0:08

Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to

0:11

the Bob Left Sets podcast. My

0:13

guest today are hit makers

0:16

on their fiftieth anniversary tour

0:18

celebration The Act America.

0:21

You have Deuey Banel and Jerry Beckley. Great

0:23

to have you guys here. Thank you. So

0:26

what's it like fifty years later? It's

0:30

quite similar to

0:32

the beginning, Bob. We're still together.

0:34

You know, some people might not know, but we it was

0:37

never a breakup, never come back

0:39

kind of thing. We've been doing about a hundred shows a

0:41

year for the last fifty years. Okay,

0:44

but the classic question would be when you started,

0:47

did you envision that you'd be doing it fifty

0:49

years later. No, I can honestly

0:52

say I'm shocked myself that

0:54

we're still and really we are on kind

0:56

of a resurgence. It's been a real special

0:59

last couple of years. Is the live show

1:01

is locked in. We've been through all the ups and

1:03

downs and peaks and valleys, and we've

1:06

got this a couple of younger guys in the band

1:08

now that really kicked us in the butt.

1:10

Our drummer rylan Steen and

1:12

and Steve Ecadion guitar, and

1:14

then we have a good seasoned, uh solid

1:17

bass player Enrich Campbell, so that five

1:19

pieces just chugging along.

1:22

So what do you think accounts for the resurgence?

1:25

Classic hits? Hits, help

1:27

is the same, you know, and there's

1:30

there's a lot of hits um and

1:32

you know, we honor those every night, so you play

1:35

all the hits every night. I have this equation in

1:37

my head. I figured that the people that come night

1:39

after night, those are the people that bought

1:41

these records in the millions throughout this career.

1:43

Those are the people that put our kids to college.

1:46

You know. Our our half of the bargain

1:48

is to now go out and take this music to those

1:50

people and perform it around the world, which we're very

1:53

happy to do. But you're talking about a

1:55

resurgence. Why do you think it's on an

1:57

upswing? Well, I don't know if it's resurgence per

1:59

se. It just seems like it's locked

2:02

in. You know. We were always kind of like, who are these

2:04

young guys that came out of nowhere? And

2:06

there's always been you know, we had a little bit of

2:08

proving ourselves in the seventies and so

2:10

on, but we just got into

2:12

this cruising thing where we're just going to power

2:15

through and keep doing what we do. It's

2:17

not a it's a simple enough formula, try

2:19

and write some decent songs and like

2:21

a record every once in a while. And

2:24

so maybe it's because there's been

2:26

a we've lost a bunch of guys

2:29

the venue before everybody

2:31

dies. Yeah, well that yeah,

2:33

I don't want to put it that way, but we all know people

2:35

our ages, you know, they drop off. So,

2:39

uh, was there ever

2:41

a time in the fifty years that you thought

2:43

I'm done, I'm not

2:46

do this, not personally done. We

2:48

we've had some challenges, as do we said, some ups

2:50

and downs. When Dan, our original founding member,

2:52

left in seventy seven, that was a personal

2:55

challenge he was addressing and he did actually

2:57

a great job, but it didn't allow for us

2:59

to carry on as a three piece. So that was a bit of a

3:01

hurdle, but it gave Dewey and I the

3:03

kind of green light to carry on. So I

3:06

can't say that I ever had a I'm

3:08

out kind of the writing and stuff goes.

3:10

We seemed to be every day we'd wake

3:12

up and have some idea. In the seventies, record

3:15

something or this song or recorded cover

3:17

and I think that aspect of that

3:19

excitement. It's really

3:21

hard to recreate that. I think any long term

3:24

a veteran band will say, you know, we

3:26

had our these years that just seemed to couldn't

3:28

do anything wrong, you know, but

3:31

I've never wanted to stop. We can't do anything else. We graduate

3:34

from high school together, never went to college,

3:37

you know. I learned my three chords, and Jerry's

3:39

a school musician over there on the keyboards

3:41

and so on. So I mean, really, uh,

3:44

realistically, we still feel

3:46

comfortable and enjoy it. So

3:50

now in the era the Internet, there's

3:52

a lot of information that it used to be there.

3:55

But I didn't know until

3:57

I did some research what were the exact circumstances

4:00

as of Dan leaving the act. Well,

4:02

we were still on a pretty heavy um

4:04

series of Right Record Produce

4:07

tour and it filled the year

4:10

for all of us, and Dan was having a harder

4:12

and harder time making the commitment to do all

4:14

of that, and we would book a tour, or we

4:16

would try and rehearse and nes, hey, I can't make it or

4:19

something. He he had some emotional challenges,

4:21

to put it, I suppose mildly.

4:23

He um. He had a very

4:25

stable home life with his wife, but

4:28

he was wrestling with some demons and him

4:31

having the time to focus on that, he went

4:33

through a rebirth, he became born again Christian,

4:36

devoted the remainder of his life to doing

4:38

contemporary Christian music, which we performed

4:40

on when we could when asked, but

4:43

he couldn't keep up the schedule that we were

4:45

doing. Now did you see it coming? Yeah,

4:49

well we were all thrown into the spin

4:51

dryer effect, you know, with the number one record

4:53

an album when we were like eight years

4:56

old and moved out to l a and

5:00

we we were from military families that had moved

5:02

around all of our lives and had that vibe.

5:04

So there was a lot to take in. And there

5:07

was the usual pitfalls, drugs

5:10

and women and the hectic

5:14

road life, none of which were

5:16

at anything really unusual

5:18

when you look at the history of bands and

5:20

everything, and it's just some can weather through

5:23

some of that and some don't. And

5:25

and Dan really did have We

5:27

didn't know this even that he had

5:29

a strong Christian rate. He was raised Baptists

5:32

were his families, all from Missouri

5:35

in for a little place called farming to Missouri. We

5:37

ended up visiting out there and you

5:39

know, we we loved Danny. We were the three Musketeers.

5:42

We've gone through high school and

5:44

we're laughing it up and then suddenly we've

5:46

got this thing, this career for

5:49

God's like. He went back to college for one semester

5:52

but didn't take

5:54

and he came back to England and Jerry and I were still in

5:56

England where our parents were, and so

5:59

it was it sad time and it was that

6:01

was the first big transition. It wasn't

6:04

a shock, to answer your question. We we could see

6:06

it. I mean, obviously we were all complicit

6:09

in that in what we've just lump in as

6:11

the seventies, but it was really hitting

6:13

Dan harder than it was us. And he had

6:15

a So what was it were looking back

6:17

with all these years and now that he's past, what

6:20

did he add to the band? Well,

6:22

a trio obviously, I always think

6:24

of like the three legs of a stool. I mean, it's a

6:27

very very stable thing. We had a democracy

6:29

from day one. One of the things that happened

6:32

very early on in the group was Dewey sang

6:34

Horse with No Name, which was a huge hit for us.

6:36

The follow up was a song called I Need You a ballad

6:38

which I sang, so we right away established

6:41

a pattern of handing it around. It never

6:43

fell on any guy's shoulders. It wasn't

6:46

like a sting thing where he had the right and sing.

6:48

Dan contributed some huge hits for us.

6:50

A Lonely People don't cross the river. His

6:53

element, apart from being a great lead guitarist,

6:55

his writing kind of skewed a bit more

6:58

country, so those songs did

7:00

to have a banjo on him and just slightly

7:02

different color, which I think really rounded

7:04

it. Was a good rock guitar player too. He was our

7:07

lead guitar player, and he was our high harmony

7:09

singer, and that was another feature that we

7:11

had. That's it's an alchemy that you

7:13

can't really predict the three voices,

7:16

the blend, and that

7:18

was a magical thing when we first sat down with our

7:20

acoustic guitars and he had a song and Jared

7:23

had a song, and I had a song, and we started arranging and you

7:25

know, doing the usual thing, getting

7:28

these voices gone and Dan's high

7:30

harmony, it was hard to recreate that. We've

7:32

been lucky. Okay. So once you left

7:34

the yacht, did you change the material so

7:36

you did require it or did you double it

7:38

or did somebody else do it? We had Timothy

7:40

Schmidt came in a lot. Christopher Cross when

7:42

we got to know him, just really fine high

7:45

voice singers. If we needed the three part

7:47

harmony, but there's a great history of harmony

7:49

that's two part Everly Brothers and all the Beatles

7:51

stuff was built kind of on that mold.

7:54

So we were very happy to be to do two

7:56

part harmony. It wasn't like a big piece missing.

7:58

We were never gonna play Dan

8:00

as it were, you know. As as

8:02

a matter of fact, we did some audition, we

8:04

did. We even audition we did just Michael

8:07

stepped in our our guitar tech Michael

8:09

Woods at that time when Dan left,

8:12

he'd been working with us for a couple of years and

8:14

knew all the songs by heart. Was a guitar player himself.

8:16

A lot of guitar techs are you know, and

8:19

he just stepped right in and we said, okay, that's

8:21

good. I think we were gonna have auditions.

8:23

And he said, hey, would you guys consider letting

8:25

me audition and we said, yeah,

8:28

you can have the gig. Just like

8:30

that. We did the same thing when we got We had

8:32

drummer. We were just three kids on stools, originally

8:35

acoustic guitars. Three no rhythm

8:37

section at all. In fact, if you listen to the first album,

8:39

there's not as hardly any drums right here, because

8:42

like on Sandman, there's Dave

8:44

Attwooder and old high school guy who played drums.

8:47

But when we came to the l A and David Geffen

8:49

and Elliot Roberts picked us up and we were we

8:51

were thrown into the deep end of the pool. And

8:54

now we're filling arenas and so on. We've got

8:56

to get a band, We've got to get a thing here.

8:58

You know. It was on the job training and we

9:00

did call some rehearsals and

9:02

we ended up picking the first guy, Willie Leacox.

9:05

Yeah, he was a friend to our bass player

9:07

at the time, David Dickie and

9:09

some guys had flown in to to

9:12

to audition and bless their hearts,

9:14

you know, one guy got

9:17

got a ticket for jaywalking here in Hollywood

9:19

somewhere, you know. I mean, it was really sad,

9:22

but that's how professional we were

9:24

were. Okay, he sounds good enough,

9:26

and it showed, frankly for a while.

9:28

Although Willie Leacox was a schooled drummer.

9:31

He's from his family's all big band players

9:33

from Iowa, and he was good. You know, he stayed forty

9:35

four years.

9:37

You don't, don't

9:40

change it if it's not broken. He

9:42

just essentially retired about four years ago.

9:45

So let's go to the end before we go back

9:47

to the beginning. What's it like to be an act

9:49

with a lot of hits and non quantity

9:52

in the concept of putting out new music

9:54

today? Because there are a lot of acts the Internet

9:56

era. They make a new record, good batter,

9:59

Otherwise it sinks in a day. Yeah.

10:01

And in addition, if they play that

10:03

new material live, that's when

10:05

their fans tend to have a bathroom break. Yeah.

10:08

I mean even we can see that we have many

10:10

albums that we can pick from to do the deeper

10:12

cuts in the show. But if you're

10:14

I always say painters paint musicians,

10:17

right, I continue to write. I mean, I

10:19

can't honestly say that the only reason

10:22

I did this was to make money off of it. It

10:24

was a creative outlet, of vital creative outlet.

10:26

But you're right that dynamic ebbs and flows,

10:29

it doesn't matter who you are. UM

10:31

And I think you just have to wrap your head around it. The

10:33

good news for us is that we built an incredibly

10:36

strong performance space that

10:38

it didn't revolve around, you know, And

10:40

we did experience putting out albums

10:42

that we really had put the nose

10:44

to the grind so and it worked hard on Jerry's

10:47

studio and stuff that Jerry and I had done, and

10:49

and it was disappointing when it wasn't. What happened

10:51

the seventies, huh. You know, it's

10:54

a it's a strange thing. You put your heart and soul into

10:56

it. I don't think I put any more effort into those

10:58

albums that tanked completely that I

11:00

did into the ones that were huge hits.

11:02

I don't know how that works. But Jerry

11:04

is more prolific than I as far as writing, I'm

11:07

not driven to do it in

11:09

the days when we when we first signed with Warners,

11:11

we had a seven album deal. We had an album every year,

11:13

the touring, everything capital the

11:15

same thing. Then you're motivator. You

11:17

have to you have to produce, you have to do something, and

11:20

so I'm not doing it to

11:23

this day. I'm I need some impetus.

11:25

Something is our project. What are we doing?

11:28

Even then? It's um. It's something

11:30

I really have to make myself do.

11:33

So at this stage of the game, is already

11:35

planned to do a new album or

11:37

new music because of the anniversary

11:40

coming up. There's a lot of archival things. Every

11:42

label that we've been on is doing a box set release.

11:44

We just did a show with the London Palladium

11:47

that they filmed within cameras and that's it that

11:49

came out. So

11:51

most of this stuff is archival. UM.

11:53

Recently or a few years ago, we did an album

11:56

of covers in Nashville with a wonderful group

11:58

of players and stuff, which was a need experience

12:00

because it didn't put the weight of writing on

12:02

our shoulders. But you know, I'm

12:04

sure this is your business as much as

12:06

it is. You know, you have a new record coming

12:08

out. I do solo records every so often.

12:11

It's it's kind of cleaning house a little bit,

12:13

you know. I I assemble a dozen

12:15

tunes. If I'm fortunate to have a label that's interested,

12:17

I will support it to the best of my ability.

12:20

But I'm not holding my breath, you know. Okay, but

12:22

you will put out another solo album at something.

12:24

Yeah, I've got one coming out in September.

12:26

Will you do it yourself? They'll be a label. Well,

12:28

it's done. But this one is on Blue Alwan,

12:31

which I didn't last and it's a lovely

12:34

small something

12:37

like you've made it something to happen. He's

12:40

street email exactly.

12:42

He's got that. Kirk Pesk's got great

12:44

ears, this guy who runs this and he did an

12:46

album. I did an album with him a few years

12:48

back. It was just a pleasure from start to finish.

12:51

And you know, it's a different it's a different time. So

12:53

if you cut the record at home and you make a deal with Blue

12:55

Alawn, do they give

12:57

you any money? Well, yeah,

13:00

what do you have? What do you call that

13:04

harshold question? Anybody?

13:06

Yeah, there's enough to enough

13:08

to warrant the effort. But I think, okay,

13:11

that's all I needed. Let's go back to the beginning. Let's

13:13

buy for Kate. Let's start first with you. Jerry,

13:16

So where you from? Originally? I was born

13:18

in Fort Worth, Texas. My dad, as

13:20

Dewey's, was in the U. S. Air Force. I moved to

13:22

England when I was one year old, so I have

13:24

no memory of Texas. Okay, your

13:26

father did what in the year force? He was a

13:29

sack bomber pilot. He flew beef fifty twos

13:32

during the Cold War, and

13:34

he ended up at the Joint chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon,

13:36

and when we met, he was the commander

13:38

of the U. S Air Force in the UK. So

13:41

he and I know some other people

13:43

with the military fathers. And it's not

13:46

irrelevant where you're living. It's

13:48

not like growing up with a regular suburban

13:50

dad. You you, as anybody

13:53

that grows up in the service, would know that you're

13:55

you're denied a hometown, you're denied

13:57

lifetime friends. You moved from the minute

14:00

and the get go. The only good news in

14:02

that, well, there's quite a bit of good news. It broadens

14:04

your horizons. You see the world in a much broader

14:06

way than most people would living

14:09

in a in the town that they were born. But

14:11

also everybody that you are with is

14:13

in the same boat. You're not sitting there

14:15

going why do I feel different from all of these people.

14:18

It's not like you had ten years of some kind

14:20

of stability and then your mom remarries

14:22

a guy in the service or something. So we are

14:24

all in that same boat. And I think it's something we shared

14:26

and it's it was a bonding element rather than an

14:29

alienating thing. Okay, but your father,

14:31

I mean, we see movies like The Great Cian Tini.

14:33

What's it like having it's the only thing, you know, But

14:36

what's it like having such a military

14:38

success as your father? He was

14:41

being a sack bomber pilot. He was gone a

14:43

lot. It was secret at the time,

14:45

but during the Cold War, they would

14:47

go out of an air base and Goose Bay, Labrador

14:49

and fly around the Arctic Circle for two weeks

14:52

at a time, staying in the air. I'll be like in the movies

14:54

where they refuel from in the air.

14:56

So he would be gone for weeks and and I we

14:58

weren't allowed to even ask where he was and stuff.

15:00

So there was a lot of absent dad stuff. But

15:03

he was an incredibly devoted father and

15:06

one of our biggest fans. He kept a scrapbook

15:08

from day one, and he was very proud of all of us.

15:10

And in your particular case,

15:13

you know, in terms of in the house, was

15:15

he strict, because in the military he

15:18

wasn't. He was. I

15:20

have great memories of all of this. But for example,

15:23

when we we got stationed in England and

15:25

there was a somewhat of a welcoming parmade.

15:27

The parade the new base commander and

15:29

I had quite long hair at the time, and he said you might

15:32

want to skip that one, son, you

15:35

know. He he wasn't the kind that said, you know, look

15:37

sharp and okay. So you were

15:39

one years old when you moved to London from

15:41

Fort Worth and then were you in London

15:43

the rest of the time. I was there till I was five

15:46

or six, and then I moved to um off

15:48

At Air Base in Omaha, Nebraska,

15:50

which was a SEC base,

15:53

and we were there a few years. Then we were in Ohio

15:56

for a couple and then when he got stationed

15:58

at the Pentagon, we moved to the DC area

16:00

and I was there till sixty five,

16:03

and we went to Germany, were at Ramstein Air Force

16:05

Base for a year, then went to

16:07

England and that's where I met Dewey for our last two years

16:09

of high school. So you were going for the last two years of high

16:12

school. Now, Dewey, what's your backstory?

16:14

Well, first of all, my dad saluted Jerry's

16:16

dad, that was the senior master's

16:18

large in the Air Force. But but but they knew each

16:21

other. They

16:23

you know, they probably did a small base well

16:25

that when we became, when we broke afterwards,

16:28

but it was a small base. It was more of

16:30

an administrative base by then. Your dad,

16:33

his dad wasn't really flying at that point,

16:35

and my dad was born and raised in Alaska

16:38

and really yeah and wait wait, so that

16:40

must have been like the twenties. It was third how

16:46

his dad was army as it turned

16:48

out, and he and his older brother,

16:50

first chance they could, signed up for

16:53

Uncle Lart went into the army. My dad, I went to the Air

16:55

Force and his first UH

16:58

stationing was in Yorkshire, England,

17:00

where he met my mom and I

17:03

was born, So I was born in Yorkshire, England.

17:05

By the way, Jerry didn't mention your mom's English to

17:07

my mother is English. So then he

17:09

and your father met her in the UK during

17:12

the war World War two. And now did your parents stay

17:14

together, Yes, they did in yours

17:16

and mine right, and my mother passed

17:18

away in but

17:21

we we did the same thing. My dad was actually

17:23

off it also. My dad was in communications,

17:25

radar and stuff. He was in the

17:28

Korean War, and

17:30

we lived in several places. Biloxi,

17:32

Mississippi, was a training base.

17:35

Where were you born born? In Harrogat,

17:37

Yorkshire, England. He

17:39

could never be president, probably not,

17:42

thank goodness, but yeah,

17:44

and I was similar to Jerry. We only stayed there a

17:46

year or so and went back to this U

17:49

s UM and we bounced

17:51

around Pensacola, Florida,

17:53

Long Island, New York, Biloxi twice,

17:56

Omaha. Coincidentally, when Jerry and I

17:58

compared notes, we realized as we were living in

18:00

the same place at the same time

18:04

in Omaha. Dads were there because Sack Headquarters

18:06

in Omaha, so that's the big Air Force space there.

18:09

And then we were out here in California, Vandenburg

18:11

Air Force Base. My dad was part of a team that fired

18:13

some missiles out there in sixty

18:15

two sixty three. And

18:18

San Jose, California. There's

18:20

another base up there, Sunny Vale. But

18:23

then we went back to England in sixty

18:25

five two. Um

18:28

we left San Jose. The music scene was

18:30

happening in the Bay area. Then that's when I was

18:32

really starting to feel some stuff going

18:35

on. And we moved to Norfolk,

18:38

England, a base they're called Lake

18:40

and Heath Milden Hall. So

18:42

I did my sophomore year of high school there and

18:44

then he was transferred down to London.

18:46

The base where we met and

18:48

Jerry and I and Dan and the rest of the people

18:51

we met and friends were there at the Central

18:53

High London, England. Okay,

18:55

now, is that an American school dependents?

18:59

There was another one in the heart of London called

19:01

a s L which was for more of m kind

19:04

of kids of oil

19:06

companies and things and executive civilian

19:09

kids. But this was outside of London and

19:11

it was basically for the kids stationed

19:13

in their parents at the base. And how many kids

19:16

went to that school was a hundred and something a graduating

19:19

class sixty nine graduate, all

19:22

quantit huts. You know. It was an A base.

19:25

Yeah, it's all r A F bases that the

19:27

U S leases. I guess the same

19:29

deal in Germany and everywhere else Belgium. But okay,

19:32

just a cover for a second. Dan's back story

19:34

was essentially the same. He came. He

19:36

came the senior year. He wasn't there for

19:38

the last two years. His dad was a colonel

19:40

who worked in the b X system, the supply

19:43

system, and he had

19:45

a totally different He lived in Japan

19:47

and the Philippines and Pakistan

19:50

and stuff. Fascinating story. But

19:52

we all ended up outside of line. His father was

19:54

in the Air Force Colonel. Okay,

19:56

so you're in London in

19:59

the late sixty for someone who lives

20:01

like in America, that sounds like a paradise

20:03

for musical for American teenagers,

20:06

are you kids? Yeah, we'd

20:08

see all kinds of great music. So you did partake

20:10

of that. Yeah. We

20:12

saw King Crimson every day or

20:14

was it once a week? It was a five day

20:17

or five nights at the Marquee when they

20:19

first started, and we went every night. We

20:21

were like stunned, you know, Robert greg

20:24

like, but we saw all kinds of great

20:26

music. You know else comes to

20:28

mind Led Zeppelin a couple of times

20:30

they were just kind of firing up. I

20:32

saw Jimi Hendricks at the Royal Albert Hall.

20:35

That was great. Um.

20:37

We saw the Stones

20:39

in Hyde Park and really have to

20:42

Brian Jones let letting

20:44

go of the butterflies that didn't fly. Uh.

20:47

There's a place called the Lyceum Ballroom,

20:49

the Roundhouse, which we ultimately

20:51

that was when we when we first started getting

20:54

some traction, we were playing the Roundhouse.

20:57

Um. Uh. There

20:59

was just a lot of the festivals.

21:01

The Bath Festival was a great festival

21:03

in nine seventy that had

21:06

a bunch of American acts. We wanted to go see all

21:08

these American acts because they were coming over Miss

21:11

Janis Joplin. We saw the

21:13

James Gang at the Lyceum. You know, Three

21:16

Dog Night Sly came over

21:19

here in London, so everybody played London.

21:21

So when did both of you start playing musical

21:23

instruments? Hey, I started

21:26

piano when I was three, when we're

21:28

living in England. The house was a furnished house and

21:30

it had a piano in it, and I was just starting to fiddle

21:32

around. And my mom thought, he seems keen

21:34

on this. Um. Got me, got

21:36

me some lessons, and I took. I took

21:39

lessons till I was ten, and then at that

21:41

point guitars seemed cooler than piano,

21:43

so I switched to guitar. Well, if you played

21:45

piano at one time, you could read music.

21:48

You could read music. Today I

21:50

can follow along. I can't site read

21:53

anymore, but I could when I was ten. I could read anything

21:55

you put in front of me. So you were a good piano

21:57

player. I was all right, Okay, yeah,

21:59

he's our Jarre's our musical director. You're

22:01

not. But we put all of the stuff in his

22:03

hands. He's really great at that. And when we

22:05

get into arranging and so on. Um, I

22:08

picked up a guitar in sixty sixty

22:10

three music.

22:13

Yeah, it was in uh, Dick

22:15

Dale lost. We lost recently and that

22:18

was a sad moment for me. And I'm really glad because

22:21

that I'd met him and seen him.

22:23

We actually Dick Dale open for us one

22:25

day. But um so it surf

22:28

music, single notes, stuff, d

22:30

D. I'm not schooled. I'm really the worst

22:32

when it comes to that. Within our umbrella,

22:35

I'm comfortable. It's really tough for me to even sit down

22:37

and jam with guys. But but I

22:40

enjoyed that. And then the Beach Boys came along

22:42

right in that same time. It's Safari's

22:44

and and um the

22:46

Shantas and

22:49

the Ventures and

22:53

so then then the Beach Boys came

22:55

along and then we moved that. That year

22:57

was huge for me. It was like eighth grade or

22:59

something grade and

23:01

it was the Kennedy Assassination.

23:04

It was Ali knocking out

23:06

Sunny List, and it was the Beatles sixty

23:08

four there on Ed Sullivan the thing you hear

23:10

every I'm sure Bob, everybody you talked

23:12

to that Beatles thing on Ed Sullivan

23:15

and we were, you know, smitten, and now

23:18

we're going to England, oh wow, and

23:21

it's just snowball from there. But I never did get

23:23

off my butt and get into

23:25

some music theory and learn some things.

23:29

You know. I was always depending on the other guys

23:31

in the band. It's a relative thing, you know.

23:33

I mean, it's I went

23:35

through uh Bill Evans thing

23:38

recently where I went back and listened to all of that stuff

23:40

Walster Debbie and stuff, and it just

23:43

so humbling when you see somebody who really

23:45

knew what they were doing. You see,

23:47

that's what it's for. I had it all wrong.

23:50

Yeah, but you know, some people the least

23:52

talent have created some of the greatest

23:54

records. Well, but

23:57

I think when you say the least talent at least

23:59

least school, I always

24:01

think of that like a guy like Bill Withers,

24:03

who wrote some of the greatest songs ever. If you just

24:05

sat at a piano in sometimes in

24:08

my life, you know, it's just it's

24:10

just this on a ladder thing. But it couldn't

24:12

be a better song. It's an incredible

24:14

song, but it's very simple. Okay,

24:16

So at this point you're thrown together in

24:19

high school. Do you

24:21

think there's any chance you're going to be professional

24:23

musicians before you form the act?

24:27

No? No, I think that

24:29

that curve when you change from boy.

24:31

We're having a great time Fridays at the teen club

24:34

too. We're actually going to make a living at this. There's

24:36

a story that I've told where, um, we

24:38

were actually going to try

24:40

and make this as a profession. And my dad was a bit

24:42

concerned because we both just graduated, and

24:44

my my brother was coming over from the States

24:47

and he when he came over, he said, no, He

24:49

said, when you come, I'd like you to have a word with your brother

24:51

because we're not so sure this music thing is

24:53

really going to pan out. And by the time he

24:55

got their Horse with No Name was number

24:57

one, and he said to my dad, well, what do you want

25:00

to tell him that staying

25:05

okay? Was there any

25:07

of the thing your father said, Hey, you got to go to college.

25:10

Well, this happened so quickly for us

25:12

that we never got to that point of I don't

25:14

know. I mean, we put out a first album in a single

25:16

that went basically number one around the world,

25:19

so there was not a lot of second guessing about

25:21

it that everybody, including the label, was

25:23

just over the moon. You know. See when we get

25:25

when we graduated in sixty nine, whatever that is

25:27

June, Dan did go. We

25:29

worked at the base to make some money.

25:32

Hey, we got a job. We were working

25:34

in the warehouse in the cafeteria.

25:37

Dan's dad, as Jerry said, was part of the

25:39

b X and the food services

25:42

or something's Colonel Peak. So he got

25:45

us a job there in the on the base. But

25:47

Dan was slater to go to college and his family,

25:49

I think, and we never really talked about

25:51

it much. I mean we were worried about the draft

25:54

of course at that point. And Dan

25:56

did go off and do one semester. Jerry

25:59

and I stayed and worked at the base. I

26:02

actually took a shot at drama

26:04

school. I'd love the school

26:06

plays and I thought, you know England

26:08

Thespian's. You know, I bailed

26:10

out of that after about three months. It was called the Corona

26:13

Academy of Dramatic Arts, and

26:15

like Mark Lester,

26:18

it was for kids. It was a kid's school, teenagers

26:20

and so on. But I was in way over my head

26:22

and you know, they were doing ballet and fencing

26:25

and whatever, and I'm going okay. Meanwhile,

26:27

I'm talking with Jerre a lot and We're

26:29

hanging out in London, and

26:31

uh, that's one thing led to another. The music

26:34

was still the thread. We still wanted to

26:36

play some music, see some music.

26:39

We were still learning. It was exciting

26:41

the scene in London, you know, and

26:43

before you know it, I'm writing a couple

26:45

of songs. And this I was living with another guy

26:47

my parents. My dad had retired from the Air

26:50

Force and went back up to Yorkshire with my

26:52

mother, who always wanted to go home, and

26:54

they got a pub up there. But I stayed

26:56

down in London with another

26:59

kid that was going to high school, John Alcazar,

27:01

and was drumming in the

27:03

room, you know, going to the base to work and playing

27:06

my guitar and came up with some

27:08

songs. Jerry was doing the same. And

27:10

Jerry, you can pick it up there because you started getting

27:12

some sessions in London. I was doing. I was,

27:14

you know, you read liner notes, and I knew where

27:16

the studios were. So I would go down and basically

27:19

offer my because I could play most

27:21

things adequately, and

27:23

I'd offer myself that what do you need a base?

27:26

Keyboards? And so I started playing

27:28

on some people's demos at Morgan

27:30

Studios and a couple of other studios, and

27:33

they would give me studio time in

27:35

return. They wouldn't pay me. They say you can use it

27:37

from you know, like ten at night or something. So I started

27:40

cutting some of my earlier and it it led

27:42

to some of the earliest context that we eventually

27:45

used in the in the business. So but at

27:47

that time at ten PM and

27:49

later you're cutting by yourself or the other two.

27:51

Well, no, not not doing. I hadn't involved

27:53

doing in this. I was working with whoever

27:56

was basically hiring me from the studio. They say

27:58

are you available, you know on wednes Day

28:00

they need a bass player, and I sure go in

28:02

and I'd play on whatever gig on the

28:04

base. Well, that was kind

28:07

of the segueing time when it started

28:09

this started to take over. We basically

28:11

just worked the summer. You know, we drove a fork

28:13

lift and made tea from you got

28:15

to drive afore. Yeah,

28:18

we were tea boys too for the bridge because they always

28:20

have British guys working with the Americans. You could

28:22

just it's like that thing, you got to share this thing

28:25

and alright, YouTube out go

28:27

get the tea and bring me a box

28:29

of Swan which for matches and you

28:31

know, uh, cigarettes and

28:34

things like that. We were we realized

28:36

that if you were a tea boy, you could leave early,

28:38

could go out and the tea was like ten to ten twenty, but

28:40

you could leave about nine fifteen, take people's

28:43

orders. Then you set up the tea and

28:45

it's over at ten twenty, but it has to be cleaned up,

28:47

so we could fudge it into about two and a.

28:50

Good jobs like that, you make your

28:52

own work so you don't have to work those lazy Yankee

28:55

kids. Okay, what about the draft?

28:57

What did you two guys? It was lottery

28:59

by that right, and we had

29:01

pretty good numbers. Dan had a bad number.

29:04

And Dan had come back by then and he did

29:06

get the crap number. I mean he was and

29:08

he had to go to Germany to take his physical

29:11

because you had to go wherever the whatever

29:13

the um area

29:16

that well, it didn't need to be an army base,

29:18

and it wasn't. We didn't have an army in the uk

29:21

um it What happened he well, he

29:23

had he had some childhood illnesses that

29:25

were undiagnosed, at least one apparently

29:28

literally on his medical record undiged

29:30

what we don't want anybody with an undiagnosed

29:33

as ease um. So

29:35

he got the four f And do you

29:37

remember what your numbers were? I think

29:39

I was in the one hundreds somewhere. I think it

29:41

was like two hundreds,

29:46

but I remember that. Okay, So let me

29:48

be clear. When you're in high school, you're

29:50

doing it on Friday afternoon? Is

29:54

that the time when you say there's a band or

29:56

really does the band complay? There

29:59

was there was a band we played. We played together,

30:01

not all three at the same time. There was a band that Dewey

30:03

and I were in, and then Dewey left and Dan came

30:06

in the band. But this, here's this is just topt

30:08

It was cover. So I think

30:11

that the thing it changed when

30:13

instead of just covers, you had to do covers

30:15

and you didn't have to but we'd all play the hits whatever

30:18

they were to be wild. But we started to

30:20

rearrange songs. If you remember

30:22

when like Vanilla Fudge did keep Me Hanging

30:24

On. They took an upbeat motown

30:26

song and turned it into a power ballot. So

30:29

we thought, oh, so you know, you know, there's

30:31

really no rules, so we would take a fast song

30:33

and make it into a slow song or vice versa.

30:36

I think that was the transitional period

30:38

between just being a cover band and writing, creating

30:41

something of our own and are you working out

30:43

it all? Playing any live games? Mostly

30:45

at the base. There was a team club that we played

30:48

every Friday. Did you get paid for that? I

30:50

think there was petrol money. As we graduate

30:54

from high school, that's summer. You have jobs on the base,

30:57

you have this exchange, you play for

31:00

studio time. What's the next step. I

31:08

had done a session for a duo that

31:10

was being shopped around a couple of English

31:12

songwriters. And the guy that took him

31:15

around and I'm not sure what labels he took him

31:17

to, took him to Warners Ian

31:19

Samuel, who was and our guy at Warners,

31:22

and he said, I don't know, I don't hear anything.

31:24

And he said, oh, what's that who's playing that guitar?

31:26

And he said, well, actually that's a this American

31:29

kid who was helping us do

31:31

the recordings. He says, and he said he's

31:33

got his own band, and he and said, will bring me

31:35

his band? Really? Yeah, And that's

31:37

how we got into We had that little moment

31:39

with Middle Earth Records, and that was Dave House

31:42

and was managed Dave House. Well, the

31:44

Middle Earth Records is not the same story or a

31:46

story before, No, that's that story. He that

31:48

guy had signed this duo and he was shopping

31:50

him around and when he took him to Warners, they passed,

31:53

but they wanted to know who that guitar st okay,

31:55

So he wanted to know what happened after that. Well,

31:58

we hadn't. We were

32:00

now the three of us had worked up five or six

32:02

songs and we didn't have any tapes. So the

32:05

only way to perform was to take these guitars

32:07

and and play in the offices.

32:09

So we went in and played. A guy named Martin Wyatt,

32:11

who's still this isn't Warner UK.

32:15

The understanding with the intermediary, he'll

32:17

be the label this This ian

32:19

was a staff producer and and our guy at Warner

32:21

Brothers. And we were playing in the office of the head

32:24

for the head of A and R guy named Martin Wyatt, and we

32:26

played basically half of the first album, Riverside

32:29

and I Need You and stuff. And he has since

32:31

gone on record and said it was the hardest

32:33

thing he's ever had to do. In the business was to

32:35

keep a straight face while we came in and played

32:38

all this stuff. And he said he ran into

32:40

his boss, a guy named Ian Ralfini, you might know

32:42

that name, and um he said, you'll

32:44

never guess what's just walked in here, you know, and

32:48

they signed us. Yeah it was okay,

32:50

yeah, yeah. What was it like being on your side of the

32:53

fence? Did you expect this time? Well, it

32:55

was pretty amazing. I mean, I still I'm still

32:58

was numb about it. Right. At the

33:00

same time, Ian Samuel's

33:03

partner roommate was this guy

33:06

incredibly calledful guy named Jeff Dexter.

33:09

He's in a lot of the British folklore

33:11

and he did a lot of m seeing and things

33:14

at the Roundhouse. Ile

33:16

why he introduced artists and

33:18

he got us on a couple of club

33:21

shows, the Country Club and this guy

33:23

Bob Harris have you ever heard that named Bob Harris's

33:26

DJ in England BBC. He got us on

33:28

the BBC doing just what Jerry

33:30

saying, those three or four songs that we had worked up,

33:33

got really tight harmonies, had all our acoustic

33:35

guitar parts, just three of us

33:37

sitting there. He got us on

33:40

the BBC, and that caused a little

33:42

bit. I don't know where all the buzz comes from

33:44

or how like Jerry says, Martin Wyatt got

33:47

some stuff going around. Hey, these guys are good.

33:49

We can we got to sign these guys or whatever and

33:52

getting on the radio. But that was

33:54

all super like, Wow, what's going

33:56

on. It's happening around us by some

33:59

kind of supernatural

34:01

forest. Okay, let's go back for a second. Before

34:04

you went and played Warner for the audition,

34:07

how much rehearsing gets you done. We had

34:09

just learned these tunes at our houses,

34:11

our individual homes, in our car. We

34:14

would rehearse in the cars. We we

34:16

really I mean, we've been in bands. We knew that this

34:18

just sounds pretty good. But it had become the

34:21

era of the singer songwriters. We'd all sold

34:23

our electric gear in the amps

34:25

and things, so we all had acoustics. But

34:28

I think another thing that this guy that was running

34:30

us around town, he said, Okay, now tomorrow we're

34:32

gonna go see Atlantic. And remember

34:34

we played for Phil Carson in Atlantic. This is

34:36

nine and we didn't

34:39

realize that if you're playing for one label and they're interested,

34:41

you're not supposed to go to the other on Phil.

34:45

Phil would be meeting with Ian from Warners and say we've

34:47

got these great guys America going into the studio,

34:49

and he said, we've got them going this. So we were cutting

34:51

the same songs for all the different labels around

34:53

town, making basically the same demo,

34:56

tightening up our arrangements for the master

34:58

recordings O. So

35:00

you had those two demo deals. Any other demo

35:03

deals we did. We went to Dick James d j M,

35:05

which is at the time was kind of where Elton was

35:08

just starting that and we

35:10

cut things there. We went into Chalk Farm

35:12

for Warner Brothers, which is a great old demo

35:14

studio that a lot of the reggae music.

35:19

So we cut those same songs three or four times

35:21

and kind of honed them down. So when Warners

35:24

pushed go, we said, that's great

35:26

to beat, you know, because it was obviously Joni

35:28

was on Reprieve, it was Warner Reprise and

35:31

Neil was on you know, it just seemed like a great

35:33

fit. And uh Ian

35:36

was assigned to be a co producer, but

35:38

basically just a guy to watch the budget go

35:41

in and just capture what they're doing, what they're

35:43

doing is already fine if you can just get that

35:45

on tape. The budget was three thousand

35:48

pounds, which was seven and a half grand. Just

35:50

to be clear, this is to make the record of the album.

35:53

This is to make the album. So we went into

35:57

studios on Water Street in Soho.

36:00

And and because he and Ian Samuel

36:02

was actually a bit of a legend. He'd written Move It for

36:05

Cliff Richard. He was kind of woven

36:07

into the London music isn't older? Yes,

36:09

he said, I've

36:11

got a great engineer named Ken Scott. He's just

36:13

been working with Dave Bowie and stuff. So Ken

36:15

engineered the first album. We did the whole

36:17

thing for bucks. So you did for

36:20

seventy five hundred bucks. How long a period of time was

36:22

about three weeks to three weeks,

36:24

right, Yeah. We had David

36:26

Linley, of all people who we didn't

36:28

know from Adam at the time, came

36:31

in. I think he was who

36:33

he was with Terry. He was playing with Terry Read in London.

36:36

He was just before Jackson and so Terry Reid

36:38

was the next as you probably know that it's going

36:40

to be the next big thing on numerous times in

36:42

his in his life and Linley was available

36:44

and played, and then they brought in this percussionist, nam

36:47

Ray Cooper of course, yeah

36:49

stuff, and so those are the only two additional guys.

36:51

Okay, So essentially you're saying you produced the record

36:54

yourself, we co produced it. Yeah, it's

36:56

co credited to us. Okay. Are

36:58

you happy with the alt? Yeah?

37:01

I think yeah, I think so. I think the original

37:03

recordings are are good, you

37:05

know. Okays, a lot of people say I wanted the studio

37:08

and I'm not happy. You know, I pushed around Rose

37:10

anxious. Okay, so that you make that record

37:13

and how long does it take to come

37:15

out? The One of

37:17

the interesting things about that was that record

37:19

didn't include Horse with the name. So

37:22

the original British release came out and it

37:24

was getting airplay and same cover, same

37:26

cover, same everything. But here's one

37:29

something that the label did that would never happen now.

37:31

They then said to us, what else you got?

37:33

We're not sure there's a single now. They just invested

37:35

and released the album. But we

37:37

went back in the studio a month or two later

37:40

to cut a few new things, and

37:42

that's when we cut Horse and

37:45

that was released as

37:47

a separate thing. The album and the single were

37:49

two different releases in the UK. Okay,

37:53

so you cut the record, are you now playing live?

37:57

We're still doing these little club John's up.

38:00

Now. Now we've got a van of Ford Transit band

38:02

with three airplane seats in there. We've got

38:04

a roady guy Claude and a

38:07

little whim p a system and our

38:09

acoustic guitars. And Jeff Dexter

38:11

has getting us bookings and colleges and pubs

38:14

and growing up and down the m one and

38:16

we did. We went to Holland. He got us

38:18

a little tour of all these clubs around Holland

38:22

and then we got put

38:24

on the catch Steven's European leg of his

38:26

tour. And at

38:28

that point it was just the three of you. Now

38:31

we we had actually evolved to having

38:34

a bass guitar that Jerry and

38:36

Dan would switch off on. So on

38:38

certain arrangements be to acoustics and bass. I

38:41

always I also always remember we got this

38:43

one off date in Holland opening for the band

38:46

and we thought, oh this is and

38:50

we were playing with some British bands that were just starting. Brindley

38:52

Schwartz Nick Lowe came out of Brindley,

38:55

Swarts and Curved

38:57

Air which um

39:00

uh, what's wrong with me? Police's

39:04

drummer drummer for kurbjer Stewart.

39:08

Um. Yeah, he

39:11

wasn't. Actually he was added to Kryptiner.

39:13

But and Lynda Lewis was a great singer, young

39:16

singer, and she also sang with Eldon.

39:18

Yeah, and that was our little kind. They

39:20

were all Warner's acts burgeoning,

39:22

you know, upcoming acts, and we play shows all of them.

39:25

So before you we cut the cut the additional

39:28

tracks. What was the plan they

39:30

thought? They thought about I need

39:32

you? I need You sounds kind of like maybe,

39:35

but I don't know. It's it's it's a slow song. What

39:37

else have you got? So that's what put

39:39

us Okay, before you get there, this was

39:42

the dark ages. You made a deal

39:44

with Warner Did you have a music attorney?

39:48

I don't think there was somebody. I think there was

39:50

somebody legal, but clearly they it

39:52

was Warner Brothers music. You know, the publishing was totally

39:54

integral to the deal. If you want to cut

39:57

right to it. Yeah, we lost all that stuff, and to

39:59

this day it got worse actually because

40:01

David okay, well we'll

40:03

wait for that. Okay. So now

40:06

they said, I go back to the studio with

40:08

cut some additional stuff and so then

40:10

how does that work? Well, they picked they said we liked this Horse

40:12

song and it was actually called Desert Song. We

40:15

couldn't get into Trident, so

40:17

we went to Morgan, which I knew because I had

40:19

worked there a lot, and we had a different engineer. I think we might

40:21

have had Philip McDonald on that, and

40:24

we went in to cut a couple

40:26

of tunes, but feature Horse

40:28

with no name all came out great. Ray

40:30

Cooper did some percussion and we put

40:33

it out as a single MAXI single. I think it

40:35

had two songs on the B side and it went

40:37

right to number one in the UK. Okay,

40:40

So, although I've read

40:42

a little bit about it, tell my audience the gest

40:44

station, how horse was the

40:47

only name came together? It

40:49

was I was playing around with tunings,

40:53

different tunes, David Crosby and needless

40:55

to say, you haven't even mentioned what about us

40:57

being these knockoffs the ESN guys, Right, well

40:59

we'll get well but the

41:02

best people. Yeah,

41:05

it's beautiful. Well, we were just we

41:07

just picked apart those records, the first first

41:09

to CSN Records, the first three Neil

41:11

Young solo albums. I mean, we're Buffalo

41:14

Springfield fans of birds fans and and

41:16

Joni Mitchell was incredible, so they

41:18

were really right in our face and

41:21

right at that time. So so

41:23

yeah, I picked around to find my own little weird

41:25

tuning. Again, being unschooled,

41:28

it's kind of unorthodox what I did. And I

41:30

found some cords, different fingering and just

41:33

got those things going. And I was

41:36

always an outdoor guy, always loved

41:39

nature, those travels around the US,

41:41

the desert places we lived, Biloxi,

41:44

swamps, snakes, whatever, so

41:47

uh, and it's rainy in England and

41:49

it really was rainy. It was really a tough

41:51

summer, I remember that year. And so I

41:53

just went, you know, wrote some imagery

41:56

some desert, the heat was hot,

41:59

to plays and birds and rocks and things and pretty

42:02

simple, Bob, It's just a travelogue,

42:04

I mean it. It turned into

42:06

a bit of an environmental thing that was going

42:09

on. We were passion teenagers

42:11

and save the planet, you know, and

42:14

so under the cities, you know,

42:17

lies a heart made of brown, but the humans will

42:19

give no love and

42:21

that was it, and the law laws and

42:24

whatever. So so

42:26

the song was written, how far

42:29

in advanced the recording and

42:35

did you write it for the recording. No

42:37

no, I mean that we were, like I said, we were writing

42:39

kind of. It was the second nature now

42:42

and you go back to your room or whatever. The

42:44

distractions weren't as much as they seem to be

42:47

as you get older and families and

42:49

stuff. There was a lot of dead air. We have certainly

42:51

was the analog age in more

42:54

than one way. Life was slower and whatever.

42:56

So there's a lot of strumming in your room and

42:59

would shedding, and so it

43:01

was going on at the time. You have any idea

43:04

when you wrote it this was going to be a gigantic

43:06

kid. I didn't. I thought it was more

43:08

of a novelty song, if you will.

43:10

My mother loved it. I've always said, moment

43:14

the ears, You had the ears. But

43:17

but we were casting our faith to the wind. These

43:19

decisions were gonna be warners. We

43:21

did. We did agree that I Need You had

43:23

this most solid universal

43:26

shot at being the first single, and

43:28

of course best leg plans. Uh.

43:31

Someone said, well, let's see what else they've got and

43:33

when so they had not released Ideaed

43:35

You as a single, No no, no single. They

43:37

put the album out and the album was getting

43:39

some airplay and like

43:42

this, this next batch hadn't been written. It

43:44

wasn't like, oh, we should have cut it for the album. We were

43:46

just as do we said, writing all that, and then of course

43:49

hitting the obvious point you've heard your whole life. People

43:53

thought it sounded like a Neil Young record.

43:55

Were you conscious of that when you cut it? Yes?

44:00

Said no. Like I say, it felt like that

44:02

music was running through our veins and we

44:05

were inspired by it and the

44:07

tone of my voice, I was

44:09

I leaning that way. I don't know. It's like

44:12

people who sound like Bob Dylan or

44:14

they sound like Neil you know. Um,

44:17

it's it's a gray area for me. You know, my

44:20

voice is evolved since then. For one

44:22

thing, literally when we were teenagers, we had these kind

44:24

of younger voices. We listened to our our

44:26

old recordings. It's like that doesn't even sound like

44:28

me, you know. So I

44:30

don't know. But um, I love Neil Young and and

44:33

still do his music. And well

44:35

you know that once the record in America,

44:37

which is my viewpoint, and I bought the first

44:40

album right when it came out. Once that became

44:42

a giant hit, there was some backlash.

44:46

Did you feel and also,

44:49

um, Neil who we've been following since

44:51

the started. Buffalo Springfield had three

44:54

or four solo albums that had got

44:56

to the point of Harvest. So

44:58

Harvest and Heart of Gold are

45:01

coming out, and America's

45:03

coming up with this song that in theory kind of

45:05

sounds a bit like him. Our bass player always

45:08

likes to point out if you look at the chronology, Horse was

45:10

before, it was before, but that's

45:12

picking, you know, picking it apart um.

45:15

But yeah, clearly it would be hard.

45:17

And the irony is that

45:19

he finally got a number one record and he

45:21

was knocked off after one week by Horse,

45:24

but one that sounds like his dad apparently in his

45:26

books, as his dad said, called Neil, hey

45:28

like your new song. But you

45:30

know, I just quickly on that one too. I just

45:33

want to say that, I know we never took

45:35

things personally really, I mean, the career

45:37

has been here this long. We were still going

45:39

to pursue our path. We weren't going to be knocked

45:41

off our our trajectory,

45:43

if you will. And I understand people

45:45

protecting their heroes. A

45:48

lot of Neil Young fans thought it was a direct

45:50

rip off, and you know, and and I

45:53

I can I understand when people are trying

45:55

to protect their own heroes or or they

45:57

think that this is a you know, scandalous

46:00

But Neil never said anything. He

46:02

was We ended up in the same office with

46:04

him. Althoughays a very private man. We can't

46:06

say he's a friend or we know him closely, but

46:08

he was always cordial to us. And okay, let me

46:10

go to a personal note. Tell me the backstory

46:13

of cn Man because that's my favorite song

46:15

on that album. Sand

46:18

Man was, to be honest,

46:20

those a minor chords. When we were in

46:22

high school. We were doing a big song

46:26

meaning disaster and I was done,

46:29

you know, in the event of something

46:32

happened, and we would

46:34

segue into sand and we put him so

46:37

sad man, and um, that

46:40

was another one that I was sitting there thinking

46:42

lyrically, at least I have a lot of ambiguous

46:45

lyrics, something that don't connect. I'm

46:47

sure every writer throws in lines

46:49

at what does that have to do with anything, you know, the

46:52

tropic of Sir Galahad or alligator

46:54

lizards in the air. But uh, but

46:57

I was we were definitely focused on the Vietnam

46:59

situation, and then there were young airmen at

47:01

the base and so on and and you've

47:04

been here, I've been I've been here,

47:06

You've been there. We ain't had no time to drink

47:09

that beer. And it was it was

47:11

an homage to some degree. I'd

47:14

heard reports of a guy

47:16

saying that he couldn't he was yet

47:18

insomnia, he was in Vietnam, he was

47:20

on in some jungle situation

47:23

and just could not sleep at night. So

47:25

running from the Sandman kind of a image

47:28

came into my mind, and and

47:31

then the chorus, and that was That was the most

47:33

edgy song, I guess on the first time. Although

47:36

here was a great song, I don't I don't

47:38

know if you know the song here on that album,

47:40

which we played to this day, and it's gotten stronger

47:42

and stronger in the set. I think. Yeah,

47:45

we played that every night. Okay,

47:47

good, I see it on Friday night. Yeah,

47:50

all right, So let's go back. You

47:52

cut with Horse with No Name, and

47:55

a lot of times, not all the times, in the process

47:57

of doing something, go holy ship, I have some

48:00

great Here was that the case at all?

48:03

You know? Warners I remember saying, because we

48:05

played them three or four things, and they said, well, it's definitely

48:07

that desert song because it was called

48:09

the Desert song. And okay

48:11

fine, which is an early lesson of sometimes

48:14

you should listen to the label because they are the people that

48:16

are going to be out on the street. They're gonna be making the calls.

48:18

It so um, we

48:20

basically played it and arranged it as we did.

48:23

Ian who was in the chair said

48:25

what we got to change the name? Um because

48:27

you know there's an opera in the den, so

48:30

he said it should be Did he say Horse? Yeah?

48:32

I think, But I

48:35

think we were all pleased with it and it wasn't

48:37

like, well that's it. There was no debate

48:39

even though we were making a single. It was it was

48:41

designed to we're gonna come how long after

48:43

you cut it? Does it come out with

48:46

a pretty quickly? And then it

48:48

takes off immediately? Well

48:50

the machine kicked in. I mean they got us on

48:52

Top of the Pops, which is like that

48:55

was the crowning thing in in England

48:57

for your listeners who aren't younger. Maybe

49:00

there's two TV stations over there,

49:03

BBC one and BBC two and I guess i t V

49:05

and Top of the Pops was what

49:08

every kid, you know, seven thirty

49:10

on a Thursday night or something would would

49:12

you know, get around the TV to see the light of stuff, and we

49:15

got on that twice I think yeah, and

49:17

whatever was on top of it was obviously

49:20

the fix was in a little bit because it was such

49:22

a controlled audience that whatever was on top

49:24

of the pops would miraculously appear in the charts,

49:27

you know, in the next week or two. Okay,

49:29

while this was happening in the UK, what was happening

49:31

in America? What what Warners

49:34

signed in the UK had nothing to do with Burbank.

49:37

It was a it was an uh its

49:39

own, isolated kind of company, except

49:41

that it was responsible for all of the American

49:44

content, so Reprise and everything would

49:46

be Sinatra. Actually it was at

49:48

the time owned by the car car park company

49:50

Kinney and um, so for

49:53

them to sign a few acts like they did with us, it

49:55

didn't mean at all that Burbank

49:57

would even listen to it. But because

49:59

we were called America, and because the album

50:01

had done well and now we had a number one record,

50:04

they said, yeah, maybe

50:06

we should we should think about that. Would

50:08

they come over and do a club tour.

50:10

We'll put it out if they'll come over and do a club tour.

50:13

And I love this part of the story. We said sure,

50:16

I mean, we're mery. We'd love to go over there. Warner

50:20

said, we'll send us the parts, we'll press it up everything.

50:23

So they sent him the parts of the single you

50:25

know, because you had it was pressed, and

50:27

send him in the parts for the album and they just hit

50:29

go and there was about a hundred thousand

50:31

things pressed before they even realized that the single

50:34

wasn't on the album. Yeah,

50:36

so the earliest of the release was

50:38

hey, wait a minute, you know that song

50:40

is not on this is that Horse thing? Oh um.

50:43

But we came over and they booked

50:46

us basically in clubs all that, you know, the

50:48

bottom line, the main point bitter

50:50

and bitter, bitter and um and in

50:52

d C which no,

50:55

no main point, the seller and

50:59

we were pining for the Everly brothers and

51:02

Don and Phil had put a great

51:04

band together, which by the way, had Warren Zevon

51:07

on keyboards and Wady

51:09

walk Tell on guitar. And this was February seventy

51:11

two and Horse blew up.

51:13

So there was a line around the block to see

51:15

these eighteen year old kids from the UK

51:18

who were doing thirty minutes. Phil

51:21

and Don would come out and everybody leave, So

51:24

they got a little piste. They had nothing to do with us,

51:27

but it wasn't what they had in mind. The

51:29

next week we were in a place called Lenny's

51:31

on the Turnpike outside of Boston, and

51:33

when we got there we were told that

51:36

Don had got sick and that they

51:38

weren't going to be coming and that we were going to be

51:40

the headline. He said, well, we don't

51:42

really have a whole show, and he said, it's okay.

51:45

We've got this kid out of college, Jay Leno.

51:47

He's a comic. He's gonna he's

51:50

gonna do it's crazy.

51:52

So it blew up pretty quick and by the time

51:54

we got to l A we did the Whiskey, not

51:57

the Troubadour, because Doug

52:00

Uston at the Drupadour had this thing about options in

52:02

the future. So we did the Whiskey, sold

52:04

that out for a week and it wasn't

52:07

it wasn't number one by that point, but it was

52:09

like number two. It was on its way. And

52:11

so that week, you know, we had Brian Wilson

52:13

and that was when the

52:16

the you know, the spin dryer

52:18

started and we flew into New York City,

52:20

first time any of us had done the Limos

52:23

and oh my gosh, you know, and we meet Todd runn

52:25

Gren up at the Warner's office in

52:28

New York and we go to Manny's and get to

52:30

buy new guitars. I mean, it was

52:32

like it was a candy store thing. We're

52:35

going to Max's Kansas City and seeing

52:38

war Hall and it was such

52:40

it was fantastic. I mean, we really and we

52:43

stuck close to each other because we hadn't been

52:45

in the US for so long, and you know,

52:47

we lived pretty simple lives in the military

52:49

and move around you've got this cloistered kind

52:51

of vibe. And there we were on

52:54

our own, wildly checking it

52:56

all out. And like Jerry said, by the time we get to to

52:59

l A, we're at the Whiskey and we're staying

53:01

at the Hyatt House. Led Zeppelin just

53:04

left there and there was still some hangers

53:06

on and a lot of it from the Zeppelin

53:08

tour. I think, um, so

53:11

I did all that stuff and Warners had

53:13

a hit. I mean, this was clearly a huge hit. So now

53:15

we had the entire machine behind us and we're

53:17

in limos going everywhere, and you

53:20

could hit the radio station, you know, it was buttons then

53:22

and switch and you could hear it on two or three stations

53:24

at the same time. You'd hear it and on Kailast

53:27

and you didn't. We got sick of it real quick.

53:30

But where were you the first time you heard it on the radio?

53:33

Well, that was in England English? So what was that like?

53:39

Cool? It was again,

53:41

it's felt like an out of body thing at

53:43

that point. You know, it was like once

53:45

once you get your your land legs and

53:47

you're going forward and you're putting out new releases, you're

53:50

looking for it and you want to hear it on the radio and it's

53:52

a it's a validation. But at that point

53:55

we didn't know what we were validating at all, as wow,

53:57

it's on the radio, Okay, So

53:59

how do you hook up with Jeff and Roberts. We

54:02

would go see all of these acts when they came

54:04

to London, so Joanie would come in, Neil come

54:06

in and play Royal Festival Hall and stuff. So now

54:09

that we're part of the Warner's camp, we've kind of got

54:11

a little bit of an inn. We can get backstage

54:13

and stuff. Elliott Roberts came over

54:16

with Joanie to do some dates

54:18

and I think he was in that

54:20

he was in the Warner's office and he had said,

54:23

I introduced myself for he introduced himself

54:25

and and we got talking and

54:28

he sort of said, yeah, you know, we're putting together this

54:30

band called the Eagles, some

54:32

players back, and you know, we were just at

54:34

all all ears and asking

54:37

about JOONI had played the Festival Hall, this fantastic

54:40

show, and so had Neil a couple

54:42

of weeks before or whenever it was. So we've seen

54:45

their artists and really it was amazing,

54:48

but he laughed. There was

54:50

no pitch at that point. I was

54:52

living with my girlfriend's family

54:54

at that time, s into the wife and

54:57

get a call about three in the morning, so

55:00

he wasn't even dealing with the time

55:02

zones, you know, and it was it

55:04

was David Geffen's secretary saying I

55:06

got David Geffen on the line and he he

55:09

said, we're interested, we'd like to think we can

55:11

do better for you. And the pitch was

55:13

on. And we remember we had this relationship with Jeff

55:15

Dexter and Sound well they were so

55:18

called managers, but there was nothing. And

55:21

we've just been back in the States

55:23

for that club tour and we're chomping at the bit

55:26

to go do another tour and

55:28

we were literally on a plane within I

55:31

had some stuff to tie up. Jerry and Dan you went over

55:33

first. Yeah, he said, well, we'll send you tickets

55:36

and we didn't tell the label. We snuck

55:38

out of London and we moved

55:40

into Geffen's house and Joanie

55:42

was staying at the house and Derek Taylor.

55:44

I don't know if you know the legend of Derek, but it

55:47

was a dear friend of He was at Warner

55:49

Brothers and they were having a panic, where's

55:51

our number one? Acted that we can't get him on the phone.

55:53

And after a day or so, Derek knew that we

55:55

had gone to the to Geffen, and

55:58

so he finally in a meeting said everybody, I'm

56:00

down there in l a with you

56:02

know. It's in shock. Oh my god. But

56:04

we moved into Geffen's house and he

56:07

said, look, we're going to change a few things

56:09

here, and which they did. Well.

56:13

We were all American. I'd never been to

56:15

California in my life until we played

56:17

The Whiskey. It was my first time ever. But he said,

56:19

this is where you belong. I mean, this is on office.

56:21

We've got an incredibly creative thing going

56:24

on. You should be a part of this. So

56:26

we agreed to be honest and it

56:28

was the classic we we do this with a handshake,

56:31

there's no contracts. David

56:33

had a real way with him. He was a very personable

56:36

guy. He was full of energy, exciting.

56:38

He was like twenty nine years old and he thinks something like

56:41

that. And there we were in the middle of it all

56:43

up into Hollywood Hills house in

56:45

a swimming pool, and it

56:47

was just we were just you know, bowled

56:50

over and ultimately

56:52

said, you guys need to get an apartment here pretty

56:54

soon, and we immediately

56:56

started. Yeah, we lived on King's Road right

56:58

there off the strip. We walked up to the Rainbow

57:01

and whiskey and everything. But

57:04

we had to start a new record. It's time when we had

57:06

this, we had music that was we

57:09

were prolifically putting out a writing

57:11

stuff. He got us into the

57:14

record plant using Hal

57:16

Blaine and Joe Osborne from the Wrecking

57:19

Crew. Oh my gosh, we got our That was our first

57:21

rhythm section before we got Willie

57:23

Leecox and David Dickie we talked about earlier. So

57:25

we're in there working, you know, and meanwhile

57:28

David is busy on the phone.

57:30

I presumably because I am

57:32

was as naive as they get. We

57:34

didn't like our early discussion. There was no

57:36

attorney there telling don't let them

57:39

do this, don't do that, do this. In

57:41

fact, in reality we had David

57:44

is the one who set us up with a legal

57:46

firm and a business management firm

57:50

who were still with firms. Yeah we're still widows

57:52

firms. And he did reum

57:55

renegotiate the record deal. That's

57:58

a big deal. And at that time him unbeknowns

58:02

again this is all hindsight and it's

58:04

water under the bridge, and I'm not gonna it's

58:07

too easy to get to feel bad. But he

58:09

could theoretically have negotiated

58:12

our publishing back we

58:14

had a million selling, number one record that

58:16

puts you in the driver's seat, and

58:18

potentially we would have that

58:21

today. But he

58:23

did. He did negotiate an

58:25

advance, a big, substantial advance.

58:28

Anything over a hundred dollars was big to

58:30

me in those days, you know. And and

58:32

we started the second album and we signed

58:34

a new record deal and that was good and we were off to the races.

58:38

But it's all in retrospect

58:40

that we could have done better. We could would

58:42

it could have should have, but I

58:44

think it was all for the better. His his

58:46

cashe his clout, us being in that lookout

58:49

management office, and he was a powerful

58:52

man even then. And look where

58:54

he is now, right. Uh. We benefited

58:56

from all of that and for being in that room,

58:59

in that building with all of those artists,

59:02

and in in a strange way, I look back,

59:04

we were these young kids, wet

59:07

behind the ears, but

59:09

David was putting his artists in front of us

59:11

on those first tours. Jack j

59:13

d South opened the first tour. We're

59:16

filling big rooms. Put one of your other

59:18

artists in front. Jackson he opened

59:20

for us on the second tour. I thought we were just so

59:23

lucky to have these guys out

59:25

there on the road. But but it worked in reverse too.

59:27

We we were able to to

59:30

expose them to some bigger crowds. We've

59:32

seen Jackson opening for Jonie in

59:35

in England, and I think I saw

59:37

him open for Laura Nero

59:39

too. I saw him open for Laura Nero. She

59:41

used to play every Christmas at the film Wore East

59:44

and that's one of the few times where you didn't even know who

59:46

he was. And he played solo, acoustic

59:49

and he go, wow, that's something you're waiting for

59:51

the record to come out, because normally if you don't know the music, he didn't

59:53

hear it. Laura too,

59:56

you know, so that's kind of where he cut his teeth on the

59:58

thing. Another thing was they also had a

1:00:00

very protective nature. It was

1:00:02

no longer the thing of how can we get our people

1:00:04

out in front of the people. It was like, you don't

1:00:06

get to talk to Neil, you don't get to talk

1:00:08

to Joanie. So we benefited

1:00:11

from that in it. At the time with the number

1:00:13

one album and single By the way, there

1:00:16

was a lot of you know, trying to get to

1:00:18

us, and they kind of put up a wall and said, oh, yeah,

1:00:20

we're all too cool for that. Man. We

1:00:23

didn't go to the Grammys when we were when we

1:00:25

won the Best New Artist of seventy two, that

1:00:28

he didn't

1:00:30

so much. No, he would never verbalize that, but it was

1:00:32

a general vibe. That's

1:00:35

that's the establishment, man. It's

1:00:44

it's always the um for Best

1:00:46

New Artist is always the first award, and believe

1:00:48

it or not, seventy two it was in Nashville. The Grammys

1:00:51

were in Nashville, and we were told we

1:00:53

were going to go because we had a night off. And our

1:00:55

year, by the way, it's just fantastic year

1:00:57

was ourselves, the Eagles logging into me, you

1:01:00

know, John Prine and Harry Chapin.

1:01:02

Now, normally Best New Artist doesn't really

1:01:05

get that strong of we

1:01:08

thought at the last minute, they said, no, you're not going. We're

1:01:11

not going. Okay, well we'll just watch it on TV. And

1:01:13

they said, and before we announced the winner, here's

1:01:15

the nominees. Loggins and Messina Kurtin

1:01:17

opens and they do your Mama don't dance or something, and

1:01:19

we thought, oh, well, that's why we're not going there.

1:01:22

There they must be winning. And then the winner was

1:01:24

America, and Dusty

1:01:27

Springfield took the stage to accept

1:01:29

accept the Grammy for America because the people

1:01:31

just we need you to stand by in case somebody's

1:01:34

not here. And she said, I bet

1:01:36

the lads are very happy, you know, which we were,

1:01:38

brittish artist, Where did you put

1:01:40

the Grammys? Where are they today? You

1:01:42

know, because we weren't there. It

1:01:45

took a few weeks and a box

1:01:47

showed up on my doorstep with those three

1:01:50

dreaded words. Some assembly

1:01:52

require and you had to put

1:01:54

the Grammy together you had. It came

1:01:56

in pieces. You had to screw the well

1:01:59

bay. He had to put it together and

1:02:02

it's still on my bookcase. I ended up

1:02:04

mine got damaged. The original one was

1:02:07

would I noticed it was display

1:02:09

at L a X recently with all the various shapes

1:02:11

and sizes, and I ended up having mine

1:02:14

got damaged. I wrote a lot of Hey can I get a new

1:02:16

one? It was like you had to really

1:02:18

had to certify, you know, get

1:02:20

a certified letter and a picture. You're broken one and all

1:02:22

this, And I got a newer one with

1:02:24

the black onyx bace or whatever

1:02:26

it is. But it's a it's a treasure.

1:02:29

Okay. So you make the second record and you

1:02:31

make it. Who's the producers on that? We did that one?

1:02:33

We did? And you're happy with the

1:02:35

second record? Yeah? I mean we again.

1:02:38

We had such a talented rhythm section. It

1:02:41

really went very smoothly. We were in Studio

1:02:43

A at the record plant. Stevie Wonder was in

1:02:45

b the entire time, so we got to go in and

1:02:47

watch him do inter visions

1:02:49

or music, talking book or whatever.

1:02:52

It was just an incredible time. And

1:02:54

that album came out and Venture Highway

1:02:57

was a hit, right, out of the door. So

1:03:00

we cleared that sophomore you

1:03:02

know that jinks. We we had that and

1:03:05

Don't Cross the River, which is a song of Dan's. We

1:03:07

had two large hits, and we met

1:03:09

Henry Dilts and Gary Burden, who

1:03:11

were doing the covers for a lot of those guys, and and

1:03:14

we took a trip up the Big

1:03:16

Sir and hung out at the at

1:03:18

the Salon Institute, and we

1:03:21

just got California eyes big time.

1:03:23

You know. Okay, what

1:03:26

you know for those of us were living in these gas we

1:03:28

had no idea there was you know, venture of freeway

1:03:30

whatever. How did that come up? Well, that's

1:03:32

another one I wrote, uh, sort

1:03:34

of fantasizing in England. I had written that roughly

1:03:37

at the round the same time as horsewo Name within a month

1:03:39

or two. And again it was dredging

1:03:41

up this imagery from when I lived

1:03:43

in California and our family

1:03:46

had driven up and down down to l A. I

1:03:49

don't know if you know where Vanderberg Air Force Space is, and

1:03:51

it's like Santa Maria Lompoke

1:03:53

midway up the coast, and

1:03:56

so I would and this was again it was sixty

1:03:58

three because I remember the assassination

1:04:01

of the President and all that, and so

1:04:04

the surf scene was on the free wind

1:04:06

blowing through your hair and

1:04:10

vent I remember we pulled over a flat

1:04:12

tire. I looked up at this freeway

1:04:14

sign that said Ventura something or another,

1:04:18

and it's just stuck in my head. I wonder

1:04:20

about that sometimes. I was thinking the other day about the surf

1:04:22

music, the ventures and the

1:04:24

word Ventura. It was literally

1:04:27

about the word Ventura because

1:04:29

I didn't have any experience, and and

1:04:31

highway it's just what I called the road, you

1:04:33

know. But there is a Ventura Freeway, there's

1:04:36

a Ventura Boulevard, there's a town in Ventura.

1:04:38

There actually some segment of the

1:04:40

highway. One is called Ventura Highway.

1:04:42

There's a little piece of it or something that.

1:04:46

Okay, that's the second album. Everything's

1:04:49

good, you're on the road, everybody's happy. Who's

1:04:52

the agent? Do you remember who the agent was? Alan

1:04:54

Frey? Alan Frey at At I

1:04:57

f a internet famous. Okay,

1:05:01

and now we're at the third album. That's

1:05:04

when we kind of we had our

1:05:07

we're big now and we're gonna spend

1:05:09

more time and we're gonna four

1:05:12

hits. We had four charting because Horse and I

1:05:14

need you the first venture. So we

1:05:16

were produced at Jared. We've got these apartments

1:05:18

our King's Road. We're all living in the same building.

1:05:21

Some guys from Three Dog Night and stuff we're in there, and some actresses

1:05:23

and things. But you set up a studio

1:05:26

you had. Jerry was always on the front

1:05:28

end of getting the equipment and stuff. We

1:05:30

were able to afford things more and we started

1:05:33

demoing some stuff. The album became Hat

1:05:35

Trick three in a Row and

1:05:37

the title song Hat Trick was a pretty ambitious

1:05:40

thing that the three of us wrote together. Up until then,

1:05:43

we each brought our song to the table this is mind,

1:05:45

This Mind, but we collaborated

1:05:47

on that one track, and

1:05:51

um it was a long time in the studio.

1:05:53

We were producing ourselves. We've got different players

1:05:55

and we got Joe Walsh came in and played on

1:05:58

a song called Green Monkey, and we

1:06:00

Hadna Carl. We met the Beach Boys by then

1:06:02

and we were big Brian Wilson freaks.

1:06:04

Still are and love love the Beach

1:06:06

Boys. They've been our mentors to some

1:06:09

degree for these decades because we then

1:06:11

were opening for them quite a bit. But um

1:06:14

it, it dragged

1:06:16

on a bit more than it might have.

1:06:20

The recording and we took

1:06:22

it on ourselves and don't ask me how we

1:06:24

felt for this song by a guy named Willis

1:06:27

Allen Ramsey called Muskrat

1:06:29

Candle Like, okay, there was a very famous

1:06:31

record, did everybody seem it? So you have that

1:06:33

album? Yeah, we did, and it was produced by

1:06:36

Leon Russell produced and

1:06:39

we really loved this song. We by the way, we're

1:06:41

still like those days with our

1:06:43

albums are vinyl on the floor putting

1:06:45

stuff on. You gotta listen to this one. I'm down in

1:06:47

my apartment listening to some album. Take it up

1:06:49

to Jerry's, Hey, listen to the song. We're doing

1:06:52

that. So we're still immersed in

1:06:54

whatever releases are going on, and this song jumps

1:06:56

out and we just said, let's

1:06:59

work that up. We had done one other cover

1:07:01

on the second album, John Martin. John

1:07:04

John Martin was another guy we played with in England.

1:07:06

We forgot to talk about him because he was he was

1:07:08

something too fantastic guy. Um,

1:07:11

and we've done it. We've done his song called

1:07:13

Head and Heart. But now

1:07:16

here's another cover song, David

1:07:18

Geffen and be with you. I

1:07:22

heard your version first, did because

1:07:25

I think Clapton did it. Did Clapton. Did you

1:07:27

know he did? May you never? I think somebody

1:07:29

else said somebody much later, like twenty

1:07:32

or thirty years. I'd have to remember.

1:07:34

John wrote some great stuff. He's a He was a

1:07:37

tragic figure in the end. He didn't

1:07:39

farewell in his life at the end. But

1:07:42

so now we've got this song, we've changed it to Muskrat

1:07:45

Love. We each single verse. We

1:07:47

were collaborating a lot, and it

1:07:49

fit into our set pretty nice. It was acoustic

1:07:52

in that vein, and the

1:07:54

office didn't like it. I don't think they didn't.

1:07:57

They wondered, first of all, why you're recording so much?

1:08:00

All that money at the table? Yeah, I guess

1:08:02

that was yeah, and uh, just

1:08:05

just for for the

1:08:07

sake of it. It did become a huge hit with

1:08:09

Captain and Tenil, so whatever our

1:08:12

senses were, our radar, it

1:08:14

was a song that went on to be a number one

1:08:16

record. But so now

1:08:18

we've were fallible. Our

1:08:20

record now is Not didn't do as well. The third

1:08:23

album, Muskrat didn't do as well.

1:08:25

And we've had two platinum back to back

1:08:27

or double platinum antains. This one didn't go gold,

1:08:29

so it kind of caused there was a ripple in

1:08:31

the force. Yeah there, okay, that's

1:08:34

it. They're done. Um,

1:08:36

And that was Hat Trick. It It kind of came and went.

1:08:39

We toured behind it and did

1:08:41

what we were doing. Anyway, it was

1:08:43

the fourth album that changed things with George Martin.

1:08:46

Of course that's way okay. So obviously, well

1:08:48

let's go back before Hat Trick is

1:08:50

not as successful. You're working

1:08:53

amongst a group of superstars. Did

1:08:56

you feel you're on their level it's some case as you

1:08:58

were selling more records, or did you feel slightly inadequate?

1:09:02

Well, when you're comparing yourself to Neil

1:09:04

and Joanie, I think you would be wrong to do

1:09:06

to take any other stance. It

1:09:09

was an honor to be just in their circumference.

1:09:11

I think. Yeah, that's really what it felt

1:09:13

like like. You know, yes, there were times when

1:09:16

I don't think I'm supposed to be here. You know, it's

1:09:18

only in retrospect, you go, but you were, You

1:09:20

were there, you were producing this stuff.

1:09:23

You were part of that room. And

1:09:26

everybody's in their bands are all in their own

1:09:28

little bubbles. You know. We travel around here and pass

1:09:30

each other in the night, and this guy's that bands

1:09:32

doing that, and we're all in our own little

1:09:34

heads, you know, and so were the Eagles were

1:09:36

doing their things. I would go over to some sessions

1:09:39

or play cards with those guys and get

1:09:41

to know them. They were all from different worlds, you

1:09:44

know, J D what so. So

1:09:47

in retrospect, we were just part It's like high

1:09:49

school. It's like life

1:09:52

is like high school. Yeah,

1:09:55

there's the big men on campus and that your leaders

1:09:57

and the nerds and the jocks, and it's

1:10:00

kind of like that's what it was everybody. So

1:10:02

there's the big powerful you know, there's

1:10:04

Neil Young, there's David Crosby. Crosby

1:10:07

has always been from from day one

1:10:09

we we met David. We met

1:10:11

Crosby at Geffen's house and you

1:10:13

would think maybe they could be you know, and Davids

1:10:16

had pretty much a had

1:10:19

had a good tongue on the world's most opinionated

1:10:22

man man. But he was from day one

1:10:24

and to this day we're still in touch and he's

1:10:26

supportive. Yeah, he's okay.

1:10:29

So how do you decide to work with George Martin after

1:10:32

the third album hadn't done well? We thought,

1:10:35

of all of these pieces, we certainly have to

1:10:37

do the tour and we want to do the writing maybe

1:10:39

it's the production that we could turn over to somebody

1:10:41

else. Made a list. We always say about we made

1:10:44

this list and of which George was the top

1:10:46

of the list. But to be honest, I can't really remember

1:10:48

what that list was. You know. I think

1:10:50

maybe Roy Halley or some of the good engineers

1:10:52

from that era. But we had George

1:10:55

at the top because we, being Beatle fanatics,

1:10:57

knew exactly where

1:11:00

his hands were on those songs. We knew that

1:11:02

the strange chard in eleanor Rigby was George

1:11:04

had written this thing. We you know, we

1:11:06

had followed like the world as

1:11:08

those records had evolved, and we were pretty

1:11:10

clear on what what

1:11:13

he contributed. It turned

1:11:15

out that he was in l A four Live

1:11:17

and Let Die. He was nominated with Paul for the

1:11:19

soundtrack to the James Bond film, and so he

1:11:21

was available for a meeting and he sat down and

1:11:23

he said, I have to tell you, lads, um,

1:11:26

I'm not sure what a producer does. He says,

1:11:28

I can tell you what I do, but the term is

1:11:30

such a broad term and there's so many ways to

1:11:33

approach it. I know what I do. We

1:11:35

were a multi platinum act with number

1:11:38

one record and follow up hits.

1:11:40

It wasn't like we were unknown. He was looking

1:11:42

for things to do. He was starting to do things

1:11:44

like Jeff Beck and Paul Winner Winner

1:11:47

concerts, and so

1:11:49

he said, no, this sounds like it would be a good

1:11:52

fit. The only thing I ask is would

1:11:54

you be willing to come to England because I've

1:11:56

built a lovely facility air studio

1:11:58

as he was no longer a d m I, and

1:12:00

he said, I really can't be gone that long

1:12:02

because he looked at our previous hat trick schedule,

1:12:05

which was months, and he thought, if

1:12:07

we're committing anguished in the studio

1:12:09

on that. So we said, hell, yes, we'll go

1:12:11

to You know, we're both do we and our both half English.

1:12:14

We took it, you know, why not?

1:12:17

So games on. We we

1:12:19

headed over there, and when we got to Air, he

1:12:21

said, look, I've held two

1:12:24

months. I'm not saying that we need to be done by

1:12:26

that time, but we'll see how it goes. But

1:12:28

I've got two months held and we were done

1:12:30

with that album in thirteen days. We did the

1:12:33

entire record mixed, mixed.

1:12:35

We prepared ourselves. You know, we weren't going

1:12:37

to go over there and waste his time so we had worked

1:12:39

out in the in those apartments and uh,

1:12:42

actually, but yeah, we

1:12:44

were lonely people, lots of we were cutting

1:12:46

four tracks a day. We were done with all

1:12:49

the tracks in the first four or five days. In

1:12:52

retrospect, could you have cut him as well yourself?

1:12:55

No, Now, the thing that he brought

1:12:57

if because it believe me, there's so many George

1:12:59

fans or numerous but

1:13:01

they'll say what did he bring? And I said, I always say

1:13:03

he brought focus. He he refocused

1:13:06

the camera and we were so concerned

1:13:09

as do we said with pleasing him. Jeff

1:13:11

Emeric was there engineering and

1:13:13

they were a team through the Beatle Ears

1:13:15

and for him, he even said to us when he's

1:13:17

done, he said, this can't possibly be a success.

1:13:20

Nothing this easy could be a success.

1:13:23

So and it was for all of us. It was

1:13:26

that was kind of the rereboot

1:13:29

coming out of Hat Trick, and it did change

1:13:31

the field and the vibe. Everything was a little a

1:13:33

little more different. The next album was going to

1:13:36

be George Martin. We had a relationship then and

1:13:40

we were it was a different feeling every

1:13:42

time we recorded in different places.

1:13:44

George was quite an adventure guy, liked right

1:13:49

well, he built the studio and Monserrat because

1:13:51

one of the projects we did with him, we decided,

1:13:54

let's go to Hawaii. Why don't we record on paradise.

1:13:57

So we barged over the entire record plant

1:13:59

to the island of Kawaii and

1:14:01

we had the most wonderful two months. We made a crap

1:14:04

album, but we had We had a great

1:14:06

ton of Warner's money and our

1:14:09

money. He then took

1:14:11

that, as you know, this is a great id and that he then

1:14:13

built Monster At off of that model, and

1:14:15

he went and made Paul's record London

1:14:17

Town down there on a ship. He

1:14:20

really always wanted to record on a ship, remember

1:14:22

that. But the logistics were so crazy,

1:14:24

you know, moving in the whole thing. Okay, But also

1:14:27

we put him back in the charts. This was George who

1:14:29

done all that Beatle music was now again

1:14:32

it had made him a current and the shocker

1:14:34

to find out that George Martin really didn't

1:14:37

make a lot of dough on those

1:14:39

Beatle records of it. I know his son, I know that he

1:14:43

was in the studio then on that fourth

1:14:46

album when they were little kids. He and Judy,

1:14:48

I mean, and Le and Lucy

1:14:51

Lucy, right, yeah, okay, so

1:14:53

you have ten men, you have lonely

1:14:55

people, and then the How's Sister Golden

1:14:58

Air? What happens there? Well, that the next

1:15:00

album. But because Tim Man and Only People were

1:15:02

big hits for us and we were back and George's

1:15:05

in the charts now, he's quite willing to come

1:15:07

to the States because the last one

1:15:09

only took two weeks. So we booked the sauce

1:15:11

leto the record plant in Sauceleto. We thought this would

1:15:13

be lovely. I had Sister as

1:15:15

a song, but I was already happy

1:15:17

with the few I'd submitted for the holiday on the previous

1:15:20

album, and I'm very proud of those tunes. But

1:15:22

when people asked me that I've been sitting on it for

1:15:24

a year. So I had a demo that was virtually

1:15:26

like the final master and

1:15:29

it was just part of the batch. We always do

1:15:32

an album. Each one of us would throw in three or four

1:15:34

and um, I had Sister and

1:15:36

Daisy Jane on that album, so it

1:15:39

was you know, and that became part of George's

1:15:42

He had to decide of these songs. He

1:15:44

was very diplomatic, very it

1:15:46

was an admirable guy, tall and dashing

1:15:49

and handsome, and had this great accent.

1:15:52

Well, I don't think we need that one necessarily

1:15:54

on that's too similar to the one we did.

1:15:57

But you know, get rid of those songs

1:15:59

and to the ones that he felt, and

1:16:01

he was good about that. I think we all had

1:16:03

to defer to his choices

1:16:06

on the song selection. What about you know, many

1:16:08

bands there's an issue how many

1:16:10

songs I got on the album songs you got on

1:16:12

the album because we're making a different amount of money. Did that ever

1:16:14

come up? Well, we were lucky that

1:16:17

way that there were three writers and each of us

1:16:19

had hits, and each of us had has

1:16:21

our writer's name on that hit.

1:16:23

But I think we you know, it's

1:16:26

always a group effort at the end of the day. There's

1:16:28

always so many contributors to

1:16:30

a song. But I'm the publishing, the person

1:16:32

of the credit that you know that the

1:16:35

like the famous Lennon and McCartney stories

1:16:37

where it helped each of them because it egged

1:16:39

them both on. I think in our case, because we

1:16:41

knew we were supposed to contribute three

1:16:43

or four each, and this is why we picked

1:16:45

we'd picked three each or four each in and picked one

1:16:48

cover song that we all agreed on but it

1:16:50

I think that kind of competition

1:16:53

was very constructive during that time because

1:16:55

we'd each had some success. It wasn't

1:16:57

kind of the George Harrison thing if I can't get my songs

1:17:00

listened to, you know. And the first album

1:17:02

was thirteen days. The subsequent work

1:17:04

with George it got longer

1:17:06

and but not crazy. It never again focused.

1:17:09

This guy was he knew what he

1:17:11

was doing and we were not in awe

1:17:13

of him. By this point we had a really good working

1:17:15

relationship, like a father.

1:17:18

Each day was structured. You know. He'd

1:17:20

know, we got to work on this background vocals

1:17:22

on the third verse in that song. Today,

1:17:25

we've got to cut the track, this new

1:17:27

track. Or when we were working by

1:17:29

ourselves, especially on hat Trick, it was almost

1:17:31

come in and okay, let's I want

1:17:33

to do my song today. Let's and

1:17:36

it dragged out and we'd stay

1:17:38

up late in the studio and we're trying

1:17:40

to get someone to run off a tape off, run off

1:17:43

cassette for us at three in the mornings, like

1:17:45

go home and listen to it. George

1:17:47

cut all that out, you know, he had a working

1:17:50

schedule, and remember he'd say

1:17:52

we're cutting tracks, let's do it one more time. I'll call

1:17:55

this the egg and bacon cut, because

1:17:57

we were going to stop and have bacon, and they called egg

1:17:59

and bacon in England. So you

1:18:01

know, he just kept it moving along gently and

1:18:04

smoothly, and because you can waste a lot

1:18:06

of time in the studio if you want to, I mean

1:18:09

back in that era. Did he charge more than all

1:18:11

the other producers? No, no he

1:18:14

didn't. And if you know that history that

1:18:16

his he had a staff deal at E M I.

1:18:19

He made no money from all those Beatles records. He

1:18:21

he actually openly in interview said

1:18:23

it wasn't until he worked with America that he made real

1:18:26

money because we were selling millions of records, of

1:18:28

which he had a good producer's points, and

1:18:31

uh you know about time, not until

1:18:34

they did the anthology project when

1:18:36

they all got to renegotiate before we do this,

1:18:38

and he made a ton off of all the Beatle re

1:18:40

releases. Okay, so

1:18:43

you know, for an amateur sitting here, George

1:18:45

Martin says, want to record in England, I'm

1:18:47

adding up, you know, sitting in the suburbs,

1:18:50

the flights, the hotel rules,

1:18:53

you know, does anybody ever say, well, that's going to cost us

1:18:55

a lot of money. We were never good at that and didn't

1:18:57

spot that until the way through. Like you

1:19:00

can, you can extrapolate that

1:19:02

out to getting private planes and

1:19:04

keeping a limo on twenty four hour

1:19:06

call because you might want a burger and three of them on. We

1:19:08

didn't do good in that department, mob.

1:19:11

Okay, So at the end of your

1:19:13

hit run at the end of the seventies, did you

1:19:15

have any money? My

1:19:18

joke line is that we tried our best to spend

1:19:20

it all, but we haven't been successful. We

1:19:22

did, We've managed. We're not like

1:19:25

some, but we're certainly no complaints.

1:19:28

Okay, So how do you end up with Capital? Our

1:19:32

deal had come was winding down

1:19:34

the seven years with Warners and

1:19:37

what was the The last album was

1:19:39

Silent Letter. The last one we did that was

1:19:43

Oh that was on Capital. Perspective

1:19:45

was the last one we

1:19:48

did Harbor. The one in Hawaii was the last

1:19:50

one we did with Dan and the

1:19:52

deal was over basically, but they had an obligatory

1:19:54

live album. Dan had left

1:19:57

and we owed one more album. So we went

1:19:59

into the Greek theater. We had met um

1:20:02

Elmer Bernstein and so we

1:20:04

went in three nights at the Greek with Elmer Bernstein

1:20:06

conducting the l A Phil and we recorded

1:20:09

all of that. George was allowed

1:20:11

to produce in the States. He was now kept

1:20:13

the place in the States and his tax structure didn't

1:20:15

allow him to perform, so we asked Elmer

1:20:18

if he would conduct. So that was the final Warner's

1:20:20

album. Those albums hadn't done well by

1:20:22

that point that the usual ebbs and for us,

1:20:25

so Capital was interested. They paid us

1:20:27

a pretty healthy advantage. We had changed management.

1:20:29

By then, John Hartman

1:20:31

and Harlan Goodman, who were part of the Geffen

1:20:33

Roberts management team, had

1:20:36

had peeled off and had taken I think Crosby

1:20:38

and Nash and Poco and us.

1:20:41

So I heart been well, yeah,

1:20:44

I do his class I speak of yeah right,

1:20:46

and of course, bless his heart. Phil was his brother.

1:20:49

Of course, those bugs from Phil.

1:20:51

Phil did the cover of our greatest hits,

1:20:53

The History album is a piece of art. Okay,

1:20:57

so you switched to Capital, Yeah,

1:21:00

and now we're a duo. And George actually

1:21:02

said before we did that silent letter out and he said,

1:21:04

I'm not sure I've really got any more to contribute.

1:21:07

I mean, he was clearly saying I think as his run.

1:21:09

Its course, I'll do it if you like, which we

1:21:11

basically said to of course, you've got to do it diplomacy.

1:21:14

So that was the last one we did with George and

1:21:16

it didn't Although it had some international success,

1:21:18

it didn't have anything here in the States and

1:21:20

Capital. Having ponied up this money,

1:21:23

now was given an album that was now two guys

1:21:25

instead of three with no hits on it. So

1:21:28

it was rocky from from day one. Yeah,

1:21:31

that those years are are kind of now

1:21:33

we're into the eighties and stuff is changing.

1:21:36

Stuff was changing all the time in the seventies to the

1:21:39

disco movement, and but now

1:21:41

the eighties is a whole new thing, new wave, and our

1:21:43

music isn't really adapting to

1:21:46

that. We've we finally

1:21:48

started using some different writers

1:21:50

and some we figured we can change virtually

1:21:53

everything but ourselves. You know, we can try

1:21:56

some different and people were

1:21:59

suggesting, you gotta use this producer, you gotta

1:22:01

listen to this song, I gotta record that song.

1:22:03

I remember feeling a bit discombobulated

1:22:06

during that first few years, but we

1:22:08

got You Can Do Magic

1:22:11

was written for us and

1:22:14

Russ Ballard, who was a great

1:22:16

British writer he'd written for the

1:22:19

Zombies and

1:22:23

he wrote I'm Winning for Santana, which was one

1:22:25

of their only actual hits,

1:22:27

and that was that was a breath of fresh

1:22:29

air and that was a shot in the arm and it got us back

1:22:32

into the top ten and we

1:22:34

were back. It jelled

1:22:36

and we came back together. I thought, pretty

1:22:39

well, those were exciting times at that point,

1:22:41

and we could appreciate it that much. We

1:22:43

hadn't had a hit for a while and there

1:22:46

it wasn't. It put us back

1:22:48

in in the mainstream, if you will, and we

1:22:50

were doing TV and all this stuff,

1:22:53

but it still felt like we were

1:22:55

trying stretching to get

1:22:58

some some stuff on these records

1:23:00

of our own, and some

1:23:04

of it doesn't. It's not as cohesive when you have three producers

1:23:06

on a record coming from Bobby Columbia

1:23:09

was working with us at that point. I remember when

1:23:12

when you're selling, everybody's happy, they don't

1:23:15

mess with it. You know, we were producing them ourselves

1:23:17

or George and they put them out and you're

1:23:19

selling. When you're not selling,

1:23:21

everybody starts to come up with, you

1:23:24

know, and investor trying to

1:23:26

accommodate all of this different inputs. So whoever

1:23:29

was the head, and Capital had three or four

1:23:31

heads while we were there. It was it was,

1:23:33

it was changing almost yearly. It's

1:23:35

interesting Hart had the same experience,

1:23:38

right, They on their ole material, They're

1:23:40

an epic, and they went to Capital and then

1:23:42

ultimately they started singing other people's songs.

1:23:44

Yeah. Well again, I can't

1:23:46

really say what their dynamic was that caused

1:23:49

that, but I think everybody's intentions, right, everybody

1:23:51

wants to sell records. It's not like, hey, I'll

1:23:53

show you what we can do with these guys. We can trash these

1:23:55

guys in a couple of And by the way, we were

1:23:57

also growing up, if you will,

1:24:00

and had marriages and children

1:24:02

and mortgages, and it wasn't

1:24:05

the apartments and the Three Musketeers

1:24:07

anymore. There was a lot more to

1:24:09

life, which is what starts happening,

1:24:11

as we know. And I

1:24:14

had moved to Marin County at that point,

1:24:16

and I had had a son, Um

1:24:19

in seventy seven and my daughter

1:24:21

in eighty one. You'd had Matt, So

1:24:26

it's no more seven music

1:24:29

and rock and roll, you know, it's the juggling

1:24:32

starts there. And it's okay,

1:24:35

are both of you married been married?

1:24:37

How many times I'm un numbered

1:24:39

to my last marriage? Three?

1:24:42

Three? And how long you are you been married

1:24:44

the third time? We've been together for

1:24:46

seven years. Now we've been married for two.

1:24:49

And how many kids don't you each of you have? I

1:24:51

have two sons and I have now inherited

1:24:54

three step kids, so I have five total. I

1:24:57

was married twenty seven years to my first wife with

1:24:59

two two kids and son and a daughter. I've

1:25:01

been married seventeen years to my Okay,

1:25:04

those are two long runs. How does it end

1:25:06

after twenty seven years? Oh,

1:25:09

it wasn't that great. I mean it was we'd

1:25:11

had a happy life, you

1:25:14

know. It's we've been divorced

1:25:16

since and I've been married for seventeen

1:25:19

years to Penny, my present beautiful

1:25:21

wife, and we're very happy. And I

1:25:25

wasn't so happy at the end of my first marriage

1:25:27

and things. The kids were

1:25:29

already out, my son had already gotten out of

1:25:31

high school, and my daughter was

1:25:34

a senior, and things just um,

1:25:37

I wish I had an answer for that stuff. It

1:25:39

is. It's just much. There's always

1:25:42

sad stuff. You just can't

1:25:44

get around life in in these

1:25:46

areas that you

1:25:49

know, I always envisioned sitting

1:25:51

on the porch in the rocking chair, looking

1:25:53

back at my rock and roll life and having

1:25:56

the same nuclear family and everything.

1:25:58

You know, it's I'm very

1:26:01

grateful for the for what did happen

1:26:03

in the first marriage and the children and the

1:26:05

life we had in Marin County. It was cool and

1:26:08

hanging out with the dead and beautiful

1:26:10

home. That's when we did have spent

1:26:12

some money in and stretched.

1:26:14

But I'm very happy now. It's

1:26:17

it's a whole second second

1:26:19

life now. Usually when you're successful,

1:26:22

the forces are very expensive. So

1:26:25

at this point, do you guys have to go on the

1:26:27

road to pay the bills? Well,

1:26:30

we'd probably have to adjust our lifestyle a

1:26:32

little bit if we didn't, and the road it became

1:26:34

a business many years ago for us. But

1:26:36

it's to just call it that is

1:26:39

really it's not fair because it's

1:26:41

so much more than we're working bad. I mean, it's

1:26:43

okay, So these days a year do you work? We'd

1:26:45

like to call it a hundred shows, which

1:26:47

is about two hundred days of travel, but it's it's

1:26:50

been settling down about eighty six

1:26:52

Sames. How

1:26:54

often do you play outside of the US? Every

1:26:57

year? We're off to Italy. First two weeks of

1:27:00

July. I now live. My wife is Australian

1:27:02

and we live in Sydney, and so we have a

1:27:04

home in Venice here and we have a home in Sydney.

1:27:07

And for example, we just heard today that we're

1:27:09

off to Australia for two or three week tour

1:27:12

later in the year. You know, every

1:27:14

day the phone rings and you're just not sure how it's

1:27:16

gonna You don't at least it's yeah,

1:27:19

no, it doesn't all just fall in your lap.

1:27:21

Here's next year. You know, it has to be pieced

1:27:23

together by a variety of people, and very

1:27:25

grateful for that fact. You know that the people

1:27:28

still want to come to the show's agents can't

1:27:30

not find work. There's stuff out there. Lots

1:27:33

of venues we we repeat play

1:27:35

year after year, and it's a nice mixture

1:27:37

of of of theaters. And of

1:27:40

course the casino circuit is great, and

1:27:42

arenas and festivals and tours

1:27:45

in Europe. We were just in Israel for the

1:27:47

first time recently. There's

1:27:49

always some new experience out there. I

1:27:52

mean, we've played Africa, we've played

1:27:54

Morocco, we've played India, we've played Indonesia,

1:27:58

Malaysia, your name at the Philippine tours

1:28:00

of US bases that

1:28:02

took us into the DMZ in Korea.

1:28:04

I mean, we've just had an unbelievably

1:28:07

fantastic time of it and

1:28:09

we're not we're not looking to stop

1:28:12

soon, you know, we're The Italian

1:28:14

tour, for example, is all roman

1:28:16

amphitheaters, outdoor, historic,

1:28:19

under the stars in the middle of the summer in Italy.

1:28:21

I mean, it's just beautiful. Well, I know

1:28:24

this guy was a photographer for led Zeppelin

1:28:26

and it's heyday, this of course before digital

1:28:29

photography. And he says, I've

1:28:31

been all over the world that I see nothing. So

1:28:34

when you guys go to these places, do

1:28:36

you take advantage or of Tuesday it's,

1:28:38

you know, Pittsburgh. It's a bit of both. I think

1:28:41

I try to personally, I try and add some

1:28:43

time before or after if we're going to someplace

1:28:45

lovely, my wife and I will try and add a week

1:28:47

if we can. We're off to Italy and we'll

1:28:49

go four days early, which is as much as we could

1:28:52

fit in in the schedule. So

1:28:54

you do what you can, but work comes for We've

1:28:56

always had an interest in it, and I think the fact that

1:28:58

we traveled as kids, uh, in the Air

1:29:00

Force, you're you're just that little

1:29:03

bit more looking at things and

1:29:05

trying to center yourself in these places

1:29:07

that you've never been. And and I

1:29:09

think that applies in this business. We're

1:29:12

into constantly looking look

1:29:14

at the maps, look at a visitor's guide,

1:29:16

see what's around the hotel. Obviously it's

1:29:19

stressful physically when

1:29:21

you're touring and your one night

1:29:23

ers and you get into a town, you don't want

1:29:25

to do anything, but we try, especially

1:29:28

foreign dates, you try to make an effort to see

1:29:30

what's going on. Plus, I think we're somewhat anonymous

1:29:33

personally. It's not like it. I always

1:29:35

used the analogy of Elton going to the grocery store.

1:29:39

We don't really have that problem. If you're playing in

1:29:41

a city and it's sold out or something, then

1:29:43

there's a good chance you're going to be spotted or followed

1:29:46

or something. But in general, we can move, move

1:29:48

amongst the people. Okay, so if

1:29:50

you do that many dates when you start

1:29:52

something, what is the most number of dates you'll play

1:29:54

in a row? Three tops?

1:29:57

Now, because of voices and stuff, we've got to

1:29:59

save these voice Since we were we used

1:30:01

to do five, six nights

1:30:03

and two shows a night. Sometimes I

1:30:05

don't know how we even lasted. Okay,

1:30:08

so all your records on Warner Brothers, they

1:30:10

own the publishing. But since then you

1:30:12

got yeah, we got our own publishing, since

1:30:16

you just set up your own little publishing company. So

1:30:19

any bucket list things

1:30:22

now that you know there's twenty thirty years

1:30:24

left podcast,

1:30:27

you did it by

1:30:30

a car out there on the outside. I

1:30:32

mean, there's always something you want to do. You know. We've

1:30:34

gotten to an age though we both agree, well, I'm

1:30:37

just probably not going to do that one I

1:30:40

don't see my son. Yeah, I'm

1:30:42

not going to climb killaman jar. Oh. I don't think

1:30:44

I had that on my list, but that's gone. But

1:30:47

We've checked off a lot of stuff, you know, and I'm

1:30:50

hoping to still see great things.

1:30:53

You know. I learned to scuba dive in

1:30:55

this business, and you

1:30:57

know, we've traveled. We've been on Safari and

1:30:59

after Arica and uh, it's

1:31:02

just been some trippy things. Man,

1:31:05

sounds great. Okay, you've been listening to America

1:31:09

Dewey and Jerry here on Bob

1:31:12

Left Sets podcast. Thanks so much for coming

1:31:14

by, guys, Thank you, true honor