9021One on One: Billy Vera

like oh yeah, and nobody's happier than I am. That lived on with a lot of cover versions you have. Today was Tom Jones birthday, and so on my Facebook, I always put whoever's birthday it is in music, you know, and I'll put a you know, a song of theirs or whatever. So when when it's Tom Jones's birthday, I get to put his version of At this Moment or Michael Hoy whoever did it most you know on their birthday. That must be feel like such an honor to have

people cover your iconic song. It's it's it's great. You know. I've been a professional songwriter since I was about nineteen years old, and uh, I used to be a staff songwriter at publishing companies. You know, they luck you in a room and a little half a piano and and you both comes in and tells you, Hey, Tony Bennett's recording next week, can you come up with something for him? You know, whoever pressure you just knock him when you knock him out, and you hope that they recorded, and

you hope it sells. You know, I got my best was one of my favorites was Dolly parton what would You Write for? Dolly? Song called I Really Got the Feeling and I went to number one on the country charts. I was happy, Well, she's the nicest person you ever want to meet. In case you never have, I would love to meet Dolly Dolly either. Everybody loves the Dolly. Every loves this song too. Everybody loves you. You've been, like you said, doing this since you were knee high

to a grasshopper or lower. Well, you know, my parents were in show business. You know, was an announcer on NBC for about thirty years, and my mom was a singer on the Perry Como Show. One of the background said, no letters, we get letters. You know, one of those curs. Yeah, how did your parents influence your career? Then? Do you think I think just a professional you know, making me

more professional? Uh, because there's really if you're not if you don't come from a show biz family, who's to teach you, right, Who's just you know a little little silly things. Of course, when I first started, first had a hit record, I got booked at the Apollo Theater, you know, in New York, and it was the Apollo was the pinnacle of black show business, you know, and I was totally white guy. But a lot of the old timers they would take it as their obligation to

to show you the ropes. You know, hey, kids, this is how you make an entrance, this is how you make an exit. You know, don't say this, do that, And that's how you learn. I don't know, I don't know how kids learned nowadays. Yeah, it's different now it's not people aren't so supportive of one another. They're kind of like you're on your own out there. Yeah, and they make a record and the next thing, you know, oh, now you got to go on stage. You know, you

gotta do an act. Whereas you know, in my day, you you did a lot of time, you know, crummy clubs, performing, Yeah, getting dressed in the bathroom, changing your clothing. Since your career was mostly music in the beginning, what made you want to start acting? That was not something I really wanted to do. Uh. We were playing at the Troubadoor every Monday night, you know, the first year I was out here. And the fellow that was my songwriting mentor

was named Jim Taylor. He wrote wild Thing Agent. And he had a brother who was an actor named John Foyd. So one night John comes in with his acting coach, David pro Vaal you might remember from the Sopranos and Main Streets, and and he comes. They come backstage. John said, you know, Billy, I've never seen a singer do what

you do up there. He said, you know, most of these guys come out there and say, hey, hello, La, I'm gonna make you feel happy, I'm gonna make you cry, I'm gonna make you And you don't do that, he said. He said, you you just get out there and lay it out there and let them feel with nature tells him to feel. He said, you know, he said, you should be an actor. I said, oh, John, I don't want to be an actor, man. You know, that's for you guys. You know, because John was one of the

great actors of our time. In case you you've seen him recently in the Ray Donovan, he kills anyway. So he taught me to go into this class, David pro Ball's class, and I just against my will. And there were two guys up on stage that night, Chris Moulkey and a guy named Rocky Esaveria who became Stephen Bower. And I said, oh, these guys are doing something that's real, you know, and maybe I'll see if I can learn

how to do this. And you know, it took me a while to make the transition, but after a while people started saying, Hey, you want to be on this show, Hey you want to be in this movie, Hey you want to be in this play. And I started doing it. You know, Oh you are you are natural and he knew it. I guess, you know. I think it coincided with something I've been working on when I still lived in New York. Um it was a concept I had

and I didn't know other people did this. So I'm just saying, you know, I know how I've been doing this for a while. I know how to make people laugh and make them cry, and but there's got to be more. You know, what what if what if I'm doing a funny song on stage tonight, but my best friend died this afternoon? You know? Do I have a what's my obligation to be funny? Yeah? But it is. Do I also have an obligation maybe to include somehow my friend's death or that guy that cut me off

on the way to the club tonight, you know? And and how can I combine all those things and and and make it bigger than just getting out there and singing in the song? You know? And so I was working on that and then as low and behold. That's kind of what David's class was teaching, you know, how to how to do that, how to bring all of the of your life experiences into the portrayal of whatever

it is that you're doing. Yeah, you know, like it's like having a pale a painter and you've got all those colors and there they are, you can use them, choose which ones you're going to use, and that becomes so relatable. You become real to the fans as well. Yeah, they feel the connection on a deeper level. I think when you performed in that place. Well, you know, that's one of the things the old timers up at the Apollo Theater told him. They said, you know, don't be

afraid to talk to him on stage. You know if they if you talk to him, they'll get to know you. And if they get to know you, they'll like you. They like you, they'll come and see you next time. Yeah, that's how it works. I guess. Yeah, I'm gonna go back to your TV appearances and You've done so many amazing things. But of course I have to ask because I'm a huge soap opera fan. You're on Days of Our Lives? Wait, did you play yourself on Days of Our Lives or did you play a character on Dave's

Uh No, we went on There's the Band. Yeah. We did a couple of songs on Days and one of my by myself with the band, and another one we did a duet of an old hit I had some years before, cool story with children that I sang it with Gloria lor Oh wow, yeah, that's so cool to be How about take us back though? How did you get the role of Duke on Beverly Hills nine or

two on. Oh, I don't know. I guess I guess I just auditioned maybe or maybe just somebody figured out you know, um, I can't he plays Thug of the Week. You know, I think you were a little bit more than Thug of the Week. I feel like you did not audition. I feel like they want to eat in that role, you know. As it turns out, Chuck Rosen was my neighbor, Well there you go. Yeah, And I don't think that I adn'ty going to do with it.

And I knew Chuck peripherally, you know, because I had done some things for a friend that one of his best friends, guy named Bobby Roth, another director, uh I, and also sometimes the band had appeared in a lot of Bobby's We were kind of like a stock company, you know, asked Jen. Do you think the character Duke was named after Duke Fencent? My dad and my dad had a right I'm sorry, So my dad had a producing partner and it was his name was Duke, like

I called him Uncle Duke. At the time we were doing the show, somebody said it was kind of a you know, an inside joke, and I always like inside jokes. Was it fun to play a character like that, like this kind of bad guy. Yeah. I like to play bad guys, you know. Uh. And then poor Jason I had to scare and you know, you had to rough him up a little. I didn't hit him or anything,

you know, I did, I did. I did a similar thing. Uh. There was a movie called The Doors and I played a promoter at the concert where Jim Morrison uh exposes himself and the kid that played his manager, you know, the Doors manager. I think he was Ally McGraw's son or something like that. Anyway, so Oliver Stone said, look, don't be don't be afraid to just beat him up. So I made him cry a poor kids really and and and Oliver Stone never never, you know, he kept

he wouldn't say cut. You know, he just kept going a distant with this poor kid because I kept yelling at him and calling them all kinds of vile names. And you know, that was that was my part. That was my job. You know. Oh my gosh, that makes me really happy, because um, my parents were friends with his parents and they were trying to set us up and he didn't want to go out with me. So his name is Josh. So thanks for thanks good, I

did it for you. Well, you know, you did a great job as an actor, But you would have to say that music was always your passion probably, right, Yeah, that's my main thing, you know, singing songs and getting up there on the stage and relating to the people. Yeah, I mean, acting really was the sideline for the most part, although there was a period there where the music wasn't going so well, so I was actually making more of

a living acting than than singing it. Well, that's great fallback then, right, Yeah, Well, you know I figured out at one point that the age of specialization was over m hm, you know, and and then that you that I had to do as many things that I'm you know, you're you're good at a number of things hopefully, so if you do them all, you know, maybe this year this one will do well, and next year that one will do well and this one not so well, and so combining them all you can make a decent living.

I like that. Diversify people. Yeah, it's a good message. Modern rule of the show business. I need, we need to diversify tour. We gotta work on that, like start saving or dancing or I don't know, we can do something fall back on. It didn't teach you to dance in those days, they didn't. There was no training of any kind like the studio system. They just threw out there back in the thirties and the forties. They had to do it. You had to do fencing and thing,

and yeah, he taught you actual skills. WHOA like remembering the old remember like look at all of us. Let me take that again. Remember when you had an actual printed resume, but at the bottom you would always have it would be like special special talents or special interests, and people would have like special skills, and people would have like fencing and like gymnastics. Yeah, did you have like dancing on their gen And like, what were your

special skills, Billy? Besides fencing and singing. One time I had a I had in this movie called BUCKERUBONSI and I had had to ride a horse. And I hadn't ridden a horse since I was riding ponies as a little boy. So I knew this actress that that she was a good rider, you know, and she she took me out and gave you some stuff. And not only did I have to ride the horse, I had to stand on him. Yeah, not a stunt double. No, not me, man, you know important enough to have a stunt double, so

you had to do it? Was the horse moving? No, no, you know what I got there in the ring room, I said, Man, you know, I'm a little scared to get it right. Of course I have only had a few lessons. He said, don't worry about it. That these are movie star horses. They won't let you fall. They can They're trained to sense when you're about to, you know, do this, and and they move. They know how to move so that you won't fall. You can't fall, So I didn't, Thank god, Oh my god, oh my goodness.

We would be remiss if we did not talk about your song at this moment. And it's how it became such an iconic symbol after it was featured on Family Ties. I don't think that we really talked about that enough because it really had a huge impact on the world and your career. Like what you what happened? How did

that go down? Well? Um, I had written this song back when I still lived in New York, Uh, living at my mother's as like a loser musician at age and uh, when Dolly cut my song, I'm got an offer to move out here and write songs for Warner Brothers. And I had already written at this moment it had

come about. I had just I was I guess I was thirty three at the time, and I had this little twenty year old college girlfriend and she was telling me about her previous boyfriend and how crushed he was when he when she left him, and how destroyed he wasn't just all this and I kind of started writing it from what I perceived as his point of view. Wow,

you know, and well, you know, it's like acting. You know, sometimes you gotta write a song for a girl singer, so you gotta you gotta be a girl for the twenty minutes it takes you right there song, you know. So anyway, Uh, I got about two thirds of the way through the song. I couldn't figure out how to end it. And then when she dumped me a year later, I knew how it ended that last first. So I came out here and that was my publisher heard it.

This guy had been music business forever, and uh he had me play a couple of songs for his staff and that was one of them. And I don't really didn't think it was a commercial song. You know, it didn't have a great title, you know, a memorable title. I turned anyway, I turned around, and there he is. He's got tears coming down his face. This is this hard, hardened businessman. I said, Wow, maybe this song really has something.

So anyway, we started doing it in the clubs and we got a record you and that was one of the songs he recorded. Well, the record company went out of business, and then I was five years between record deals, and then the golden phone call comes. Guy says, my name is Michael Whitehorn. I produced and write for a showk Family Times, and we heard you do a song at the club the other night. We came to see you, and we think it might be good for an episode we have coming up. And I said, what's the name

of it? He said, I don't know whatever the title it was, So I knew that's what the song was. When he couldn't think of the title, that's it was it. Well, I said, we'll call my publisher called Warner Brothers, and licensed the song for the show. So he did, and I get a bank full of mail. You know, I had had songs on TV shows before it. Usually you make a few bucks and that's nice. That's the end of it. But ma'am so I said, well, you know, maybe this song has something, maybe somebody will let me

re record it. And everybody I called said no. And one day I was having lunch with a friend of mine who owned Rhino Records, and that's a company that puts out all these goodies, and we have these mock arguments. You know, whose version of Mustang salarly is the best? You know. We had these lunches and I told him about family ties. I said, I said, how many records

do you need to sell to break even at your company? Said, oh, we have a small staff here, not made a couple of thousands, and so I'll guarantee you two thousand if you put it out. Put it out. He said sure. And he only did it because he likes me. He'll tell you to this day. He just figured to do your favor and nothing would come of it. And as as Lady luck would have it, they used to the following season and the girl breaks up with Michael J. Fox.

Then the story of the song and the story of the episode Boy Loses Girl were the same, and the public responded. NBC said they had more phone calls than any time in the history of the network for a song, and people started calling radio stations, they started calling record stores. There was no promotion because Ranno didn't know how to promote, and it was an organic, uh you know, grassroots kind of record that just boom took off. The next thing,

you know, it's the number one record. I'm forty two years old, got the number one record. Yeah, I went on Dick Clark. You know, one of my dreams was to be on American band Stand. Did Johnny Carson nine times, you know, so it was cool. It turned out to change my life for the better. Great story. I was twelve years old and literally I still to the same forty nine. Can remember that scene and that song like it's and it was, I mean I loved Alex and Ellen like, but it was that song that made made it.

It made everything. And it was probably my first like thing into like loving romance and watching that in movies and TV and um, you know, heartbreak and wanting it to work out. It's like a song concealed the deal on that you were twelve years old, Yeah, a little baby. That funny thing about that song, I mean vividly remember I mean, there were kids that made it their junior high school record hop song. There were sixty five year old couples was their song. It crossed every demographic group.

It was being on the pop chart. Yeah, like when that played in high school dances, Oh my gosh, she just looked around and you were praying like a boy would ask me a slow dance to. It was just that one of those rare, universal kind of songs that fit every format. Yeah. It just goes to show you the power of music, especially when they use it mix it with the medium of storytelling through film and television, like they're there partners, Like when they worked together like

that so beautifully to create something so memorable. That's what that's like lightning in a bottle. I mean, people to this day, you know, come up to me. I remember where I was when Michael J. Fox was crying over the girl. You know, well he never lost her in real life because they want to get married and have kids. They're still but the other I know, like I think in Hollywood things don't work out. They have this great relationship.

He was on he was on a talk show, you know, and he said, he said, you know, I'm getting to tell you the truth. I'm getting a little sick of the song, he said. He said, every time we walk into a place, the band starts playing it in real life. Oh my gosh, that's hilarious. I wonder if they played it at their wedding. Boy, you know it's it's really not a wedding. I guess not. People say, what are you seeing at this moment? I said, you crazy? Are

you sure you want me to do that? I don't want to you can I ask you one last question about nine two and so you were You were in four episodes as Duke, but Duke later comes back in the show, but it wasn't you. It was a different actor. Yeah. I don't remember why that happened or how that happened. You're probably busy and on tour and stuff that we had to get something else. I must have had another gig that week or something. I guess. I don't know. I would have done in a minute, you know, just

one that was curious. That was my role. He wasn't as good as now. Well, you're still busy to this day. What are you tell us what you're up to? I'm going to do something really fun the end of the month, I'm going to go back and play at my high school. WHOA, oh my god, in White Plains, New York. Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna do a show there, and uh it's a it's a really nice theater at the school. In fact, Alan older was it was the was alumni. John Boyd was an alumni. So yeah, And the last time I

was on that stage, I was. I was in tenth grade. We we we wanted to be in the talent show, you know, and uh, you know, how good could you be a sixteen years old? So I knew a little bit of guitar. I put my best friend and I taught him how to play two songs on guitar stone deaf. He couldn't even the guitar, poor kids, but he had an amp. I couldn't afford an amp. And then uh, I taught this other kid out to play the same two songs on drums. And we went up there and

we had friends up in the spotlight booth. So we want these cheap white jackets. We said, put purple and pink, you know, lights on us. And we got two hundred ninety six out of two d boats and it was it was really shameful because the kid that should have won. His name was Germano Romano. I'll never forget Romano, that's his real name. It was a classical pianist. His hands were insured for a hundred thousand dollars. He should have won, you know. I mean we sucked, but he looked good. Well,

we played the Rocket Roll. I think that was the key. I can't lose with Rocket Roll. Now, you when you can't. So when you play, is it just gonna be you or it'll be your entire group, which obviously everyone knows is Billy veron the Beaters. I wish it was. Uh, they're coming with you. It's going to be a house band. It's a it's a multi artist show. So yeah, it's like bringing Billy back, you know, back home, and all the homies will be there. Fun. If you need some backups,

we'll dance for you in the back. Yeah. Yeah, I try to lips, you know, Uh, to do a gig in New York, you know, usually in the city, but this is the suburbs. So because it's one kid must have done well because you bought three rows in the theater, so I guess so exciting anybody that's listening that gets to go to the show. You are very lucky. Yeah, we'd like the things. And we play out here in a place called Vito. Yeah. Yes, we just played there a couple of weeks ago to celebrate my birthday. So,

oh my gosh, we can see him. We could go see him at Votels. I know, next time you're there, let's go the guy who's the same Does the same guy own that place? Still? Bad is his name? He's on it? Not the old easier that used to own right that? Because that Votelo has had some history, some stuff go down. Oh let me tell you. Yeah, that's some stories. I was called the Robert Blake Memorial Room.

I still get nervous to go there. Yeah, Vincent, Wait, do you know the next time you're gonna be a Vatelos. I don't know the date. You can always go on billy vera dot com or you know, I can give you my number, you know, whatever you want. Billy Fair is going to give us his number one what I mean, Facebook, all that stuff. You know, it's okay, Billy, we'll just slide into your d M s. Yeah, oh my gosh, that's very exciting. Okay, Well, when you see us there,

remember us, it's Jenny and Tory. We'll be like wean Yeah, I'll announce you, man, every once while we get some famous people in there, you know, to come to see us. My boy Joe Pesci always comes when he's in town. He's a great singer, you know. Yes, oh great, not good, He's great. Really, I love him. He been singing since he was ten years old. Well, don't ask us this thing. Just trust me on that. Okay, maybe Tory actually, but I can't help her. Um, we're finding out so much info.

Then I feel like this is like cool and so much fun time. This has been the greatest interview. Thank you for taking the time to talk to us and catch up and fill us in. I be to do it. I'm happy to do it. You're bringing back some good memories of being on that one though. Man, I mean this confirms that you are the real deal. Like, you're not just an unbelievable iconic performer. You are charming as hell. Like oh mg, like and want to hang out. I

want to hear are so charming and adorable. Come on over. We'll play old old blues records in my house. Love it, love it, thanky so much. Billy, Well, thanks for having me. Girls, good look at your show. Thanks, thanks, not really, you gotta come back then. We gotta see if you tell us any time. I'm here for you, all right, love you, Billy your Oh my gosh, take care. Oh my gosh. Billy is so amazing a heartthrob. I know, he's so charming,

so charming and sexy and like he knows how. It's like eggs started to come out a little more and more and more as he got more comfortable. Yeah, oh my gosh, wait, we have to actually go. We have to we have to do that. We should definitely do that. I'm scared of hotels, but it we'll go. Yeah, it's so convenient though. It's right there. Okay, we're doing it.