Really really, really really no One.
Welcome to Really No, Really, Jason Alexander and Peter Tilden, who can anecdotally claim that no one who subscribes to our show has ever gotten skunked?
So isn't it worth subscribing if only for that bit of protection?
Speaking of skunked, sometimes on this show we find a person whose life story is so unique and unimaginable that they themselves are really and such a fellow as Jeff Skunk Baxter, a missile defense expert in counter terrorist authority who has consulted for Congressional committees, the Pentagon, and the US intelligence community, while also being renowned as a legendary guitarist for artists like Elton John, Joni Mitchell, Dolly Parton, Ringo star Barbara streisand and the list goes on and on.
Really No Really.
Best known for his work as a founding member of Steely Dan and with the Doobie Brothers, his versatility and musicality has made him a hugely in demand session guitarist from the seventies on through today, But in the mid eighties, a series of chance encounters led to a second career in the defense industry, where his innate ability to look at existing technologies and see alternate ways to use them led to a top tier consulting career for a litany of major intelligence and defense agencies.
Imagine Q from the James Bond movies.
If He Could Shred and here to get his story r two guys who also have multiple talents. We just can't really discern what any of them are supposed to be.
Jason and Peter.
This is an.
Unusual guest, and I'm meaning because the one intro I had, which I'm not going to use is our next guest is an intelligence expert who counsels the Pentagon to keep us safe and also played the solo on Ricky Dunne Don't Lose That number is one, which is the really no really, But the real intro is that he's one
of the most creative guitarists. I grew up with a brother ten years older who really exposed me to music, so I got to meet Wes Montgomery when I was a kid, and some of the greatest guitarists.
That must have been nice.
I had a sister fourteen years older whose entire record collection was the original cast albums of Broadway shows.
Which is why you ended up on Broadway. I always knew what a great guitarist was, and then I got to listen to Jeff and meet Jeff. Would you like to share his full name with your living Jeff Skunkbax. Jeff is one of the most innovative in creative guitars. So just listen to his new album and I went, oh my god. So with that, without further ado, Jason and I were talking about guitar. We just saw The Grateful Dead and we saw it.
John Mirror, Well, the thing that is, I'm sure it isn't even a blip on your radar, but to me is the most extraordinary thing. Are the musicians that can improvise in their head. They're hearing the melodies in their head and instantaneously it's coming out of their lip or coming out of their instrument, coming out of their fingers. That translation process, to me is extraordinary. And that's what Meyer was doing all night long. There's no way he
designed these solos. He's riffing in his head and it's coming out the fingers, and I assume it's coming out exactly as he hears it in his head.
Well, that's what I've alway I don't give guitar lessons. I only give two lessons. One is us a metronome, So if you can't groove, you're not gonna get any work. And number two, if you ever watch Oscar Peterson play, he's playing, but you can hear him going. Basically, he's singing.
And I always tell anybody who wants to learn to play the guitar is to sit down and sing while you play, because eventually you'll be able to connect singing the melodies in your head to your fingers, and that's how you get what the psychologists call flow, where you remove the conscious piece. And that's what most people do when they're improvising, is that they're actually translating the voice in their head to their fingers.
I remember watching a great documentary years ago about Isaac Stern, the violinist in China, and there was a section where he was teaching protege I mean really gifted young violinists, and he was doing a masterclass and this young woman got up and she played, you know, sixteen bars of a piece and it sounded right, and he went, yeah, put the instrument down, sing it, sing what you just played, and she sang it and he said, now pick up the instrument, sing it as you play it, and it
transformed absolutely.
Playing and that was remarkable. Yeah, mostly because of phrasing. Yes, the melodies usually are pretty close, but the phrasing is I would say sixty percent of why people enjoy what you play, it's how you play it, not necessarily what you're what you're playing.
So could you take everybody up this speed of how Steely Dan formed Steely Dan. Doobie Brothers came to Doobie Brothers brought Michael McDonald in to fold. But what was the bas background before that? Because you had a pretty interesting childhood up until that point that got you there.
Yeah. I grew up in Mexico City playing a lot of rock and roll, learned to play the guitar because my parents gave me a when I was nine years old. They gave me a guitar for Christmas, kissed me off because I wanted a bicycle, but hung it on the wall.
And then my friend Kurt Bundy, who was a guy who lived in the apartment house two doors down, I said, I'm taking guitar lessons and if I show you some chords, maybe we could play a little bit and I had already studied classical piano for about five six years and never really thought about the guitar. So I started to play it and something the magic Beam whatever it was, and went, yeah, this is it, this is where I want to go. So that's kind of started it out.
And then once you know three chords, you're now ninety percent on top of every rock and roll song for the late fifties early sixties. So I formed a band with Abraham le Boreal, who was I was eleven, he was twelve in Mexico City, and the next thing we knew, we were starting to get calls for gigs. And then I got a call from Umberto Sisneros from the Julians, which was a very big rock and roll band at the time, and they said, hey, would you maybe like to come and do some gigs with us? And of
course I'm in id eleven years old. I'm eleven years old, Jesus God. And these bands, by the way, those locals Dorimo, those hooli guns, those off some boys. These were big Mexican rock and roll bands and famous bands. So now I got a chance to play. And then my dad, who had a friend, a disc jockey named al Ross in Washington, d C. Was sending him records because he got so many records that he couldn't play. But he sent two albums to my dad, hr Is a dirty
guitar player and Color in Funky by Howard Roberts. And when I listened to those records changed my life because I've never I never not only heard anybody play guitar, because I was listening to West Montgomery, Teddy Bunn, Kenny Burrell, you know all the cats. But this guy, I'd never heard anything like it. Because the way he played, he wanted. He wanted you to come into the fold. So instead of dropping a billion semi hemi demi quavers on top of you, he opened up with melodies that you could
relate to and then took you in. And I thought, man, this is amazing. So I learned everything note for note and there. So from there it's you know, it's hard to stay focused with you. I'll tell you why. The other big part of this is you're you. You have the one of the highest intelligence clearances. Correct. I'm not
going to get into that too much. What I will say is I worked for the Department of Defense, among other pope and I do have some some pretty high clearances could allow me to do my job.
How does a guy making his way in the wonderful, beautiful world of pop music and rock music suddenly wind up with the knowledge of the background, the experience, and the inclination to start working in the missile defense the United States government? How did that transition or how did that addition? I should say, Well, actually come to me fairly simple. The gentleman across the street his garage filled with mud, and he was an earlerly gentleman, and so I volunteered to help him dig it out.
So I went over there and Doug and Doug and we finally got the stuff. He said, watch, come in for a beer. I said, sure, that's great. So I went into his study and the walls were covered with photographs of things like sidewinder missiles and the F one hundred, the F one o six. He was an aeronautics engineer. He helped design the sidewinder missile. So we're having a beer, and I said, yeah, I love love airplane, and so
I think it's the whole concept is really cool. I said, well, thank you very much for your help, and I'm going to give you a subscription to Aviation Week in Space Technology magazine, which I still subscribe to today, and I started reading it fascinated, of course, because it was the Russians called it Aviation Leak. It was translated an Honest Way to Moscow the day I hit the the hour after I hit the news stand in Washington, d C.
So I started reading it. And just around that time is when I started working for Roland and a Ki. They were electronics companies that focused on musical instruments, and at the time we were just the government was just beginning to understand the transition between the analog world and the digital work. So as I read this stuff, I kind of got this. I don't know. I store everything away, so I started away in some place in my mind.
And then I was over in England and I met the aviation senior aviation editor for James Defense Weekly, Nick Cook, talking to him a little bit about this idea that I had about maybe converting the navy as weapon system, which is an air defense system designed to protect the surface battle and carry battlegroups, and maybe converting it to do missile defense. But I needed some knowledge, so he gave me an article that wasn't classified, but very few
people knew about that. Somebody in England had tracked the Space Shuttle with an S band radar. So I'm reading this, I thought, well, wait a minute. If you can track the Space Shuttle, I wonder. So I went back to LA and I talked to my buddy John over JPL, who was a steel guitar player as well. I said, John, I need you to do some math for me. So I gave him what I needed and he comes back and says, are you looking to track something with a a really low RCS RADO cross section? I said yeah,
I said, well you can do it. Here you go, here's the proof. So I wrote an article on how to convert the Navy Weapons system a system to do theatore missile defense and gave it to Congress and Robacher, who then gave it to Kurt Weldon, who was the vice chairman of the Armed Services Committee, who calls Dana and says, what is this guy from Boeing or Raytheon? And he goes, no, he's a guitar player for Thedobie Brothers.
And so I get a call from Kurt Weldon saying, would you be willing to serve take a position on the Armed Services Committee with what we're going to call the Civilian Advisory Board on Missile Defense. I said, yeah, sure, I guess so, and that started it all.
Did people have problems with you in the music world that I gotta run? I can only record for another two hours because I have a meeting a missile defense. Then I got to take a phone call.
So I'm doing a session with Ringo Star.
Did people have problems with you in the music world that I gotta I gotta run. I can only record for another two hours because I have a meeting a missile defense that I got to take a phone call.
So I'm doing a session with Ringo Starr, wonderful guy, really sweet guy, and I'm playing steel. So we're doing this song and I don't know, it's really kind of weird. Ringo said, you know, I got a feeling that you're going to have to leave. I know a little bit about what you do, and I think you know you're probably gonna have to leave. I said, well, I don't think so. And Mark Hudson was producing it, and he said, yeah,
I think we're okay. So right in the middle of this, the door open to the studio and two guys walk in in black suits and they say, you got to come with us. Now, my paser had just gone off and I hadn't even had a chance to grab it until they walked in. You got to go, And Ringo Starr, to his credit, said, I totally understand. As soon as you've done whatever you got to do, come on back. We'll finish the We'll finish the overdub. I thought that
was very very interesting. You know, I don't know how he knew that, but the thing that I that, the impression that it left me was here's a guy who is totally open, who doesn't see things all well, you know, how dare you? Uh? You know you're working for me? You can't.
No.
I accept the world as it is and good And when I was walking out the dress, good luck seeing a bit.
Did he ever ask you later?
What exactly did you leave?
Never wanted to know.
No, But it wasn't important to him and to me. What was important is we do what we do. And he had an open mind, and I just I'll now, no, do I like him as a person. I mean, we're not close friends. When I have a tremendous amount of and I have a tremendous amount of respect for him as a person for doing that. So yes, sometimes they clash, but most of the time it's okay.
Never on stage you're performing with the Doobie Brothers and two guys on stage.
And hasn't happened right now yet.
We're about to do No No in.
Front of the Armfitch and you're you're off state now?
Is there is there a b version of you standing in the wings at all times ready for that contingency.
Well, during one of the war games, though, I got a call from Make a Wish Foundation and they said, we're doing this big show. Can you can you play? And I said, see, I you know, I don't know. I've got I got two weeks at Nella's Air Force Base. I don't know if I can leave. And I talked to the principals, a couple of generals who were running the show, and I said, can I you know, I
what do I do? They said, you got twenty four hours, go do it, come back, but we'll help you get there and back, but go do this and halfdays I work with they're all musicians. Most of the guys at Lawrence Livermore. When I was working there, almost every physicist I know as a musician, Brian, Brian may Oh, Brian, Yeah, we can stand astrophysics. All these guys are musicians because of the relationship between physics and music.
So, okay, you play Red Team a lot, which means you're the enemy and you're anti terrorism. That's the world that you're in. You've got to predict what the enemy is going to do and why they're going to do it, and then how they how they might do it. There are a lot of so many questions here about how do you stay ahead of the technology, et cetera. But I heard you talking about Putin and a lot of
people don't understand who the adversary is. Could you give, for just a moment talk about Russia, China and North Koreen. Where we're at with them and what we may not understand about what their endgame is and how you have to deal with them, because it's in front of everybody's mind right now because of the Ukraine, et cetera.
Well, one of my friends, General Hayden, who was a vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, we worked together a lot in the Shruber war games. I used to drive him not something made him miserable. I was on the Red team. That was my job. We were friends and none of us took it personally. But one day there was a meeting with some of the Joint chiefs and some of the gamers and he said, Skunkin
wants you to describe Russia for me. In five seconds said yes, sir, it's a nuclear armed gas station run by the mafia. And General Heyden went up there you go any questions, and in a sense, that's really what it is. They are. They make all their money. I would say eighty five percent of the money that they make comes out of the ground. They make some weapons systems, some are good, some are not so good. I mean, the Kalishonakov obviously is a fine salt weapon, but their
airplanes tend to fall out of a sky. Although they are brilliant aeronautical engineers, they just manufacturing is not so good. But yeah, they dig everything out of the ground and then they sell it oil and gas and coal, and they just sell it to everybody, and that way they don't really have to make much. I mean, I do own a Soviet made electric guitar, which is just a hilarious piece of junk, you know, designed by the Soviet Radio Electronics Ministry of whatever the hell it was, with
more crap in it. But okay, they took a shot. But yeah, nobody buys those guitars. They buy oil and gas. So Putin realizes that and basically runs his country on revenue from oil and gas. And China now is buying everything that Putin can get out of the ground, so
they've formed a partnership. The Russians do make a few weapons that are pretty good, although they're buying more weaponry from North Korea than they are really making, and also China supplying them with electronics to build drones and things
like that. But Putin believes that Russia was dealt a bad hand and that after the followable in Wall, that the countries in Eastern Europe that left the Russian sphere now need to be back in and the whole crimea thing was just a It's just a prelude to what we're going to see in the future unless somebody sets steps in and changes that.
Steely Dan iconic band jazz rock funk. They did everything and they were notoriously fake water, Fagan and his partner mister Becker, we're tough task masters.
Did you?
You're an amazing player, Like I said, you have some iconic solos which people still want to hear a note for No, you play just because they're in everybody's You talk about embedded in people's head. It must be amazing for you hearing them and you having the different, different view of it because you were there. You remember what happened that day, et cetera. Was it that tough bean Stewley did and you were one of the founding members.
Well, again, like everything else, things tend to morph, things tend to develop and change. In the beginning, in the first three albums or first two albums, for sure, we were a band. Everything was grew out of the relationship, the musical relationship between the members of that band, Becker and Fagan had. Because of the success of the band, I think they wanted to expand on their songwriting and they want to to expand into bringing other creative points
of view, and which makes perfect sense. I got no problem with that at all. As a matter of fact. For me, the thing I liked about Steely Dan was I always felt that a good guitar solo was a composition in and of itself. It had to have a beginning, a middle, and an end. It should stand on its own, even though it it was part of a larger concept or a larger piece of music. It should fit inside,
It should compliment, but it should be a standalone. So to me, the idea that I think what Becker and Fagan were striving for in the in the in the later albums, with pushing other musicians to the wall, was to get them to understand that they were What they were looking for was a composition. A solo as a composition. Some people don't look at it that way. Some people look at it kind of in a linear fashion where you're just heading down the road, going down the track
and just you know, it's solo. Here bop to you drop and you can't stop. You know. Great. But for me this was this fit the way that I looked at things. Again, listening to Howard Roberts, every solo he ever did, everything he ever did was a composition.
Which you can hear by the way the new album's the speed of Heat Before you go? Can I give you names and you just give me like reactions to the names like whatever comes to your mind. Because you played a little a lot of.
These people, I'll consider it. Doris Roberts, I can do both of you. Elton John incredible human being. I played in his band for a little while where became friends, and I got nothing but good stuff to say about him. Eric Clapton don't know him that well, and I have a tremendous amount of respect for his ability to change the way that people listen to guitar.
Playing Donna Summer, he did the hot stuff so look Yeah and Bad Girls.
That was the first use of a guitar synthesizer on a number one record. But she was a sweetheart and she was a musician's musician. She got in there with both feet, got her hands dirty, was involved in everything, soulful and just. It was like working for Dolly Partoner. You just wanted to do it.
That was the next one, Dolly Parton again.
Angel unbelievable and incredible musician, a lot of depth. I don't think people understand the depth of her musical ability. Bob Weird, we just saw the dead. Yeah. Bobby was a lot of fun and I still to this day. You know, I produced an album for him, We had a good time, and I have a lot of respect for him because there are people that are I guess the guitar player and the Grateful Dead. The sort of lead guitar player was the focus point. But Bob, see,
anybody can play lead. That's my attitude. And when I was a kid, I learned to play lead with two fingers, you know, and all that's all you need to know to play in a surf band. Playing rhythm is a different ballgame. It has a lot to do with understanding how the bass and the drums and the guitar interact. You need to be able to keep time, you need to be able to be in a pocket, and you need to be able to glue together a bunch of different pieces. So I have a tremendous amount of respect
for Bob Weres playing as a rhythm player. That's a hard gig when it comes to a lot of music. I am pedestrian.
So when I went to See The Dead with Peter at the Sphere, this fantastic screen is able to show you, you know, Bob Weird at twenty feet tall, and I'm watching and it seems very minimalistic, and I thought, am I hearing what he's doing. I mean, I'm catching everything John Mayer is doing, and I'm hearing the bass really well, and I'm catching the two drummers, and I'm hearing the keyboards.
But am I am I hearing? And then as I started to try and zero in on what he was.
Doing, the economy of what he was putting out there, And.
There's the difference between Miles Davis and Disney Gillespie.
Uh huh.
Disney Gillespie was it's a little difference between Miles Davis and Disney Gillespie. Uh huh. Disney Gillespie was a note master. I mean it was unbelievable what that man could do. Miles Davis said, I'm never going to be Dizzy Gillespie. So what I'm gonna do is pick and choose what I believe to be the right notes. Sometimes it's what you don't play. Gary Katz called me one day and said, I'm doing this female artist. I pretty much finished the record, but it needs you to come in and tell me
what this record needs. And I need to bring all your stuff, you know, and you just sit through the So I went down there. It was a village built his recorders, so I sat and listen to the whole record, and I said, Gary doesn't need anything, It's just fine. He said, that's why I pay you triple scale.
Yeah, thank you for coming coming to our little chew.
The guys that know.
The album is called The Speed of Heat, his first solo took it.
It was fun and by the way, I got to give a lot of credit to C. J. Vanston who was my partner on this thing, and thank you for appreciating the Oh, so it's wonderful.
And also you re envisioned like do it again, where you completely took it apart. It's almost it's so creative because you know it's the song, but it's not the song, but it is the song, which which wraps your head around what we were talking about, thinking outside of the box and taking stuff and re envisioning it and being creative. So yeah, I love that you.
Was inspired kind of by John Coltrane. These are a few of my favorite things. Which is a very simple tune, but but John he did with it it was upside down, inside out, backwards.
And also yourself being a guitarist, I know I can play and Jason goh it's pretty good. And I go and I know my limit total limitations. I listened to you and it feels like it's limitless. So thanks for that.
It's a very really amazing to wait till you see how sales jump after this episode and Brank.
I hope, I hope a lot of people get to hear it.
Well, thank you for your hospitality, Jeff Scott. Faster than.
As another episode, I really don't really it comes to a close.
I know you're wondering, you are some other celebrities that have unusual hobbies or sad games? Well, I'll fill in that picture in a moment, but first let's thank our guest to Jeff skunk Baxter on Facebook.
He is skunk Baxter.
On Instagram, he is at Jeff skunk Baxter or you can follow him on his website Jeff skunk Baxter dot com. And now the answer to the question, who are some other celebrities that have unusual hobbies or side games? Well, Dan Spitz, the lead guitarist of the thrash metal band Anthrax, is also a Swiss certified master watchmaker.
You can watch him on TikTok get It.
Jack White, the guitarist and lead singer of The White Stripes, is also a furniture upholsterer.
No points for guessing his favorite color and pattern.
Keanu Reeves is an amateur race car driver, having debuted in the Toyota gr Cup in twenty twenty four, and we all know.
He can drive a very speedy bus.
Your local honey, maybe courtesy of either Morgan Freeman or Beyonce, both of whom have taken up beekeeping, or that's the buzz at least. Actor Nick Offerman is a master woodworker and makes wooden furniture. If you're pining for some, contact his company Offerman Woodshell Hollywood magnate. Seth Rogan is way into ceramics and once studied alongside our own Jason Alexander.
Seth now makes ceramic bongs, ashtrays.
And other smoking accessories out of his company houseplant.
I understand Seth personally tests each product.
Actor Daniel day Lewis is a master cobbler, and I suspect his wearing shoes made by his own hand on his feet. And finally, actor Jim Carrey, when he's not being dumb or dumber, spends most of his time as a master painter and cartoonist whose work has been shown.
At galleries across the country and the lesson.
Most people are more than one thing, except for those of us here at really know, really who are trying to be just one thing more successful.
It's not going great. Maybe we should take up beat keeping. Really and it really is production of iHeartRadio and Plase Anderton