like we played it.
7:00
SPEAKER_00: Uh Fergie did a song, we did Black Eye Peas did a song, Metallica was there, Red Hot Chili Peppers.
7:06
SPEAKER_05: We were doing like 20-minute sets or something like that.
7:08
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
7:09
SPEAKER_00: And Fergie only did one song, and then the peas did 20 minutes.
7:14
SPEAKER_00: Nice.
7:15
SPEAKER_00: But they were all there.
7:16
SPEAKER_00: And James was like, hey, are you gonna be here tomorrow?
7:19
SPEAKER_00: I was like, Yeah, you guys are headlining Wembley.
7:22
SPEAKER_00: He's like, Come, please come to the show.
7:24
SPEAKER_00: Bring whoever you want.
7:25
SPEAKER_00: I was like, okay, I'll come.
7:27
SPEAKER_00: So to watch Metallica, the Black Army, at those fans all in their black t-shirts at Wembley with full amps, it was like a plane was taking off.
7:41
SPEAKER_00: And I was side staged with, I wasn't even married yet.
7:47
SPEAKER_00: My wife was my fiancee at the time.
7:51
SPEAKER_00: And it was just a religious experience of power.
7:55
SPEAKER_00: And it it it just you can't top that.
7:59
SPEAKER_00: And they don't play with amps anymore.
8:01
SPEAKER_00: So so to listen to a silent stage in a Metallica show breaks my heart.
8:06
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
8:06
SPEAKER_00: I can't do it.
8:07
SPEAKER_00: And I walked out of the Legion.
8:09
SPEAKER_00: I left.
8:10
SPEAKER_00: I was like, I can't I can't watch my band like this.
8:12
SPEAKER_00: Is it because they're playing in too big of a venue that they No, it it's for logistic reasons, the same reason that you know it's very difficult to create a career nowadays.
8:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
8:25
SPEAKER_00: It's because it's so expensive to ship that amount of amps.
8:30
SPEAKER_05: That's such a bummer, man.
8:32
SPEAKER_00: And so I've I've called James on it.
8:34
SPEAKER_00: I've told him.
8:35
SPEAKER_00: I just saw him at Wembley, and I told him, I've I've walked out of your shows because I I I I've watched you at Wembley at full volume.
8:43
SPEAKER_00: That's a different experience too.
8:45
SPEAKER_00: And and he's like, Yeah, I know, man, but it, you know, that is what it is.
8:49
SPEAKER_00: The amount of money that we would have to spend to actually do that, and yeah, we can afford it, but it just doesn't, it's silly.
8:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's truly silly to like look at the receipts at the end of the year and be like, really?
9:01
SPEAKER_00: We did that for just to be loud.
9:04
SPEAKER_05: Imagine telling James Hetfield you walked out of one of his shows.
9:07
SPEAKER_05: I would, oh my god, just the fact that he would even be in a position to do that post.
9:13
SPEAKER_00: People like that honestly respect Brutal, honestly.
9:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm sure.
9:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
9:19
SPEAKER_00: They really do respect Bruno.
9:21
SPEAKER_05: You're surrounded by so many yes men, I'm sure.
9:23
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
9:23
SPEAKER_00: Just they really do.
9:25
SPEAKER_00: And I just told him that because so I had gotten drunk with the drummer the night before with the drummer for a Shania Twain.
9:37
SPEAKER_00: I had no interest in going to the Harry Styles show.
9:41
SPEAKER_00: And Shania Twain was opening up.
9:43
SPEAKER_00: But so I called the peas manager, Seth Friedman, and said, Hey, I know, last minute, is there anything you can do to I want to?
9:52
SPEAKER_00: I got drunk with the drummer last night.
9:54
SPEAKER_00: I had such a good time.
9:55
SPEAKER_00: I kind of watch want to watch her play.
9:57
SPEAKER_00: He's like, let me see what I can do.
9:59
SPEAKER_00: So he gets me tickets.
10:01
SPEAKER_00: And he got me a ticket in the royal box.
10:04
SPEAKER_00: So at Wembley, there's only one suite.
10:07
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
10:07
SPEAKER_00: It's a massive suite where everyone is at.
10:10
SPEAKER_00: Super awesome idea.
10:12
SPEAKER_00: I wish they would do that at all the venues here in the United States.
10:16
SPEAKER_00: Because all the people that go to those, you know, the celebrities and the owners and you know, the big gamblers, they're all in the same box.
10:25
SPEAKER_00: And they're all hanging out.
10:27
SPEAKER_00: And it's all you can eat, all you can drink.
10:31
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm standing there at a table with a corona, and I and some guy comes up behind me.
10:37
SPEAKER_00: He's like, Down behind in the house, motherfucker.
10:41
SPEAKER_00: That can only be Headfield.
10:43
SPEAKER_00: I turned around and I was like, what up, James?
10:45
SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's awesome.
10:46
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, Who are you here to see?
10:48
SPEAKER_00: Harry Styles?
10:51
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, no, actually, I'm I got drunk with uh you would assume that I'm here to see Harry Style because I'm in a big pop band.
10:59
SPEAKER_00: I was like, but I got drunk with a drummer last night from Shania Twain, and so I wanted to see her.
11:03
SPEAKER_00: He's like, that's who I'm here to see.
11:05
SPEAKER_00: I was like, you want to meet the band?
11:07
SPEAKER_00: He's like, really?
11:08
SPEAKER_00: I was like, I'll text her and I'll tell her.
11:11
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if they'll believe me, but I'll tell them, hey, when you're done playing, run to the suite so I can introduce you to James Hetfield.
11:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
11:22
SPEAKER_00: And they told me after, it's like, we got I got your text and showed it to the rest of the band.
11:26
SPEAKER_00: They're like, this has got to be bullshit.
11:28
SPEAKER_00: It's gotta be bullshit.
11:30
SPEAKER_00: And so they called me on it, and as soon as they were done, they didn't even go to their dressing room.
11:35
SPEAKER_00: They ran to the suite, and I was standing with Hetfield, and they were like, that's awesome.
11:40
SPEAKER_00: Oh my god.
11:40
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, George, grab one of their cameras, and there's a picture of them.
11:45
SPEAKER_00: The drummer, if if you follow the drummer, I forget her name right now because I've only met her once.
11:50
SPEAKER_05: That's okay.
11:51
SPEAKER_00: If you follow the drummer on her Instagram, is that picture with the guitar player, the fiddle player, her, and Hetfield.
11:58
SPEAKER_00: Let's check it out.
11:59
SPEAKER_05: That's so funny.
12:00
SPEAKER_05: Your your impression of James is actually pretty spot on when you did his voice.
12:03
SPEAKER_00: I was actually really impressed.
12:04
SPEAKER_00: He um he asked me if I was going to, he's like, You live in Vegas now, right?
12:09
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, Yeah.
12:09
SPEAKER_00: He's like, You coming to my show?
12:11
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, actually, I was just talking to the guy you stole from us because we had a guy that worked for the peas, Colin, who we loved.
12:20
SPEAKER_00: Well, Metallica took him.
12:22
SPEAKER_05: Bastards.
12:23
SPEAKER_00: And he works for them now.
12:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
12:26
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, you know, I'm really mad that you guys took Colin.
12:29
SPEAKER_00: We loved Colin.
12:30
SPEAKER_00: He's like, and you're never getting him back.
12:33
SPEAKER_00: I will pay him whatever he asks for.
12:36
SPEAKER_00: You're never getting him back.
12:38
SPEAKER_00: I said, so yes, I talked to Colin and he asked me to wait till the uh not the first week.
12:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
12:44
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, yeah, come so we can have some cigars.
12:46
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I will.
12:47
SPEAKER_05: That's incredible.
12:48
SPEAKER_05: I'm sure that show's gonna be mind-blowing.
12:50
SPEAKER_00: I've heard unbelievable things.
12:53
SPEAKER_00: So if you're not aware, it's very expensive for bands to do the sphere.
13:00
SPEAKER_00: I'd imagine so, yeah.
13:01
SPEAKER_00: Because the content itself costs minimum of between five and ten million dollars.
13:10
SPEAKER_00: Just the content to make.
13:12
SPEAKER_00: What do you mean, the content?
13:13
SPEAKER_00: Like the visuals?
13:14
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
13:14
SPEAKER_00: Really?
13:15
SPEAKER_00: Yes, because it's it's made in a format that doesn't exist except for one other place.
13:20
SPEAKER_00: So if you don't know this either, in Burbank, there's a miniature version of the sphere.
13:25
SPEAKER_03: I don't know that.
13:26
SPEAKER_00: That they work on the content there because the sphere doesn't allow you to get in there.
13:31
SPEAKER_00: There's things happening.
13:32
SPEAKER_01: So it's like a testing site, kind of.
13:34
SPEAKER_00: So you can't go in there to rehearse it.
13:36
SPEAKER_00: You can go in to see if the content is working.
13:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
13:38
SPEAKER_00: So they built a miniature version.
13:40
SPEAKER_00: It's in Burbank, California, and you test your content there.
13:44
SPEAKER_00: Oh shit.
13:45
SPEAKER_00: But I've heard rumors that Metallica has spent the most of any band.
13:49
SPEAKER_00: Oh, and that the content is absolutely insane.
13:54
SPEAKER_00: But, you know, they're doing how many shows?
13:56
SPEAKER_00: It's insane.
13:57
SPEAKER_00: God bless them, though.
13:59
SPEAKER_00: I love it.
13:59
SPEAKER_05: It's Metallica the sphere.
14:00
SPEAKER_05: It's gonna be with now.
14:01
SPEAKER_00: Huge.
14:01
SPEAKER_00: I will not walk out of that one because I understand why they have to be silent on that stage.
14:06
SPEAKER_05: You ended up walking out of that one.
14:09
SPEAKER_05: You end up walking out of that show.
14:11
SPEAKER_05: You will be public enemy number one here in Vincent.
14:13
SPEAKER_05: So to answer your question, I don't even know what my question was.
14:16
SPEAKER_05: What was Foo Fight Foo Fighters?
14:19
SPEAKER_00: I had such a religious experience with Queens of the Stone Age.
14:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
14:22
SPEAKER_00: It didn't sound the same.
14:24
SPEAKER_00: I get it.
14:24
SPEAKER_00: It didn't sound like the Foo Fighters that I loved.
14:28
SPEAKER_00: And look, I'm I know Dave.
14:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
14:31
SPEAKER_00: I have great a great Dave Grohl story.
14:34
SPEAKER_00: Oh, sure you do.
14:35
SPEAKER_00: And we'll tell it to you.
14:37
SPEAKER_00: So my wife's family are huge Foo Fighter fans.
14:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
14:42
SPEAKER_00: They Grohl is like God to them.
14:45
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
14:45
SPEAKER_00: They're huge Nirvana fans, they're huge Foo Fighter fans.
14:49
SPEAKER_00: So for a very long time, the Black IPs and the Foo Fighters would stay at the same hotel in London when we would do European festivals.
14:58
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
14:58
SPEAKER_00: We would just fly from London.
15:00
SPEAKER_00: It's easier for us to have a home base.
15:03
SPEAKER_00: Then you unpack your bags and you just come back to the same place.
15:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
15:07
SPEAKER_00: And you fly out of London and go to France.
15:09
SPEAKER_00: Fly out of London and go to France.
15:10
SPEAKER_00: There's only a couple hour flights.
15:12
SPEAKER_00: And so Foo Fighters would do the same thing.
15:15
SPEAKER_00: Different festivals, sometimes same festival.
15:18
SPEAKER_00: And so I would see him all the time.
15:20
SPEAKER_00: I would see him at the bar all the time.
15:22
SPEAKER_00: And Dave would literally come down and have a drink and be like, hey George, you're still on the road.
15:28
SPEAKER_00: Let's have a pint.
15:30
SPEAKER_00: So we'd have drinks all the time.
15:32
SPEAKER_00: And I would tell this story to my wife's family.
15:36
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I know Dave.
15:37
SPEAKER_00: He's super awesome.
15:38
SPEAKER_00: He's a super nice guy.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: I was like, we've had many beers together at the festivals, at catering, hung out with him many times.
15:47
SPEAKER_00: And my wife's like, heard this story a thousand times.
15:52
SPEAKER_00: She doesn't believe it.
15:53
SPEAKER_00: So first time we go back to London after we're dating, I take, I bring her.
15:59
SPEAKER_00: We're staying at the same hotel.
16:01
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, let's un let's take our bags upstairs.
16:03
SPEAKER_00: Let's not unpack them.
16:04
SPEAKER_00: Let's go downstairs to the bar and just wait.
16:07
SPEAKER_00: Sure enough, here he comes.
16:10
SPEAKER_00: And it was the coolest thing ever.
16:12
SPEAKER_00: He hands a baby bottle to the bartender.
16:15
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, Can you heat this up for me?
16:18
SPEAKER_00: And I'll take a pint.
16:19
SPEAKER_00: And he turns around, he's like, George.
16:23
SPEAKER_00: Has he seen you here?
16:25
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
16:25
SPEAKER_00: And he sits down with me and he's like, Who's this lovely lady?
16:28
SPEAKER_00: And I introduce her.
16:30
SPEAKER_00: She's like, Holy shit.
16:32
SPEAKER_00: It was just like the story you told.
16:35
SPEAKER_00: And so another amazing story.
16:39
SPEAKER_00: This is how cool of a person he is.
16:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
16:41
SPEAKER_00: So we're playing the same festival, and we're done.
16:45
SPEAKER_00: Uh the headliner's Paul, Paul McCartney.
16:49
SPEAKER_00: And there's a bar across the street, and we're all packed up.
16:53
SPEAKER_00: We're just waiting for the festival to end, and then we're the buses will leave.
16:58
SPEAKER_00: And Dave's like, Wanna go get a beer a beer across the street at the bar?
17:01
SPEAKER_00: There's a bar across the street.
17:03
SPEAKER_00: Just yeah, let's go.
17:04
SPEAKER_00: So I walk over there with him.
17:06
SPEAKER_00: He stays for one beer.
17:09
SPEAKER_00: He buys my beer and his beer, and then leaves.
17:13
SPEAKER_00: I said, I'm gonna go, Georgia.
17:14
SPEAKER_00: I'm tired.
17:15
SPEAKER_00: He gives me a hug, goes back to his bus.
17:18
SPEAKER_00: I stay there drinking it.
17:20
SPEAKER_00: And he pays a tab, and the bartender starts crying.
17:23
SPEAKER_00: Uh-uh.
17:24
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, Are you okay?
17:25
SPEAKER_00: Anything happened?
17:27
SPEAKER_00: She turns around the receipt.
17:28
SPEAKER_00: He tipped her$2,500.
17:31
SPEAKER_01: Oh my God.
17:33
SPEAKER_01: That's amazing.
17:34
SPEAKER_00: I was like fucking awesome.
17:35
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
17:37
SPEAKER_00: He's like, when I grow up, sir, I want to be just like you.
17:41
SPEAKER_05: I love that.
17:42
SPEAKER_05: I love hearing stories like that.
17:43
SPEAKER_05: Dave is he he's a music legend.
17:46
SPEAKER_05: He's got so much history.
17:48
SPEAKER_05: His story in music, in rock and roll, especially, is just such an integral part in where it is today.
17:54
SPEAKER_05: He was didn't he play drums on one of the uh Queens of the Stone Age albums, too?
17:58
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
17:58
SPEAKER_00: Uh the one with the biggest, their biggest song.
18:01
SPEAKER_00: With um No One Knows.
18:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
18:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
18:04
SPEAKER_00: Um He's a drummer on that.
18:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
18:07
SPEAKER_00: Um and this will make you a little jealous.
18:10
SPEAKER_05: I'm I'm already jealous, so you don't have to make me a little more jealous.
18:13
SPEAKER_00: Uh so all 36 Cairo Ni Fi songs, yeah.
18:17
SPEAKER_00: I recorded them at Growth Studio.
18:22
SPEAKER_02: That's awesome.
18:23
SPEAKER_00: I recorded them at 606 on the Sound City board.
18:28
unknown: Oh my god.
18:30
SPEAKER_00: That's that's it was everything you can think of when you watch that documentary is exactly how that documentary is.
18:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
18:38
SPEAKER_00: There are ghosts in that in that board, and it you're just it's a different experience to be in front of a piece of equipment that's signed by Fleawood Mac when they were doing rumors that's like has he had Dave has a Polaroid of the mic setup from Smells Like Team Spirit on the board.
19:05
SPEAKER_00: It's it has a double stick tape and it's on there from the guy Mike did the the drum kit that way, and that was the first song they recorded.
19:17
SPEAKER_00: Oh my god.
19:18
SPEAKER_00: So the most legendary drum lick of all time to intro a song.
19:22
SPEAKER_00: There's a Polaroid of that.
19:24
SPEAKER_00: So just as a rock fan, yeah, I grew up on rock.
19:27
SPEAKER_00: I I didn't buy a hip-hop record once in my life.
19:30
SPEAKER_00: That's not what my role was in the P.
19:33
SPEAKER_00: That's the most common question I get.
19:34
SPEAKER_00: Is it?
19:35
SPEAKER_00: You've been in Black Eyed P's for 28 years, and you your band is like this heavy rock.
19:40
SPEAKER_00: I was like, I grew up in rock.
19:41
SPEAKER_00: I yeah, yeah.
19:42
SPEAKER_00: I like when they see me wearing this, they're like, I'm like, you don't understand.
19:47
SPEAKER_00: Like, this is me buying patches all over the world.
19:50
SPEAKER_00: Like, this Foo Fighters pin came from Camden Street in London, the most famous like punk rock street of all time, like where Billy Idol, you know, got started, where like that is where I go find patches.
20:05
SPEAKER_05: And you know, when you get it, you got stories on your yes.
20:10
SPEAKER_00: I just built another one.
20:12
SPEAKER_00: I have many of them.
20:14
SPEAKER_00: And there's a bunch of patches on there that the bands have actually given to me.
20:18
SPEAKER_00: That's cool.
20:19
SPEAKER_00: And so all my vests.
20:22
SPEAKER_00: This is like when people I don't get it.
20:25
SPEAKER_00: When you know, at a peace show, I'll wear this.
20:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, sure.
20:27
SPEAKER_00: And Will's like, that's weird that he dressed.
20:30
SPEAKER_00: No, that's him.
20:31
SPEAKER_00: Right.
20:31
SPEAKER_00: That's literally him.
20:32
SPEAKER_00: He's just being himself.
20:34
SPEAKER_00: I was like, why would I stop him from being himself?
20:37
SPEAKER_00: And he looks like a rock star.
20:39
SPEAKER_00: You are a rock star.
20:40
SPEAKER_00: He's like, he looks like a guitar player.
20:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, tell me that's not a guitar player.
20:45
SPEAKER_00: And so then people are like, explain your vest.
20:49
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, it's my childhood.
20:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, this is literally my childhood.
20:53
SPEAKER_00: This is parts of you, there influences.
20:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, this is literally what I listened to that made me want to play guitar.
20:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's the most important thing that started my life, yeah, is that.
21:06
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, being in front of that board that like priest recorded on rage.
21:15
SPEAKER_00: It's like it's religious.
21:17
SPEAKER_00: My palms are sweaty just listening to this story.
21:21
SPEAKER_00: Um and you know that they keep God, I don't know if you know this.
21:24
SPEAKER_00: That's the storage for all the Foo Fighters gear.
21:27
SPEAKER_05: I didn't know that.
21:28
SPEAKER_00: So when you walk into the back of the studio, it's a massive building.
21:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
21:33
SPEAKER_00: And he owns two.
21:34
SPEAKER_00: There's 606 and 607.
21:36
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
21:36
SPEAKER_00: 607 is where they rehearse and there's a rehearsal, their rehearsal place.
21:41
SPEAKER_00: That's where they hang out, and that's where he scores his movies.
21:44
SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
21:44
SPEAKER_00: So all like the horror movie and everything that he did, he scores it all there.
21:48
SPEAKER_00: He has this massive screening room where he sits and scores his movies.
21:52
SPEAKER_00: Um so 606, the back of 606, where the board is, uh, is I I can show you uh video and pictures after.
22:03
SPEAKER_00: It's just rows and rows and rows and rows of guitars and they're all Foo Fighter guitars and all the amps, all the cabinets that they were used, some of like the you'll you'll see different kinds of FFs that they've used in the arenas everywhere.
22:19
SPEAKER_00: And all of Taylor's drums are there.
22:21
SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
22:22
SPEAKER_00: And so Taylor was alive when we were recording these Cairo songs and he was a fan.
22:30
SPEAKER_00: And he's a he was a massive fan of singing drummers.
22:34
SPEAKER_00: So the engineer said hey FYI I have a singing drummer coming in tomorrow.
22:40
SPEAKER_00: What band?
22:40
SPEAKER_00: What band?
22:41
SPEAKER_00: Cairo Ny Fight.
22:42
SPEAKER_00: They opened for us because we before I joined Cairo Night, Cairo Ny Fight opened for Foo Foo Fighters in New Zealand.
22:49
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
22:50
SPEAKER_00: So Dave was a fan of the band too.
22:53
SPEAKER_00: And Taylor said he has access to all my drums.
22:58
SPEAKER_00: That's let him use any so the song that uh was played a lot on comp here it's a song called Churn.
23:07
SPEAKER_00: Made it to top 30 the Billboard Rock 100.
23:10
SPEAKER_03: Nice.
23:11
SPEAKER_00: That has Taylor's kick drum on it.
23:14
SPEAKER_00: That was that got tons of airplay and played it all the time on comp and that is Taylor's 1936 Leedy was the kick that we used on that song.
23:26
SPEAKER_05: I love that you can you can have these pieces of of hist music history in songs in the future and like just parts of history being part of the the songs that that come out.
23:37
SPEAKER_05: That's so cool.
23:38
SPEAKER_00: One disappointment that happened it is very cool and I'm very blessed and lucky that I have those relationships that that those things are yeses because maybe those wouldn't be a yes you know that's been a blessing of my experiences and you know one thing that I get asked all the time give me some tips on how to have a career like yours and I'm like it's not musical it's not talent it's who you are as a person.
24:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
24:09
SPEAKER_00: Because how many hours do we play a night?
24:13
SPEAKER_00: Right now the piece show depending on how much Will talks could be anywhere between two and a half to three and a half hours.
24:20
SPEAKER_00: You know the long ones are three to three and a half hours.
24:24
SPEAKER_00: Normally it's supposed to only be 90 minutes you know but he always tells stories like I do this so the what's supposed to be an hour?
24:33
SPEAKER_00: We'll be here for four I'm okay with it.
24:37
SPEAKER_00: I was about to say I don't think anyone minds I love I'm very proud of my life and blessings and and I love talking about it but you know part of part of that is the opinion that I give everyone is we only play two 90 minutes together on stage the rest of the time you're hanging out so that's what's going to get you the gig it's not you can teach someone the right guitar parts even if they don't have the ability to play how many stories have you heard I didn't know how to play bass before I joined that band.
25:13
SPEAKER_01: Right.
25:13
SPEAKER_00: They just liked me as a person and needed a bass player.
25:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
25:16
SPEAKER_00: Because you're going to be with that person in a tube for like 16 hours to fly back home.
25:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah you're going to be in that person in another tube that's a bus for how many months?
25:29
SPEAKER_00: So you're in a plane every day with these people longer than you are on stage.
25:35
SPEAKER_00: And that's what keep those gigs is who you are as a person and how easy is it to be around you for 20 hours a day.
25:45
SPEAKER_00: You know I see these people longer than I see my wife.
25:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah sure.
25:49
SPEAKER_00: And that's the truth.
25:51
SPEAKER_00: I spend more time with them than I do especially over the summer we you know Will has his interests are no longer you know 1000% music like it used to be he's an entrepreneur now and he's doing amazing things in technology and he graduated he put himself through school that's great he graduated from Harvard like it's crazy.
26:14
SPEAKER_00: And he went to the school we couldn't tour because he was sitting in the classroom and now he's a teacher at Arizona State.
26:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah I don't know what the exact college is but he has an AI class that he he just did his first semester in Phoenix.
26:32
SPEAKER_00: And so those are where his interests are but every year we do a full tour of Europe just to basically get the friends back together and you know he he now it's a different thing for him he brings his family so he's taking his family all over the world now.
26:52
SPEAKER_05: That's great.
26:52
SPEAKER_00: So his brother his mom his sister his his aunts his nieces and nephews he brings them all and rents this big ass plane and we fly private with the whole family and we see the world again every year.
27:08
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
27:08
SPEAKER_00: And you know the rest of the year we do like little shows here and there like the last show was uh the Lucas we opened the Lucas Museum in uh in Los Angeles with I'm also a Star Wars nerd and a Marvel nerd.
27:23
SPEAKER_05: I'm assuming you you knew what these posters were behind me.
27:25
SPEAKER_00: Of course okay good just making sure um if if you haven't gone now it's open to the public it is amazing.
27:32
SPEAKER_00: Is it oh my god it is amazing.
27:34
SPEAKER_05: Julie do you want to go Julie by the way has never seen Star Wars why did you have to wrap me out everybody we've had we've had 80 guests on this show.
27:43
SPEAKER_05: I would say 65 of them have brought up Star Wars on their own.
27:47
SPEAKER_01: And every kind of of course they're gonna bring it up on their own the whole office is decorated in Star Wars.
27:53
SPEAKER_00: It's amazing look that so he's been collecting this artwork for so everything that they use for the movies he kept.
28:04
SPEAKER_00: I love that and he's been doing this since this early 70s and so now it's gonna be on display for the world to see that's fantastic.
28:13
SPEAKER_00: And it's unbelievable like the original Princess Leia outfit from 76 is there.
28:19
SPEAKER_00: It's like come on.
28:20
SPEAKER_05: How can you not and listen these are you you have your patches on your vest these are my patches between vinyl album covers between Star Wars I got uh you know Jimmy back there and uh uh they got um gosh uh blanking on his name now he's a friend of mine too the guy from Matchbox 20 uh not Rob but the guitar player I'm I'm gonna be so upset that I can't remember but regardless uh I'm nervous because George is here of course um but you also outside of black IPs we talked about uh Cairo Knife fight a handful of times you also have quiet giants but I want to talk about Cairo Knife fight first so how did you get hooked up with them um because we've we we mentioned them a few times on the show already fate fate supposed to happen um which by the way Kyle Cook I'm sorry Kyle is his name I'm sorry continue fate literally fate it was supposed to happen uh once again me making right and poor decisions yeah um so after the last show with Fergie which was November 23rd 2011 you remember the date yeah um the musical director in the peas at the time he's like hey if you're interested um I got an offer to go produce a record but it's in New Zealand um pays really good money and I'm like man I've been on the road for three months now I want to go home and see my wife bring her you'll make so much money you can bring her my wife unfortunately was touring on the road with Bruno and so I called her and I was like hey it's a lot of money I I don't think I can say no to this and she's like okay well how long is it I said supposed to be for a week okay yeah I'll still be on tour so do it so I take off and go to New Zealand.
30:17
SPEAKER_00: Sure we end up writing a record for this guy called um I can't think of his name right now are you nervous because I'm here is that why no Kim.com yeah very famous for he was the first guy to have mega upload was the site that you would upload your files to this is before Dropbox this is before the cloud I haven't heard Kim.com in forever well I was writing for him when the FBI arrested him first time the American government extradited oh my god a guy but something felt off for me so the poor decision was accepting this gig sure that they paid me so much money that it was I should have been a red flag to me it's like who is this guy and why can he afford to give me this much money to write a song for him because at that point we were writing the theme song for mega upload that's what we our job was and so when I get there he has a sign these NDAs and I'm like why am I signing an NDA and he's like well look at how the people I have on this song bro it was in it was insane.
31:38
SPEAKER_00: He had Kim Kardashian Kanye West Will I Am everyone on the planet was on this song.
31:45
SPEAKER_00: So this guy was going around to concerts with a bag of$25,000 just collecting and he would literally say I will give you$25,000 for you to say I use mega upload unbelievable.
32:02
SPEAKER_00: And then he was having those people sign an NDA and be like you're just gonna give me$25 grand for saying I use mega upload.
32:10
SPEAKER_00: Yep sign.
32:13
SPEAKER_00: He had Will when I saw Will I was like I can't do this he's gonna be mad yeah he showed me his signature remember will signs every one of my checks yeah yeah I know his signature I was like that's Will's signature he agreed to this so we write the song yeah I'm like well he has his real signature so this must be legit we write the song the song gets six million views in like the first hour what that it's released and gets flagged by every label Will loses his mind he sees that it's half his band that's producing this song and so then the guy gets arrested I felt so the first night that we stayed at his house he has this crazy mansion in New Zealand yeah flew us in in a helicopter from the airport this is like in Savage this is like a movie yes he here you'll love this he had the original Terminator the exoskeleton in his living room where are you gonna get that from you call him James Cameron I'll offer you so much money that you can't say no.
33:34
SPEAKER_00: So the first night I'm sleeping at his house throws this massive dinner for us it's unbelievable he has four chefs living at his house he's like if you wake up in the middle of the night just wake him up tell him I'm not waking up a chef out of sleep for food peanut butter jelly sandwich yeah I'm not doing that so I'm like I'm gonna go walk down the street and find the nearest 7-Eleven and get a bag of chips and a water and some dye coke I'm not gonna bother these people so I go to leave the property and they stop me and I'm like so wait I can't leave the property and they're like not while he's asleep what I'm like so essentially I'm a prisoner here you don't have to look at it that way but we're told you under no circumstances are allowed to leave this property.
34:28
SPEAKER_00: What I'm like okay so I go back I pack my bag and I go to the first day of recording in the studio because now that song got millions of views he knows it's successful what we did with him so at the next dinner the next day he says I want to do a record and he hands us it's like a movie he slid it on the table slid a blank piece of paper in front of each one of us and says I don't care how obscene it is put a number down on there I will pay it for you guys to live here and I want to do an album should take about three to four months.
35:08
SPEAKER_00: My God and I'm like done yeah I'm like oh my god are you serious I'm just like oh no I gotta move to New Zealand now I gotta do it I gotta actually fall through on this and so after I found out I'm a prisoner well maybe it's not so bad now oh my God I go to the first the first and see these are from the beginning of this podcast my life experiences have taught me everything yeah and I know how to get out of this and so and this is hilarious you're gonna love it I go to get through the whole set first day of session he's loving it and I said Kim can I talk to you in private please and he's like you can say anything you want in front of all these people we're all fam no it's a private matter can I please talk to you in private gets up and goes to one of the vocal booths with me I said look I'm embarrassed to say this but I have a problem and he's like what we can fix anything and I was like well you can't fix this he's like is it medical I was like no I'm I have a gambling addiction and last night I tried to leave your property to go to the casino to play for a couple hours and then I would have been back I wouldn't have missed lobby call I wouldn't have been late but they stopped me that can't happen I am literally losing my shit right now because I couldn't gamble last night.
36:43
SPEAKER_05: Now were you bullshitting him or did you actually have a gambling no bullshitting okay and he's like so how do we fix this?
36:50
SPEAKER_00: I already did and he's like what do you mean I checked into the the casino I'm gonna pay for my own stay at Sky Casino and I will not be staying at your house.
37:02
SPEAKER_05: Every night I'll go play for a little while I'll be fine and I'll make I'll be here on time I will not be a hindrance okay I trust you I'll pay for it and that's why I didn't get arrested because you weren't at the house everyone at the house got arrested how soon after that did he get arrested couple weeks wow yeah oh my God and you were just at the casino when it happened I was sleeping at the casino pull up Kim.com he was he was he was a big massive guy yeah like seven foot tall but he had like fuck you money he had oh yeah ridiculous money obviously clearly he's going to Kim Kardashian and just throwing 25 grand yeah it was so in that studio when I was working there I worked there for about three weeks with him before he got arrested and luckily I didn't get arrested and I just went back home.
37:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah sure um I met two engineers that were working so we were working at um very famous studio called Roundhead studios that's owned by one of the most famous uh New Zealand musicians he has a really famous band I can't think of it right now but that's okay uh guitar player singer uh he actually replaced uh the guitar player in Fleawood Mac.
38:24
SPEAKER_05: Oh really?
38:24
SPEAKER_00: Yes when he left Fleawood Mac this guy's now in Fleawood Mac um this studio was amazing.
38:33
SPEAKER_00: I love the two engineers that I was working with best guitar sound I've ever had I was just like man this is amazing that was the best part of the whole thing and really inspiring for me and then fast forward he gets arrested I leave I'm back in Los Angeles I'm like that's it I'm not working for no one else that's it I'm just gonna focus on me from now on yeah so I start this rock project that I'm working on about a year goes by I'm working on this rock project not Cairo yet and I'm seeing one of those engineers post pictures in LA and I'm like wait that's a studio right down the street from my studio yeah so I walk over there I walk into the studio those two engineers are there I'm like what are you guys doing in Los Angeles?
39:25
SPEAKER_00: We moved here I'm like awesome yeah and he's like where are you staying on that floor?
39:32
SPEAKER_00: I'm like what?
39:34
SPEAKER_00: No you can't stay on this floor he's like do you have a better option and I'm like actually I do the house where my studio was at yeah so my studio was in the back and I was there for 25 years and I would only keep in the front house musicians engineers so they wouldn't complain about me playing guitar at five in the morning you know and so I said actually I have two rooms available at my at the house where my studio's at so they moved in and then a couple months later they asked me because there was one tenant left from the people that were there before and like hey we feel a little weird but kind of want to ask you a favor what can you kick out this last tenant to bring in our buddy from New Zealand that he wants to move here Nick Gaffney.
40:24
SPEAKER_00: So Nick moves into the house at my studio and I meet him and they keep telling me oh man this guy's an amazing drummer at that time in my rock band that I was playing gigs with already the drummers I were using that would suffer each other were Matt Garska from Animals is Leaders and um God I get um the second drummer in Mars Volta um can't think of his name right now come to me.
40:59
SPEAKER_00: Julie will pull it up I can't think of his name.
41:04
SPEAKER_00: Anyways those two guys were suffering for each other in that rock band I'm like uh I have two of the best drummers in the world in my band right now like literally Matt Garska was the drummer the front cover of modern drummer at the time wow and I was like he can't be that great and so I ignored it.
41:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah and then at the time I was doing anything for money LA was so that's why I left LA it was so expensive.
41:30
SPEAKER_00: It's really difficult to live there.
41:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah sure and so I was producing for random people so these two cops hired me to produce their tool sounding band more like tool and so I had hired um the drummer from uh uh Daniel and Walls band who I also played with on a regular basis to play drums for me and so Nick Gaffney's sitting in the backyard listening to this session and I had no windows in my studio so I come outside to just get some fresh air and just take a break and he's like hey George who's playing drums in there right now that sounds like Lenoir's drummer I was like yeah it is Kyle Crane and he's like you have Lenoir's drummer in your studio right now I'm like yeah you want to meet him so Kyle comes out he's like oh my god I'm such a big fan and he's like who's playing guitar I'm like that's me he's like wait that's like hard really heavy guitar playing yeah you're from the peas I was like bro I never bought a hip hop record in my life I grew up listening to Sabbath and Maiden and he's like oh we need to talk and so he waited for the session to be over and then he's like hey would you consider writing with me for my band and he hands me a piece of paper and it said Cairo night in it and I said um I don't know this band but I'll go home right now and check it out yeah and it's like I'll let you know tomorrow he's like okay I'm I want to write a new record and so from what I heard how you're playing that's what I want and so and this will all tie together to what I said earlier um I go home and I do a deep dive on Cairo and I fight live videos the video of them opening up for Foo Fighters what are you looking for when you're doing a deep dive like this I'm looking for something that inspires me and something that I need that's missing in my life like whatever that is whatever that is if it answers that need that I have that I was chasing at the time with the other band and wasn't successful with that.
43:51
SPEAKER_00: So I was chasing something and it was my wife that came home and she's like she was working she she didn't get home till like three in the morning she At Coachella.
44:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
44:01
SPEAKER_00: She didn't get home till like three in the morning.
44:03
SPEAKER_00: And she's like, What's that?
44:06
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, this guy just asked me to write with him.
44:09
SPEAKER_00: He's she's like, That's the band you need to join.
44:12
SPEAKER_00: Really?
44:13
SPEAKER_00: That's your equal.
44:15
SPEAKER_00: What did she see in it?
44:16
SPEAKER_00: She's just Nick being Nick, which is he's a freak of nature.
44:21
SPEAKER_00: He's like singing, playing drums, playing bass with his left hand, and he's like, Okay, that's an equal to George.
44:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
44:30
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't have to carry someone.
44:31
SPEAKER_00: That was a problem I was having at the time.
44:34
SPEAKER_00: Everyone that I was putting in my van, I I they were dead weight.
44:37
SPEAKER_00: I had to carry them.
44:38
SPEAKER_00: They had no, they didn't know what they wanted to do.
44:42
SPEAKER_00: I would have to bring in top line writers for the singer because he couldn't write.
44:46
SPEAKER_00: And it's like everyone thinks they can write.
44:49
SPEAKER_00: It's not nobody really there are very few people that can actually really write.
44:55
SPEAKER_05: What do you do differently?
44:56
SPEAKER_05: Because obviously you're very esteemed writer and you're successful at it.
45:00
SPEAKER_05: 10 million hours.
45:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
45:01
SPEAKER_00: 10 million mistakes.
45:03
SPEAKER_00: You find out what not to do.
45:06
SPEAKER_00: You just can't be I'm gonna write, I'm a I'm a writer.
45:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
45:10
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't work that way.
45:11
SPEAKER_00: That's where you start.
45:13
SPEAKER_00: But you have to put in your 10 the cliche 10,000 hours.
45:17
SPEAKER_00: For me, it's 10 million.
45:19
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like at this point, I know what's right and wrong.
45:23
SPEAKER_00: There's no questioning that I know what's right and wrong.
45:26
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
45:26
SPEAKER_00: And I have proof.
45:28
SPEAKER_00: It's not just I think, I have proof.
45:32
SPEAKER_00: Yes, I've won, I have awards with working with my partner Will.
45:36
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
45:37
SPEAKER_00: Those songs reach the world.
45:40
SPEAKER_00: But I left that and did Cairo, and it got the same success.
45:45
SPEAKER_00: So obviously I'm right.
45:47
SPEAKER_05: You're Brady leaving the Patriots going to Tampa Bay.
45:50
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
45:50
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
45:51
SPEAKER_00: And so that was proof that I needed.
45:53
SPEAKER_00: And that's what I needed to do.
45:55
SPEAKER_00: Do I have what it takes to actually do this without him?
45:59
SPEAKER_00: That's a very scary thing to do.
46:01
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
46:02
SPEAKER_00: Walk away and be like, I'm not going to write with you no more.
46:04
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to write for myself.
46:06
SPEAKER_05: Could you have stayed and done more with Will?
46:10
SPEAKER_05: Or did it reach a point where you both were ready to it does?
46:14
SPEAKER_00: Where he decided to take that band doesn't, I don't relate to.
46:18
SPEAKER_00: And it's just basic, I don't relate to it.
46:21
SPEAKER_00: That's it.
46:22
SPEAKER_00: And it's as simple as like people love Star Wars and the people that haven't seen Star Wars.
46:28
SPEAKER_00: You don't know yet if you relate to it yet or not.
46:32
SPEAKER_00: But it's just opinion.
46:35
SPEAKER_00: It's not bad or good.
46:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
46:37
SPEAKER_00: You know, at the end of the day, they're just 12 notes.
46:40
SPEAKER_00: It's just music.
46:41
SPEAKER_00: No matter whether you're doing country or rock, they're just the same 12 notes.
46:46
SPEAKER_00: You know, and so that's what it is.
46:49
SPEAKER_00: And that's how I look at it.
46:51
SPEAKER_00: I don't look at it as I'm I hate.
46:55
SPEAKER_00: And see, another blessing of mine is that I've seen the world.
46:58
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
46:59
SPEAKER_00: Genres are is an American thing.
47:02
SPEAKER_00: That's an American thing.
47:04
SPEAKER_00: There's no genres in in Europe.
47:06
SPEAKER_00: Really?
47:07
SPEAKER_00: No.
47:07
SPEAKER_00: We did a festival, and this will blow you away.
47:10
SPEAKER_00: To me, it was the best day of my life.
47:13
SPEAKER_00: But that's normal for Europe.
47:15
SPEAKER_00: I got there, the lineup of the festival, Nick K to the Bad Seeds was first, Iron Maiden second, Black IP's third.
47:23
SPEAKER_00: And that's just another day in London.
47:24
SPEAKER_00: Another day in Europe.
47:26
SPEAKER_00: There's no genres over there.
47:27
SPEAKER_00: They're just there to see music.
47:30
SPEAKER_00: And so for me, that's a heaven day for me.
47:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
47:35
SPEAKER_00: You know, and so Nick, I I put on those videos, and they said, so I went to the house the next day and I knocked on the door and he came out and he's like, I have an answer for your, but I have a question first.
47:50
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, I have a couple questions.
47:52
SPEAKER_00: I was like, what's up with the guitar player in the videos?
47:56
SPEAKER_00: He's like, he's in a mental institution.
47:59
SPEAKER_00: And he got committed, and it's why I had to leave New Zealand, and I want to start my band over.
48:06
SPEAKER_00: I was like, so he's no longer in the band.
48:08
SPEAKER_00: No, he's no longer in the band.
48:10
SPEAKER_00: I said, okay, well then I want to join.
48:12
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to help you, I want to join the band.
48:15
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, you just played the biggest arena in New Zealand with your band.
48:23
SPEAKER_00: Why would you want to join my little tiny band that hasn't done shit?
48:28
SPEAKER_00: I was like, because you're doing what I want to do.
48:33
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, so you want to write with me?
48:35
SPEAKER_00: I was like, but that second question is I will not join unless we get in my studio and write.
48:42
SPEAKER_00: Because if there's no magic, it's not a point.
48:46
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, so you just want to get in there and write?
48:49
SPEAKER_00: He's like, we haven't even played together.
48:51
SPEAKER_00: How would this work?
48:52
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, well, do it the way I do it.
48:55
SPEAKER_00: Because at that time, I was doing everything the black IP's way.
49:00
SPEAKER_00: So everything that I did for other people, for Ricky, for Santana, for everyone else, I was doing it the Black IP's way.
49:09
SPEAKER_00: The Black IP's way is basically you do everything, you don't play live at all.
49:15
SPEAKER_00: So the bass player, you set up the track, the bass player will play over the finished song.
49:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
49:20
SPEAKER_00: Guitar player will play over the finished song.
49:22
SPEAKER_00: Lyrics are sung over that.
49:24
SPEAKER_00: And you edit everything.
49:26
SPEAKER_00: You make everything perfect.
49:27
SPEAKER_00: It's the cookie cutter way of doing it.
49:30
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
49:30
SPEAKER_00: Nick is like, I've never done music that way.
49:33
SPEAKER_00: He's like, I don't even know how to do that.
49:35
SPEAKER_00: It's like, it's fine, I'll guide you.
49:37
SPEAKER_00: All I care about is to see if there's anything here.
49:41
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, okay, I'm willing to try it.
49:44
SPEAKER_00: So we get in there, first day we write two songs.
49:48
SPEAKER_00: One of those was just released recently, like last year.
49:53
SPEAKER_00: Nice.
49:53
SPEAKER_00: It might have been this year, but and one of those songs was that good that we released it, we finished it later and released content.
50:01
SPEAKER_00: I will reproduce every one of these songs.
50:05
SPEAKER_00: And this is another thing that most people don't know.
50:08
SPEAKER_00: And I can't say it on the air because it's my secret, I'll tell you off the air.
50:11
SPEAKER_05: Thank you.
50:12
SPEAKER_00: But there are ways to financially make money by reproducing these songs.
50:18
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
50:19
SPEAKER_00: So what I have now is a template.
50:24
SPEAKER_00: And I've only done this for the Black Eyed Peace songs.
50:27
SPEAKER_00: Like I do a version of Pump It that doesn't have any of the P's on it.
50:32
SPEAKER_00: It's my rock version of Pumpit.
50:35
SPEAKER_00: And it goes over really well.
50:37
SPEAKER_00: And it's just an instrumental, but it's my version of it.
50:40
SPEAKER_00: And the original that I recorded, Matt Garska's on drums.
50:44
SPEAKER_00: I did record that one.
50:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
50:46
SPEAKER_00: It's crazy, but I haven't released it.
50:48
SPEAKER_00: But I intend to do that with every single song that we play.
50:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
50:53
SPEAKER_00: So this will be a growing living entity.
50:57
SPEAKER_00: So this is the baby steps of where we're starting.
51:00
SPEAKER_00: And as we start making money from these gigs, then I'll have the ability to rent the studio, go in, hire my musician friends to go in and reproduce these songs.
51:13
SPEAKER_00: So then the next time you come to a quiet giant show, now I have a CD.
51:18
SPEAKER_00: That's my produced versions of these songs, including songs I wrote.
51:24
SPEAKER_00: And it's not always going to be the same.
51:27
SPEAKER_00: I'll either make it my own or do it exactly the same.
51:32
SPEAKER_00: If I can't make it better, I'll play it identical.
51:35
SPEAKER_05: And this is because of the 10 million hours you have.
51:38
SPEAKER_05: You have this knowledge, you have this experience to be able to Yes, I can do that.
51:42
SPEAKER_00: I can go in and produce that myself.
51:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
51:45
SPEAKER_00: And and I can make it sound, if not better.
51:48
SPEAKER_00: And what I mean by better, it's my interpretation of it.
51:52
SPEAKER_00: The artist might think it's better.
51:54
SPEAKER_00: The artist might be like, that's shit compared to mine.
51:58
SPEAKER_00: But it's my version of it.
52:00
SPEAKER_00: And if it's not better than the original, I'll just do it exactly like the original.
52:04
SPEAKER_00: Because I firmly believe in that.
52:06
SPEAKER_00: You know, when you hear Prince do a song he wrote, um the song that Sinead Oconnor did, his version to me is way better than the Sinead Oconner version that got won the Grammy and was so famous.
52:21
SPEAKER_00: And it's completely different.
52:23
SPEAKER_00: And that's my intention.
52:24
SPEAKER_00: It's like when I have the time, I want to do that to every single one of these songs.
52:29
SPEAKER_00: I want to produce it the way I produce Cairo on every single one of these songs.
52:35
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
52:35
SPEAKER_00: And that will make it a very unique project.
52:39
SPEAKER_00: And at some point, I'll write with Bryce and Keith because there has to be some kind of magic there.
52:45
SPEAKER_00: I know there's magic with Keith and I.
52:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
52:47
SPEAKER_00: And so we can write original music when the time comes.
52:52
SPEAKER_00: But for right now, that project will fuel my original ideas.
53:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
53:00
SPEAKER_01: Well, we'll definitely have to come out and I'm excited for that.
53:02
SPEAKER_05: On the record, November 6th and 7th.
53:05
SPEAKER_05: 6 and 7th.
53:05
SPEAKER_05: November 6th and 7th on the record.
53:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
53:07
SPEAKER_05: Quite giant.
53:08
SPEAKER_00: And it's the fun room.
53:09
SPEAKER_00: It's the one with the the bus in the back.
53:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
53:11
SPEAKER_00: They call the um the speakeasy.
53:15
SPEAKER_05: I love that.
53:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's it's it's and look, I put up as much work as I put into original music I put into this band.
53:23
SPEAKER_00: For me to actually get a full three sets, it takes me a long time.
53:29
SPEAKER_00: I'll start probably next week, and it'll take me all the way to show day.
53:35
SPEAKER_00: Good for me to get the songs to where they need to be.
53:39
SPEAKER_00: And that's me.
53:41
SPEAKER_00: Perfect example.
53:43
SPEAKER_00: So there's just logistical problems with my idea.
53:47
SPEAKER_00: How many songs fade?
53:50
SPEAKER_00: What are you gonna do on stage when a song starts to fade?
53:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
53:53
SPEAKER_00: You have to create an ending.
53:55
SPEAKER_00: So you have to produce an ending.
53:57
SPEAKER_00: So all the songs that Damn, that's a good point.
53:59
SPEAKER_05: Never thought about that.
54:00
SPEAKER_00: Any song that fades out, I can't use the fade out.
54:04
SPEAKER_00: So I have to create a brand new section from the parts that I have.
54:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
54:10
SPEAKER_00: I produce a brand new section for an ending.
54:14
SPEAKER_00: Or a whole new section to the song.
54:16
SPEAKER_05: That's so funny.
54:17
SPEAKER_05: Never thought, never would have thought about that, but you're spot on.
54:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
54:20
SPEAKER_00: Horrible problem to have.
54:23
SPEAKER_00: You can't imagine how many songs fade in the world.
54:26
SPEAKER_01: Probably a lot.
54:27
SPEAKER_05: Probably a lot.
54:28
SPEAKER_05: That's so funny.
54:29
SPEAKER_05: I've seen Bryce perform.
54:30
SPEAKER_05: He's he's an excellent lot.
54:31
SPEAKER_05: He puts it all out there.
54:32
SPEAKER_05: I'm excited to see you perform too.
54:33
SPEAKER_05: That'll be fun.
54:34
SPEAKER_00: He look, I was a fan of his other band, Radio XX.
54:38
SPEAKER_00: I would go see, I love the singer.
54:40
SPEAKER_00: Him and Ben.
54:42
SPEAKER_00: And Ben was the guy that told that story that met me.
54:46
SPEAKER_00: Um but unfortunately, things worked out the way they did.
54:51
SPEAKER_00: Look, it happened for a reason, and it'll work out how it's supposed to work out.
54:56
SPEAKER_00: And it's not going to stop me.
54:58
SPEAKER_00: That's the one thing, the one constant.
55:00
SPEAKER_01: I don't think anything will stop you.
55:02
SPEAKER_05: Getting robbed in not in Amsterdam, but overseas, and that's not going to stop him.
55:07
SPEAKER_05: Almost getting roofied in Vegas, that's not going to stop me.
55:10
SPEAKER_05: That's not going to stop me.
55:10
SPEAKER_00: Nothing.
55:11
SPEAKER_00: I mean, um, they ask my wife all the time, do you think he'll ever retire?
55:16
SPEAKER_00: She's like, oh no, he's Keith Richards.
55:21
SPEAKER_00: A cockaroacha that no one will ever be able to stamp out and he's gonna pass out on the middle of a guitar lick.
55:26
SPEAKER_00: As upstage.
55:28
SPEAKER_00: Oh my god.
55:29
SPEAKER_05: Well, George, I say this to guess, but I I've never actually meant it.
55:32
SPEAKER_05: This is well, I I I meant it, but this this makes sense.
55:36
SPEAKER_05: You are a fucking rock star, man.
55:38
SPEAKER_05: This was awesome.
55:39
SPEAKER_05: I've learned so much.
55:40
SPEAKER_05: I mean, honestly, I could have gone for another three hours.
55:42
SPEAKER_05: I know we got shit to do today, and I know you're a busy man doing busy things, but this was fucking awesome.
55:48
SPEAKER_05: And I want to thank you so much for sharing your your time and your stories.
55:51
SPEAKER_05: Just I know these are just a small sample of your stories.
55:54
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
55:54
SPEAKER_00: But uh, there's 28 years of living years of traveling the world.
56:00
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
56:00
SPEAKER_00: 28 years, which is crazy.
56:02
SPEAKER_00: I mean, when's the last time you talked to a lawyer that had a 28-year career?
56:08
SPEAKER_05: And by that time, they their stories are just uh they're just so tired they don't want to talk about it.
56:12
SPEAKER_00: They want to retire.
56:13
SPEAKER_00: They're they're living their lives and still working to retire.
56:16
SPEAKER_00: They can't wait to retire.
56:18
SPEAKER_01: I also feel like there's only a very finite amount of lawyers that have interesting stories the way you do.
56:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
56:26
SPEAKER_00: Very true.
56:26
SPEAKER_00: But um every one of them has a case that they they have.
56:29
SPEAKER_00: I think about that.
56:31
SPEAKER_00: You know, look, it's it's a it's an incredible blessing that I've been in the same band for 28 years and we're still doing it.
56:39
SPEAKER_00: I love that.
56:39
SPEAKER_00: And we're still, you know, it's so rare.
56:42
SPEAKER_00: Healing, because you know, we got lucky and we wrote a song that at the time the world needed.
56:49
SPEAKER_05: Is it the Obama campaign one?
56:50
SPEAKER_00: No, that was uh I'll tell you that story before we we go.
56:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
56:54
SPEAKER_00: Um, Where's the Love?
56:56
SPEAKER_00: Uh yes.
56:56
SPEAKER_00: Right.
56:56
SPEAKER_00: Where's the Love?
56:57
SPEAKER_00: We wrote, so we were supposed to, we left, so we moved to San Francisco, lived in Bodega Bay, all in the same house, and we wrote 30-something songs for what was supposed to become Elephant.
57:14
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
57:15
SPEAKER_00: We left that house September 11th, 2001.
57:19
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
57:19
SPEAKER_00: We were supposed to fly that day.
57:21
SPEAKER_00: And Will wakes me up in like middle of the morning, he's like, get up, the world's changed.
57:29
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, bro, not now.
57:31
SPEAKER_00: I need to sleep.
57:33
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, I'm serious.
57:34
SPEAKER_00: And I saw that he was pale.
57:38
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, what's going on?
57:40
SPEAKER_00: Get up, the world's changed.
57:42
SPEAKER_00: I get up, when I woke, wake up, I see the second plane.
57:46
SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh.
57:47
SPEAKER_00: And then he said, we can't use any of those songs.
57:51
SPEAKER_00: World's different now.
57:52
SPEAKER_00: It's never gonna be the same.
57:55
SPEAKER_00: And so we had to rent, we were flying to start a tour.
57:59
SPEAKER_00: We had to rent a U-Haul and drive back from San Francisco to LA.
58:06
SPEAKER_00: And we're on the Golden Gate Bridge, and we have the news on because everyone's freaked out.
58:12
SPEAKER_00: Of course.
58:12
SPEAKER_00: And they're saying, whatever you do, stay away from monuments.
58:19
SPEAKER_00: And and we're sitting on the room.
58:20
SPEAKER_00: And you're like, we're like, oh, great.
58:25
SPEAKER_00: So the first song we wrote after that was Words of Love.
58:29
SPEAKER_00: And so that song has brought healing for so many years.
58:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
58:35
SPEAKER_00: Like we were in New York.
58:36
SPEAKER_00: We did the tour, and we were in New York, I think it was like September 20 something, 27th, maybe.
58:45
SPEAKER_00: People came out to see us because at that point we were known as a positive hip-hop group.
58:52
SPEAKER_00: This was 90, 2001, this before Fergie.
58:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
58:56
SPEAKER_00: And so they came out to get some positive energy in their life.
59:00
SPEAKER_00: And people came to this small club show for the first time they left their house.
59:04
SPEAKER_00: That was a religious experience.
59:06
SPEAKER_00: It was unbelievable.
59:07
SPEAKER_00: The amount of music that came from that show alone was insane.
59:13
SPEAKER_00: And so the only song that we kept from that original writing session was Smells Like Funk, where that one made it to the album.
59:24
SPEAKER_00: But that song was the first time that we changed the world.
59:31
SPEAKER_00: The second time, so I was touring with Fergie in Australia.
59:37
SPEAKER_00: We were opening up for the police, which was oh my god, for me and dream come true.
59:42
SPEAKER_00: Of course.
59:42
SPEAKER_00: I can watch Andy Summers every night as a guitar player, was just like and talk to him.
59:47
SPEAKER_00: Oh my god.
59:48
SPEAKER_00: So Fergie opened up all of the Australia shows.
59:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
59:52
SPEAKER_00: We came home Super Bowl Sunday.
59:56
SPEAKER_00: Now, when you come home from Australia, you go back in time, basically.
1:00:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:00:00
SPEAKER_00: You actually go in the future.
1:00:02
SPEAKER_00: We left at 12, you land at like 10 a.m.
1:00:07
SPEAKER_00: the same day.
1:00:08
SPEAKER_00: It's weird.
1:00:09
SPEAKER_00: So we left Super Bowl Sunday, landed Super Bowl Sunday, had a Super Bowl party at my house.
1:00:17
SPEAKER_00: And then during the Super Bowl, like Will's management was there, Apple was at my house.
1:00:24
SPEAKER_00: I think Taboo was at my house.
1:00:26
SPEAKER_00: And he sends me a text message, congratulations, my friend, we changed the world again.
1:00:32
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like to his manager, you know what this is?
1:00:35
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, I have no idea.
1:00:37
SPEAKER_00: And there's a link.
1:00:38
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, the game's on.
1:00:40
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I put my phone down.
1:00:42
SPEAKER_00: I was like, I'll I'll deal with it after later.
1:00:47
SPEAKER_00: So that was yes we can.
1:00:49
SPEAKER_00: He sent me the video, yes we can.
1:00:51
SPEAKER_00: And in the first day, it had like six million.
1:00:57
SPEAKER_00: It was the first Emmy won by YouTube.
1:01:03
SPEAKER_00: So it was the first viral YouTube video that was worldwide because it was a worldwide thing.
1:01:12
SPEAKER_00: It had, if you look at the video, it had people from all over the world on it.
1:01:17
SPEAKER_00: And it like I think the first hour was like six million views or something.
1:01:21
SPEAKER_00: Crazy thing.
1:01:22
SPEAKER_00: So that was the first Emmy won by a YouTube video.
1:01:27
SPEAKER_00: Um where that came from was another pure place of inspiration.
1:01:35
SPEAKER_00: So when I got signed as a writer after Words of Love went to number one, I got signed to EMI.
1:01:42
SPEAKER_05: Yes.
1:01:43
SPEAKER_00: EMI Publishing.
1:01:45
SPEAKER_00: Will was on Universal.
1:01:47
SPEAKER_00: Didn't think anything of it.
1:01:49
SPEAKER_00: Didn't think it was going to create a problem.
1:01:51
SPEAKER_00: I just wanted independence.
1:01:53
SPEAKER_00: I was coming from an honest place.
1:01:55
SPEAKER_00: I just wanted to have my own voice.
1:01:57
SPEAKER_00: And if you're under Universal, he's always going to be bigger than me.
1:02:01
SPEAKER_00: So I just wanted my own voice.
1:02:03
SPEAKER_00: That's fair.
1:02:04
SPEAKER_00: Fail or succeed, I just wanted my own voice.
1:02:08
SPEAKER_00: I didn't know that EMI was the biggest publishing house in the world.
1:02:12
SPEAKER_00: And so when Will would meet like a director of a movie and say, I love this concept.
1:02:19
SPEAKER_00: Can I can you want to use one of my songs?
1:02:21
SPEAKER_00: And then the guy would be like, Yeah, I want to use Let's Get It Started.
1:02:25
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I'll give it to you for ha almost nothing.
1:02:28
SPEAKER_00: Right.
1:02:28
SPEAKER_00: Then EMI would come and be like, Nope, we want this much.
1:02:34
SPEAKER_00: Right.
1:02:34
SPEAKER_00: Really?
1:02:35
SPEAKER_00: And we'll be like, What are you doing?
1:02:37
SPEAKER_00: He was we were fighting like cat and dog at that time.
1:02:41
SPEAKER_00: He was so mad that a big company was controlling his music.
1:02:46
SPEAKER_01: Right.
1:02:46
SPEAKER_00: Because up to that point, he had full autonomy yes and no.
1:02:51
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
1:02:52
SPEAKER_00: And we fought for a long time.
1:02:55
SPEAKER_00: And one day we were going out, we were living in London as a band.
1:03:01
SPEAKER_00: Um and we were going out to an after party.
1:03:05
SPEAKER_00: And as we're leaving, he's like, Alright, enough's enough.
1:03:09
SPEAKER_00: I'm done fighting with you.
1:03:11
SPEAKER_00: You did it for your own reasons, for your family, for your own personal reasons.
1:03:16
SPEAKER_00: I understand.
1:03:18
SPEAKER_00: He hands me a guitar, and he's like, go in there, play the first thing that comes to your mind.
1:03:24
SPEAKER_00: That's yes we can.
1:03:25
SPEAKER_05: Really?
1:03:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:03:26
SPEAKER_00: And you can hear it if you listen back to it.
1:03:29
SPEAKER_00: I'm playing and I'm thinking of sections and I'm hitting the guitar, counting myself back in.
1:03:37
SPEAKER_00: You can hear that in Yes We Can.
1:03:39
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
1:03:39
SPEAKER_00: That pounding on the guitar.
1:03:41
SPEAKER_00: And I'm on the road, and this was another argument I got in with Will, because I'm on the road with Fergie, so he doesn't have access to me.
1:03:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:03:49
SPEAKER_00: He's pissed about that.
1:03:50
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure.
1:03:51
SPEAKER_00: So he gets the lead singer of Live to play the acoustic guitar on the damn video.
1:03:56
SPEAKER_00: That's I'm not even in the video.
1:03:58
SPEAKER_01: You're like, I wrote that though.
1:04:00
SPEAKER_00: I like it.
1:04:01
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing else on it.
1:04:02
SPEAKER_00: It's just an acoustic guitar.
1:04:04
SPEAKER_05: Have you guys moved on from that?
1:04:06
SPEAKER_05: Is that still kind of just kind of hanging over like a dark?
1:04:08
SPEAKER_05: I'll never move on from that.
1:04:10
SPEAKER_00: I'll never move on.
1:04:12
SPEAKER_00: And and you see him in the video where he goes like this on the guitar.
1:04:15
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, You son of a dick, you're faking it.
1:04:18
SPEAKER_00: That was me.
1:04:20
SPEAKER_00: And I did that for necessity again.
1:04:23
SPEAKER_00: It's like I'm I was getting lost, and I was like, well, you're gonna change the way I look at these and listen to these songs now, man.
1:04:28
SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's well, I'll I'll give you another one.
1:04:31
SPEAKER_00: Smells like funk.
1:04:32
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
1:04:34
SPEAKER_00: I was tired, frustrated.
1:04:37
SPEAKER_00: It's hard to work with Will.
1:04:38
SPEAKER_00: Will's a machine.
1:04:40
SPEAKER_00: People ask me all the time after they've worked with him, does he do drugs?
1:04:45
SPEAKER_00: I was like, look, I ain't never seen him do a drug in my life, and I've been with him for 28 years.
1:04:49
SPEAKER_00: It's just wound that way.
1:04:51
SPEAKER_00: I was like, I can't, I can't keep up with him.
1:04:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:04:53
SPEAKER_00: And you know I can keep up with a lot of people, I can't keep up with him.
1:04:56
SPEAKER_00: He's like, man, that was exhausting.
1:04:58
SPEAKER_00: He's like, he's a machine.
1:05:01
SPEAKER_00: When does he sleep?
1:05:02
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, never seen him sleep.
1:05:04
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
1:05:05
SPEAKER_00: So I got frustrated with that when we were living together, and we were we had bunk beds.
1:05:11
SPEAKER_00: He was on the top bunk, I was on the bottom bunk.
1:05:13
SPEAKER_00: We would literally ride all day and sleep in the same room.
1:05:18
SPEAKER_00: So I was like, well, I'm dumb for today.
1:05:22
SPEAKER_00: I want to no, I'm done.
1:05:24
SPEAKER_00: I went to the store, I bought up two bottles of red wine.
1:05:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:05:28
SPEAKER_00: I'm drinking both of them, and that's what I'm doing for the rest of the day.
1:05:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:05:33
SPEAKER_00: He's like, whatever.
1:05:36
SPEAKER_00: He kept working.
1:05:37
SPEAKER_00: So I go upstairs, make some food, drink the first bottle.
1:05:42
SPEAKER_00: And I'm kind of tippy.
1:05:44
SPEAKER_04: You're feeling it, yeah.
1:05:45
SPEAKER_00: I go downstairs.
1:05:46
SPEAKER_00: There's a hot tub outside where his studio, makeshift studio that we set up was.
1:05:52
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I'm gonna get in the hot tub.
1:05:55
SPEAKER_00: Before I get in the hot tub, I grab an acoustic guitar.
1:05:58
SPEAKER_00: I'm drunk.
1:05:59
SPEAKER_00: I'm in.
1:06:00
SPEAKER_00: Another bottle of wine.
1:06:01
SPEAKER_00: I'm in there, I'm not even paying attention to anything he's doing, and I'm going boom bam boom bamboom on the guitar, and he's like, What's that?
1:06:10
SPEAKER_00: That's how that song was written.
1:06:11
SPEAKER_02: That's so crazy.
1:06:13
SPEAKER_05: It's so crazy the history of these songs that they can stem from literally anything and anywhere at any time.
1:06:18
SPEAKER_00: All right, one more.
1:06:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:06:20
SPEAKER_00: Before we go.
1:06:21
SPEAKER_00: Let's get it started.
1:06:23
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
1:06:24
SPEAKER_00: That was pure inspiration.
1:06:26
SPEAKER_00: So we're rehearsing, and this is my side of the story.
1:06:30
SPEAKER_00: Will sees it a different way.
1:06:32
SPEAKER_00: I'll stick to my side.
1:06:34
SPEAKER_00: And that's the beauty of this.
1:06:35
SPEAKER_00: Like, when I do these, they're interesting because you've only heard Will's side of the story.
1:06:41
SPEAKER_00: They only interview them.
1:06:43
SPEAKER_00: I was there.
1:06:44
SPEAKER_00: I was in the room when it all happened.
1:06:48
SPEAKER_00: And he Jimmy Ivine gave him an advanced copy of Seven Nation Army.
1:06:55
SPEAKER_00: The album that had that song on it.
1:06:58
SPEAKER_00: So Will's listening to it.
1:07:00
SPEAKER_00: And we headed to rehearsal.
1:07:02
SPEAKER_00: When he gets to rehearsal, he's like, guys, hold on.
1:07:05
SPEAKER_00: We need a song like this on the record.
1:07:08
SPEAKER_00: Check this out.
1:07:12
SPEAKER_00: And we're like, the bass player goes boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
1:07:18
SPEAKER_00: I go clang, clang, clang, cl.
1:07:21
SPEAKER_00: That's it.
1:07:22
SPEAKER_00: That's exactly how let's get started was really.
1:07:28
SPEAKER_05: Wait, so what's Will's side?
1:07:29
SPEAKER_00: Huh?
1:07:30
SPEAKER_00: Well, what's what's Will's story on that?
1:07:32
SPEAKER_00: Oh, he he he's a producer and he wrote all the lyrics.
1:07:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:07:35
SPEAKER_05: I like your story better.
1:07:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:07:37
SPEAKER_00: Much better.
1:07:38
SPEAKER_00: His story is a little different.
1:07:41
SPEAKER_00: That's how I remember it.
1:07:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:07:43
SPEAKER_00: Listen, I have no reason to doubt any of your stories.
1:07:46
SPEAKER_00: The facts are, you know, remember, I drink, so my facts could be a little cloudy.
1:07:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but yeah, but that's fair.
1:07:52
SPEAKER_00: It's coronas.
1:07:53
SPEAKER_00: It's fair.
1:07:54
SPEAKER_00: It's that age-old thing where, you know, you tell the person sitting next to you a story.
1:07:59
SPEAKER_00: If he's just sitting on the bus, by the time it gets to the last person, that story's completely.
1:08:03
SPEAKER_00: It's like operator.
1:08:03
SPEAKER_00: It's a game of operator.
1:08:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:08:05
SPEAKER_00: But it's my recollection of my time there.
1:08:09
SPEAKER_00: That's how I remember that.
1:08:10
SPEAKER_00: I know that I was inspired by what I heard.
1:08:12
SPEAKER_01: Right.
1:08:13
SPEAKER_00: And it led to me thinking of those chords by what the bass player in the band played.
1:08:19
SPEAKER_00: And he literally stopped rehearsal and was like, let's go to my studio.
1:08:22
SPEAKER_00: And we went and recorded it.
1:08:23
SPEAKER_00: That's so cool.
1:08:24
SPEAKER_00: And it was Will that came up with the pa, you know, the hits and and the structure.
1:08:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:08:30
SPEAKER_00: And he produced the song.
1:08:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:08:32
SPEAKER_00: Right.
1:08:32
SPEAKER_00: But the song itself, the chords and the main structure of the song was written in like seconds.
1:08:39
SPEAKER_00: Love that.
1:08:39
SPEAKER_00: Right after we heard Seven Nation Art.
1:08:42
SPEAKER_05: It's so funny, just those the you would the magic just happens.
1:08:44
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, it was just in the air.
1:08:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:08:46
SPEAKER_00: And the and that song, it's the craziest thing because you can never.
1:08:52
SPEAKER_00: I can't tell you how many times when I was signed to EMI, I can't tell you how many times I would get this request.
1:09:00
SPEAKER_00: We want something like something just like it.
1:09:02
SPEAKER_00: Let's get it started in Where's the Love.
1:09:04
SPEAKER_00: I was like, well, let's start with the first problem.
1:09:08
SPEAKER_00: You need to hire Will.
1:09:11
SPEAKER_00: Because I wrote 16% of Let's Get It Started.
1:09:15
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
1:09:15
SPEAKER_00: And less than that on Where's the Love.
1:09:18
SPEAKER_00: So if you want the magic of those two things, you gotta start with that guy.
1:09:22
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you want what I brought to the table in that music, I'm the right guy.
1:09:28
SPEAKER_00: So that's an impossible request because you would have to recreate that exact moment.
1:09:35
SPEAKER_00: The feelings, resetting, everything.
1:09:37
SPEAKER_00: The world would have to change.
1:09:38
SPEAKER_00: Right.
1:09:39
SPEAKER_00: And you'd have to write a song because you were affected by seeing people in New York and the smell in New York at the time was it affected you.
1:09:49
SPEAKER_00: I will never forget that smell in New York when I was there less than two weeks later.
1:09:55
SPEAKER_00: And so that's what created that music is the combination of all those things.
1:10:01
SPEAKER_00: So it's so ridiculous to be like, I want a song.
1:10:04
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I know the structure of the song.
1:10:06
SPEAKER_00: I know the chords.
1:10:07
SPEAKER_00: I wrote them, but you can never recreate that.
1:10:11
SPEAKER_00: There's no, yeah, you want a sports anthem.
1:10:13
SPEAKER_00: I I get it.
1:10:15
SPEAKER_00: I see what I see.
1:10:16
SPEAKER_00: So do I.
1:10:16
SPEAKER_05: I want another one.
1:10:17
SPEAKER_05: It's it's that magic in the bottle, I guess.
1:10:20
SPEAKER_05: It's so hard to find, but once you find it, it's it's something special.
1:10:22
SPEAKER_00: The funnest thing for me is my friends that going back to me being a sports nerd, my friends that go to like games and they'll send me the videos of like you're at the game again, and you know, they'll play Let's Get It Started, they'll play Pump It.
1:10:39
SPEAKER_00: Here's a story about Pump It.
1:10:41
SPEAKER_00: Um, so we're in Japan touring, and at this time, early, early peas, Will was an avid sampler.
1:10:55
SPEAKER_00: And so he would go to a record store and buy like 200 CDs.
1:11:00
SPEAKER_00: And the way Will would listen for a part that would jump out to him, he would literally put in the CD and just skip really fast until something hit.
1:11:10
SPEAKER_00: And then that's how I started writing with him.
1:11:13
SPEAKER_00: This is my voice in the P's.
1:11:15
SPEAKER_00: The first time he called me to the studio to work with him, he wanted to do a cover of Stairway to Heaven.
1:11:23
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Bro, no, bruh.
1:11:28
SPEAKER_00: I said, first of all, you'll never get permission.
1:11:32
SPEAKER_00: They'll never give you permission to sample that.
1:11:35
SPEAKER_00: Second of all, you won't own a single second of this song because they'll own it.
1:11:42
SPEAKER_00: Why don't you let me write something in that vein?
1:11:45
SPEAKER_00: You can do that.
1:11:46
SPEAKER_00: Of course.
1:11:47
SPEAKER_00: I grew up on that music.
1:11:49
SPEAKER_00: That's how I started writing with Will.
1:11:50
SPEAKER_00: So from that point forward, he would find that moment, sample it, and he's like, Alright, come up with something like that.
1:11:57
SPEAKER_00: And then I would write something in that vein, which would be the core of the song.
1:12:02
SPEAKER_05: That's that chemistry that's so ring defined.
1:12:05
SPEAKER_00: When he sampled Miserloo by Dick Dale, he bought this a bunch of CDs in Japan at the tower in Japan.
1:12:15
SPEAKER_00: And then at that time, I was the only person in the band that had a portable Pro Tools rig.
1:12:22
SPEAKER_00: And so we're on the bullet train.
1:12:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:12:24
SPEAKER_00: And Will screams, George! He hears ha, because that's in the original.
1:12:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:12:31
SPEAKER_00: If you listen to the original, that's in there.
1:12:33
SPEAKER_00: Oh, no.
1:12:34
SPEAKER_00: That's what caught his his attention.
1:12:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:12:36
SPEAKER_00: He's like, I need your pull to rig.
1:12:37
SPEAKER_00: I need your portals rig.
1:12:39
SPEAKER_00: And then he plugs in his uh walkman with a mini cable into the input of the Pro Tools, samples Miserloo, and creates Pump it on the bullet tray.
1:12:54
SPEAKER_00: That's so cool.
1:12:54
SPEAKER_00: On my machine.
1:12:56
SPEAKER_00: And then when we got home, he finishes it and he calls me into the studio.
1:13:02
SPEAKER_00: He's like, hey, I need you to write a bridge for Pump It.
1:13:05
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, okay.
1:13:07
SPEAKER_00: And I I come in and I write the uh la da da da da that section wasn't in there in the original.
1:13:18
SPEAKER_00: That's the only thing that's different from Misery.
1:13:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:13:21
SPEAKER_00: And he then tells me, come back to the studio.
1:13:26
SPEAKER_00: And these are the things that get fate hazy to me.
1:13:29
SPEAKER_00: Well, he'll be like, that's not how that went.
1:13:32
SPEAKER_00: But I remember that he called me the suit of Write the Bridge for a TV commercial because they wanted to sing that song for a TV commercial before the album got released.
1:13:42
SPEAKER_00: And then that's the first time he tried to get clearance for the sample.
1:13:47
SPEAKER_00: And Dick Dale said no.
1:13:50
SPEAKER_00: So we didn't have clearance to use the original sound, so we had to recreate it.
1:13:54
SPEAKER_00: So that's me.
1:13:56
SPEAKER_00: Really?
1:13:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, on there.
1:13:58
SPEAKER_00: So that's how good Will's ears are.
1:14:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:14:01
SPEAKER_00: He's like, hey, I need you to come and replay Pump It.
1:14:03
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, what?
1:14:05
SPEAKER_00: That's the most iconic guitar part of all time.
1:14:09
SPEAKER_00: That's unrecreatable.
1:14:11
SPEAKER_00: We gotta do it, or else we can't have that song on the record.
1:14:14
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
1:14:14
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, oh my God.
1:14:15
SPEAKER_00: I was like, all right, well, we gotta buy rent everything, period, correct.
1:14:21
SPEAKER_00: And this is how much I'm a nerd.
1:14:23
SPEAKER_00: That's the details.
1:14:24
SPEAKER_00: Those are I know what he played.
1:14:27
SPEAKER_00: I know what year strat, what amp he played, what pedal he was using.
1:14:33
SPEAKER_00: I know all those details.
1:14:35
SPEAKER_05: Because they matter.
1:14:36
SPEAKER_00: And so I got it all rented, correct, period, correct stuff, and played it, and then Will's ear EQ'd it perfectly, and you can't tell the difference.
1:14:48
SPEAKER_00: That's wild.
1:14:49
SPEAKER_00: And at the end of the song, I left a little mistake that he was really it's like, you gotta fix that.
1:14:57
SPEAKER_00: No, I don't want to fix it.
1:14:58
SPEAKER_00: I did it on purpose.
1:14:59
SPEAKER_00: Why?
1:15:00
SPEAKER_00: Because no one will believe me that I did that.
1:15:03
SPEAKER_00: What was the mistake?
1:15:04
SPEAKER_00: It just goes, uh I left a little pause at the very end.
1:15:10
SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
1:15:11
SPEAKER_05: That's so fucking cool.
1:15:13
SPEAKER_00: But you know, that song is another one of those sports that they play it at.
1:15:19
SPEAKER_00: And so I get I get the video all the time.
1:15:24
SPEAKER_00: They play that song and let's get a star all the time at sports games.
1:15:29
SPEAKER_00: All over the world.
1:15:30
SPEAKER_00: It's not just America, it's everywhere, all over the world.
1:15:33
SPEAKER_00: It's so crazy.
1:15:34
SPEAKER_00: And I get those videos constantly.
1:15:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I got one last night.
1:15:37
SPEAKER_00: My friend that you probably everyone in Vegas knows.
1:15:40
SPEAKER_00: He's probably the most famous local Vegas person, Red Cub Jeff.
1:15:45
SPEAKER_00: Yes, I don't think she knows.
1:15:47
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
1:15:47
SPEAKER_01: That's okay.
1:15:48
SPEAKER_00: But Red Cub Jeff was that opening night at the hockey game, and he sent me a video of like, I can't go nowhere without you.
1:15:56
SPEAKER_00: What is this?
1:15:58
SPEAKER_05: Well, George, this is fucking great, man.
1:15:59
SPEAKER_05: I I I say this with all sincerity.
1:16:01
SPEAKER_05: Thank you for not only coming and sharing the stories, but thank you for being a part of so much of my upbringing.
1:16:09
SPEAKER_05: Like, I it's so crazy that I grew up on TRL and I grew up on you know all the pop stations and um and now all these other you know rock s rock uh songs and and music that I hear that you are not only uh you had your hand and you're a part of, but it it's so cool to meet you in person and to just dissect your mind.
1:16:28
SPEAKER_05: I know we just got a small sample of it, but I I really do appreciate you sharing.
1:16:32
SPEAKER_00: You're welcome and thank you for having me.
1:16:33
SPEAKER_00: I love doing this.
1:16:35
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, you see I talk forever.
1:16:38
SPEAKER_05: We want to have you back.
1:16:39
SPEAKER_01: I'm about to say until next time.
1:16:41
SPEAKER_00: Until next time, whatever that is.
1:16:43
SPEAKER_00: I'll do it.
1:16:44
SPEAKER_00: Quiet giants on the record.
1:16:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and let's next time uh Bryce will come with me.
1:16:48
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
1:16:50
SPEAKER_00: Bring the whole team.
1:16:51
SPEAKER_00: Bring them all.
1:16:52
SPEAKER_00: And we'll do an acoustic version of something.
1:16:54
SPEAKER_01: Oh, hell yeah.
1:16:55
SPEAKER_05: Don't tease me like that, George, because you know I'm sensitive, okay?
1:16:57
SPEAKER_01: He knows I'll text him and say, hey, you said you would do that.
1:17:02
SPEAKER_00: I can use it because I wrote the song.
1:17:04
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
1:17:06
SPEAKER_00: That's the difference.
1:17:08
SPEAKER_00: I love it.
1:17:09
SPEAKER_00: This whole streaming thing is it's a real thing.
1:17:11
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
1:17:12
SPEAKER_00: If you use a piece or if someone plays a piece, you'll get sued.
1:17:16
SPEAKER_00: You'll get that decent assistance.
1:17:17
SPEAKER_01: Please don't sue us.
1:17:19
SPEAKER_01: We can't pick it.
1:17:20
SPEAKER_05: I don't have pin.com money.
1:17:22
SPEAKER_05: No.
1:17:22
SPEAKER_05: We can't do that.
1:17:23
SPEAKER_05: No.
1:17:24
SPEAKER_05: Uh well, this is awesome.
1:17:25
SPEAKER_05: Georgia Rockstar, like I said, catch new episodes each week on heybighead.com.
1:17:29
SPEAKER_05: Julie, anything before we get out of here?
1:17:31
SPEAKER_01: Bye.
1:17:32
SPEAKER_01: Actually, hump it.
1:17:36
unknown: That's good.
1:17:37
SPEAKER_05: Awesome.