Andy Slater

up with the idea for this film? Well, I was a journalist, you know, in the late seventies and eighties of rock Critic, and the idea of the of people listening to each other and these records being traded back and forth was always there. But you know, you come to a point in your life where you sort of reflect back on what you've done, as you know, in an attempt to go forward. And that moment came for

me when I was looking at this film. I had just left Capital, which we will describe as fired and uh, and I saw this film called Model Shop. Okay, just to stop there for a secure because that's featured in the film and you talk about it, but it was kind of hard for me to google it. And the reason I asked this is how did you find it? Jacob and I were sitting on my couch trying to figure out what we were doing. Jacob Dilan and I was sitting on my couch and and we saw this

thing on TCM. So it was completely random. And you know, in the in the film, we start seeing all these places where we would go all the time, and it was like, you know, the farmers market and in Libreya and Santa Monica and and it just looked beautiful. It looked like and it was not you know, shot in the nine sixty seven by a French director named Jacques Demy and and it reminded us of, you know, the reason that we came here in the beginnings of the

music scene. You know, you never know how something's going to inspire you, and so for sure, and so the sight of that made us think of music. And so we said, oh, you know, you know, you know the birds, you know that bells of Rimney. I love it. And we started talking about all these songs, and I said, let's let's go, what if we do a record of these songs? And Jacob was like, well, which songs? And then we got out of guitar and we started listening to the songs and and that, and then it evolved

from there. Okay, do you play the guitar? How? Well, well, I've been playing since some fourteen. And Peter Buck from r M and I had a band. How did they come together? Well, we were the only two guys at Longstreet Hall at Emory University that had guitars, and and I had a Carlo Rebelli stratocaster, which was the set cheap Samash version. You know, I had a Hendrix white

and and Peter had a real Fender stratocaster. And so we would jam and you know, in our in our dorm and and it's funny because we would, you know, we would play like in the midnight hour, and you know when you're jam with somebody, I play chords and then you play lead, and then you play chords, and I believe and everything Peter did ounded like last Train to Clarkson, and he made a career out of it. You know. Okay, but when did you realize this was not your path? Well? I you know, it all goes

back to the hot Tuna story, Bob. I mean, our audience is not here as part of that story. Well that's a good story. So in nineteen seventy five, my friend Larry Dale and I, who were freshman member university, wanted to go see Hot Tuna play and they were playing at the Gore Ballroom in in Atlanta, and we U said, look, we gotta go down there at five o'clock. We gotta get online early because we want to be in the front. So we got there at five o'clock

and it looked like nobody was there. I thought they canceled the show. Maybe that's how they do it in Atlanta, but at least in the seventies. So we went. We went around to the back and and we saw these boxes that said Jefferson Airplane on them, and we said to this guy, hey, are those official Jeffer Jeffers boxes? And the guy said yeah, want to lift them up

those stairs? And I said could we? So Larry Dale and I we lift the boxes up the stairs, and you know, we load their gear in, and I say to the guy, hey, do you think if we come back after we could we could carry these boxes out. The guy go sure, So we're all static we're lifting Jefferson NEVNY boxes. Anyway, after at the end of the night, we helped them load their gear and we say, look, you guys are playing at the Academy of Music in

New York. Do you think you would get us in next week if we come and help, you know, help you load those boxes? And said, yeah, look, if you're there, sure we'll get your X sage. Because the Vinny, the guy who was the road, he was the guy named Vinie Delbono when he was from New York. And then

we became friendly and and you know, got drunk together. Anyway, we go to New York and I am standing backstage and I say to Vinny, you know you guys don't have any tour jackets, like you don't have any satin jackets that everybody has satin jackets. Now I have an idea to make a satin jacket. If I give you one, will you show it to you him? And he says yeah, sure. So the next day I go to Paragon Sporting Goods on seventeen Street. I go downstairs and say, hey, I

want to make a baseball jacket. Can you point me in the direction to the guy who does that? Point me downstairs and I say to the guy, look, I want to do it like San Francisco giants clus I wanted black statin jacket. I want Arne stripes and I want yourma, this is the name on the back end. I'm gonna draw you the logo and this is what the logo looks like. And can you have the guy

do that and send it to me? And I give the guy the money and he sends me the the prototype in Atlanta, and I send it to Vinnie and I get a phone call and he says, Yama loves the jackets. We want twenty five and you can ship them to me. And I said, no, no no, no, I want to bring him out. And so so of course I whack up the price of the jackets to pay for my planet and give me a little spending money. And I go out there and they take the jackets. But what that leads to is, you know, a a

kind of friendship with Hot Tuna. And when Hot Tuna breaks up, I ask if I can interview you Ama from my school paper, and I interview this time. Are you already writing for the school paper? I think I wrote a record review, you know, and for the Emery Wheel and Yourma lets me interview him, and I, you know, thought, this is it. This is the pinnacle. You know, I've got the hot tune to break up story and I and I send a letter to Jim Hanky, who was a music eatitor a rolling Stone at the time. So

I've got the exclusive if you want it. You know, I sent one of those schmucky letters anyway, which which didn't get returned, but anyway, so that started my path in you know, in in journalism, and as it relates to Peter Buck when r E. M. You know Peter, we graduated, he moved to Athens, he started this band, and I wound up writing the first story about them in the Atlanta Journal Constitution because I eventually went to work. There was very lucky another the you know, strange story

of how I got there. Well, so I was writing for the Emery Wheel and I had all these clippings and I was at a party and there was a guy named Roger Pavey. He was the entertainment editor of the Atlanta Journal. And he said to me, I, you know, we were at this party and and I had this weed and I said, hey, you know, you want to you want to smoke some weed with me? And the guy I didn't really know who he was, and he said, yeah, you know, and it turned out this is who he was.

And I said, look, you know, I'm writing for my school paper. I'd like to do some reviews for you. Can I send you my clippings? And he said yeah, yeah, s our kids sand So I got my clippings together. I sent him to Roger. I didn't hear anything. Three weeks later, I called it. I trump at the paper. I say, hey, Dandy Slater, I sent you my my clippings. You remember, he said, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, Hey you got any more of that weed? I said yeah, yeah, he goes right, We'll meet me at manuel S tavern.

You know, we'll, you know, we'll talk about this. So, needless to say, they started signing me is and how much was a review worth actually, you know, I mean at that time forty dollars was like a hundred parts. So it was good. And that event that they liked my writing, you know, And and so they started giving me more assignments. And and one of the assignments that I got was, you know, to cover to cover the

Athens music. So you and I wrote this story about R. E. M. And then eventually wrote the first story in Rolling Stone about R. E. M. The New Faces piece. But so that's really the let's go a little bit slower. So when you're at emery, do you know you want to

be a journalist? No? I actually, you know, there were guys at the time working at Columbia who were giving records to me for free, like the guys who became you know, big executive, or John Faggott who was a head of promotion at Capital he worked there, and guy named Alan Orman and a guy named Ed Nwf was still Warner Brothers. And those guys were giving me records. You remember, this is nine teen seventy five seventy six.

The record businesses, as you know, a colorful, wonderful place to probably, like you know, the tech industry is now, and to me it just all seemed shiny. Mean I was studying, like you know, political science. My parents wanted

me to be a lawyer. I mean, you know, I would have said my major was like the Grateful Dead, because all I really wanted to do was follow them around and any you know, and find any tributary that that that Jerry had gone down, whether it was Merle Haggard or you know, or Hank Williams or any of the great stuff I learned from listening to those records.

But um, you know my it was really the journalism became the the outlet for me to express the things I felt about music, and which I, by the way, don't think I was very well expressed, but you know it led me to to being able to get inside and and see this world that was mystical to me. Okay, but before you fell in with the hot tuna, did you believe you could make it as a musician. No, Okay, so we're having fun in college. I mean, you know,

making it as a musician. I just you know, I thought I could play things that other people had had had played. You know, I think there's there's several kinds of of accomplished musicians. You know. There are guys who can absolutely mimic what they hear and go on the road and make your record come to life. And then there are are guys in a studio that you work with who you know, can hear melody and hear counterpoint and bring sections to life and whatever instrument they are,

you know, whatever you need. And I clearly was not that so as somebody who was just mimicking what I heard, I kind of felt like you know, tracing paper fake. So I really didn't do any but all through the ensuing forty years, you've continued to play the guitar. Well, yeah, I actually I have a I have a band which uh, which which we play well? Anyway, with a band, you know,

how often do you play? Well, we were playing every Tuesday night, you know, at this bar and uh and occasionally, you know, I'm a little apprehensive about talking about this band because it's because it's turned into well, okay, in one or we that was at a point in my career where I had had it was a transitional place. So I had been a manager, and I had managed the Beastie Boys and Lenny Kravitz and co managed Don Henley, and all of that went away and I sort of

started over. Okay, just to be clear, that went away because well, I think each of those situations, you know, being a manager sometimes has a lifespan, and sometimes you know your partner it is one thing, and the partner it is that it just it just you know it

it evolves that way, you know. In the In the case of Lenny Kravitz, I think he was used to having a very hands on, day to day personal manager that would do those kinds of things, and for me, management was was as a partnership was a creative partnership, you know, as much as it was a business partnership. And I think Lenny was just getting used to having somebody other than the guy he had been friends with forever and I wasn't really going to do that. Um,

you know, the with the Beastie Boys. That was. That was one of the most amazing, you know, times of my life because I was around the making of Paul's Critique, which was legendary, which is just an incredible record, and they you know, were and the surviving members still are,

you know, just so brilliant. Um. And that was I think that record was difficult because it was coming off the heels of a huge success at def Jam, a licensed Hill and and you know, they had expectations of what they wanted to do, and they made a record that was completely groundbreaking and outside of any uh any place to fit in radio to drive it. I mean, hey, ladies, you know is one of the great singles and that artful synthesis of all of those styles that are in

that record. Uh, at that time just didn't was not a follow up to Hit five. You're as party as you know and as you so eloquently in your column stated many times, you know, radio listeners often want to hear something that sounds familiar to them, and it drives the business of radio. And if you don't fit into that format, unless you have a very powerful uh machine behind you that can keep record on the radio till the test, well at least at that time, you're gonna

have three weeks and you're gonna be done. And in the case of Paul's boutique, you know, Capital was trying very hard to mimic the success of License to Ill and Hay Ladies did not sound like Fight Fear right at the party, and the band was also in a transitional place where they were starting to play instruments and touring in the way they had before was impossible. So all of that, you know, led to a kind of one album, Uh, you know, Lifespan for me, and you

know we remained great friends. But I'm off on a tangent, but cool. You know that digression is this splice of life, you know that that led me to a place where you know, and and Henley and I had a I mean, I I learned so much. I mean, I would say of what I know about making a record and being uh a manager in in the record is really from Dawn. So tell me us, tell us two things you learned. Well.

I learned about the attention to detail. And I learned that in making something you must examine and re examine and be sure before you put it out into the world. And I also learned to approach the the the putting those things out in the world with dignity and grace. And he was always somebody who was smart, articulate, and and you know, very thorough about about how he did what he did. And I had a lot of respect from him. You know, It's funny because I was a

journalist at a time in the late seventies. What was very fashionable at that time was to sort of deconstruct the thing that the Eagles and phillywood Mac had built and punk rock and that you know, ethic was was the sign of the times. And when I met the Eagles and interviewed them and went on the road at them in nineteen seventy nine, I found Don to be this really well read, you know, well spoken, um uh writer. He was like a writer's writer to me. He was

a you know, the lyricist. And so when I eventually came to work with with with him as a solo artist. You know, I said, my friends who are journalists will really, you know, really like you if you just talk to them, because you know, it's clear that you're a man of letters. Um. And that was, you know, part of the beginning of our you know, friendship and working relationship that started when so I can't I went to I left journalism. Let's see what the eagles came through town in Atlanta and

psalters tell your experience there. Well, getting an interview from the eagles was, you know, was the genesis for the newspaper wanted a story on the eagles, and I I when I, you know, all these things happened to you in your life and you just, you know, you don't

really know where they're gonna lead you. But I was on an airplane when I was thirteen, going to Washington, d c. From my cousin's high school graduation, and there were two guys sitting behind my grandparents and I and I one of them was wearing a Live Dead T shirt and I was like, that looks like Bob Ware. So I got up on my chair and I said, hey, are you you famous? Ebob ware and the guy says to me, no, man, I've known more famous than you.

I'm Eric Anderson, I'm a songwriter. And the other guy next to him said, well, I'm Michael Kleffner and I'm the program director of w n a W. And he had this big handlebar mustache. Anyway, I later, you know, years later, after the Hot Tuna, you know, Rhody Vinny and you know Escapade, and I became friends with those guys they met, you know, they're friends who worked for the Grateful Dead. And I was luckily lucky enough, you know, at nineteen or twenty to be backstage at the Academy

Music when the Dead played, I think it was. I think it was the Academy Music still then um when they played, and there was this guy with the handlebar mustache back there, and I was like, well, that's the guy I saw when I was thirteen. And I said, hey, man, I met you with my parents and you're at w n W. And he said, no, I'm head of promotion for Atlantic regoritarys my card and hey, give me a call. I was right write, so I wrote him all I kept, you know, I kept hocking him when I was in college.

I would write them, you know these letters. Hey, I really want to work for Atlantic Records. Hey, you know I really like the record. He says, Hey, I'm a journalist now. Hey, then I saw I had you know, this is nineteen seventy seven and seventy nine. I started working for the newspaper and they needed an interview with the Eagles. And I read in Billboard that he went to work for Irving Azof and front Line Management. So I called it Michael Kleffner and I say, Michael, I'm

now in Atlanta at this big paper. I need to interview the Eagles. He's all right, I'll introduce you assaulters pray for this the Eagle. So so I call up Larry So. I say, hey, Larry Man Slater and on the pop music critic at Atlanta Journal, I like the inter of the Eagles, and he says, they don't do interviews. I gotta go by, like ship, what do I do? I need this story? Damn it? Okay, I go I got it. Okay, called Laric back Larry. Hey, it's Anny

Slaria pop musical advantage of Hey you doing yeah? Yeah what I said? Look, I don't want interview Eagles. I want to interview you. I want to interview you, and I want to interview with Irving, and I want to interview the crew, and I want to do a story about what it takes bring the Eagles to Atlanta. Because I was thinking, Okay, I'll get out there. I'll get on the road shoulders, maybe don fell to Will walked by it out of the cope machine and ask him

three questions and I'll string together a story. So he just okay, you can come meet us in whatever with Durham, North Carolina. I said, okay, So I get the photographer, Me and Rick Diamond, the photographer. We go. We drive out there in our car. We go to we go see the Eagles. You know, We're talking to Irving and talking to Larry, and I'm hanging around and I'm trying to talk to Felder. Irvings is exactly what I'm doing. He says, hey, listen, I see what you're doing. He says, okay, yeah,

I like you guys. I'll tell you what if you let Henley approve his quotes that he says to you, you can interview the Eagles. I said, well, is this a breaking journalistic No, it's not really it. I'm just gonna let him, you know, the fact check his quotes. Okay, I said, okay, so everything. Lets me into the Eagles, I I. He says, you come to the three E party. It gives me. It gives me a three E pen. I go to this party. It's nineteent nine. It's in the top of a hotel suite. It looks like Playboy

After Dark. I'm like, man, this is cool. UM twenty two and so I you know, and iView Henley Irving sits there middle of the interview and he says, you know what, I like this guy now. I like the Eagles and seven. I mean, I love this Rotto, I think. And I was there from the beginning. I'm a huge Eagan even though it was unpopular. I don't know, it's kind of like, uh so many other racks were. It's

turning around. Yeah. But you know when you listen to even the architecture of sound of Desperado, and you listen to the reprieve of the duel and dal and Repres, and you hear the banjo and you hear the room sound, and you realize what they created. I mean, it's really brilliant and So for me talking to Don about that stuff, I wasn't as interested in this petticultural war between New York and l A was going on. I was interested in, you know, the ideas behind the songs and not so

much the lifestyle. And I think Don responded to that, and that's eventually how we became friends. But they came to Atlanta. They liked the story. And I was standing backstage, uh during the encore with Irving and I said, you know, you guys don't have tour books. You should really have a tour book, and you should take me and Rick on the road with you, and Rick can take the pictures and I can write the copy. And Irving said, that's a good idea. Get get it. You see that

car over they're just getting that car. I go, okay, So me and Rick we get in the car and the next thing I know, there's twelve cars and we're pulling out of the Omni and we're at an airport and Irving says, get on that plane. I said, my car is at the Omni. What do I do? You say, don't worry, we know the Omni. Next thing I know, I'm in I'm in Cleveland. Rick and I have no luggage,

only the clothes we're wearing. And we were on the road at the Eagles, and Rick eventually took the pictures and I wrote the copy which Psalters edited and it turned into nothing, but you know, they did the tour book and and you know, that was the beginning of

my friendship and relationship with Larry and Irving. And ultimately they did introduce me to you know, Yawn Winner and and I eventually became a writer for Rolling Stone and for Billboard and for People and really, you know, they they like gave me the imper mater, like this guy's cool. You can you can talk to him, and he's not gonna, you know, jerk you around for sensationalism. So you know that was just that. Okay, So how do you make

the transition from writer to business person? Awkwardly? Um? I So Salters had a job at frontline and his job was the frontline, was the management, front line manager. He was, you know, even though Cameron Crow very astutely in an article referred to Larry as vice president in charge of whatever Irving tells him to do, he actually was, you know, the head of the album covers and publicity. And you know,

it was a junior manager. And so when when Irving went to run m c A Records in n two maybe two or three, Larry went with him, and they were looking for someone who could take Larry's place. And now I had interviewed all of the fiance and the main thing was I think Henley, Yeah, he liked me, and and I had it. You know, they were trying

to find somebody I guess that they could trust. And Michael Rosenfeld and Howard Kaufman, uh, I had known, and they said, and I was going to try to move to California because my girlfriend at the time was going to be a doctor and she was going to do her residency at Kaiser Permanente and I didn't want to lose her, right which this was, you know, one of the one of the few times I chose love over business. Um. And I was leaving journalist because I actually I didn't

think I was any good to be honest. I mean I wasn't going to be you know, like David Frick or Charles m. Young or Hunter Thompson, any the guys that I felt were great, you know, or Tom Wolfe, the great Cholis you know, so I said that I should really get out of this, and so I got this job with with Frontline Management, doing Larry's job, and so it was you do, You're gonna be in charge of publicet and you're going to be in charge of album covers and there's a new thing called MTV starting

and you you know you can do that because that's all Larry did. And and so you know, my my transition to businessman is really around two things. One is I'm gonna make videos. And the first one of the first videos I make is with Henley and I had seen this French There was a French artist named Exel

Bauer and there was a song called Cargo. And I saw this video because a friend of mine, Gayle Sparrow, who actually worked at MTV, sent to mysues to work for Epic Records, and and I started to Don and I said, hey, don you know this guy, this this this thing looks really cool. Maybe we should give him boys a summer and like do something with this guy. Looks like the Twilight Zone. It's cool. And he said, okay,

we'll send it to him. So I sent it to Mendino, and Mendino, you know, love the song and he did the video and don one video at the year that year from that video, and then I became the manager. So that was one pivotal moment for me. And from the eighty three to about eighty five, UM, I mean

that was my job. Really. I was like the young creative guy with the head fullest crazy ideas about photography and things to do, and you know, and so I think these guys who were ten years older than me and sort of looking to I don't know, get input from somebody other than an older businessman, which Howard was one of the best. Learned everything from him. And so that was, you know, the nature of my business thing.

The other thing that happened in the very first meeting at Frontline Management when I got there, Howard went through the client list and there was Henley and Steely, Dan and the go goes and boss gags and Jim and Jimmy Buffett and they got to the last name on the list and it was Warren Zevon and Howard said Warren Zevon, Okay, well, let's see, are eighty thousand dollars in debt to the I R S. He's living in Philadelphia, he's a drunk. He has no recordly, he doesn't want

to work. He's off the roster. And I stand up and I go, but Howard, he's the best writer we have on on the roster. And he goes Slater, he's a hundred and eighty thousand dollars in death to the I R S. Not the bank. They're gonna come after him. He's a drunk, he's living in Philadelphia, doesn't want to work. He's off the roster. And I say, but artists love him, and maybe other people will come here. He goes, listen, you've been here five minutes. I'll tell you what you

manage them? Okay, next subject? Oh great, I get the client list like, go to my little office. Dial a phone like, Hi, Warren's Andy Slay your new manager fulne management. Click, hangs up. Man like, well that's weird. Okay, call back, get some answering machine leaving message. Later your new manager filily management. He like, talked about your career. Call me back nothing, okay, Wait two days call back answering machine, leave another message okay. Finally a week later, get him

on the phone. He goes, hey, listen, I was at the dentist today and I don't really think I can talk to you, so just wants you call me Thursday. I'm like, okay, one quite Thursday. Okay, Thursday comes, don't get him on the phone. So I think, you know what, I'm gonna call Peter buck Okay, I called Peter Buck up. I go, hey, Peter H. Tandy, how are you doing. I'm managing Warren's Eiland. He goes, you're managing what? Your manager? He was just a journalist three weeks ago as well,

you know what? So I say, hey, you know, if Warren has some songs, maybe you guys would do a demo with him and we can get him a record deal. Now, at that time, Aria and I think had made Murmurs just one record, so that they were cool and just starting out. And he said, oh man, yeah, remember how he used to listen to Excitable Boy with it? He said, yeah, no, I'll pick him up at the air, but we'll bring him to Athens. Will we'll make a tape of them. Okay, great.

So then I call Gary Gersh who was at e m I. He didn't want to do that. And then I called Michael Austin, who just started working for his father, had Warner Brothers and I and I had, you know, he and I had we had met in Atlanta with Irving. I think he was he signed a band called Riggs. Anyway, I called Michael and I said, look, managing Warren's Evan, will you give me some money for a demo? There's

this band R E M. They're cool. It could make He says, yeah, yeah, I'll give you five grandmother, send you the paper. Call walking. Next phone call warrant. I wanted to say, a new manager from Image. How you doing. He goes, I'm doing great. I go, you got Do you have any songs? Because of course I got songs, kid, What are you talking about. I'm a songwriter, like okay, okay, because I got this five grand for you to make it. You've got five grand. I need that money, give me that.

I said, No, I can't give you the money, but maybe we can make a demo. There's this band in Atlanta. They're really cool. They're you know, they're R E M. And they're making their first record. You know, when you come down to Atlanta, maybe with them and make a demo. And he goes, fly me first class. I go, yeah, we'll fly first class, five first class. Peter I called Peter. Peter picks him up the airport takes him out to Athens. Two days later, I call Peter. I go, hey, man,

how's it going. He goes, well, you know, the songs are good. But Warren he teaches us the songs and then he kind of takes a nap. And I'm like, what were you guys working? Like really late? Three him no, like three in the afternoon. I go, oh, he must be drinking. He goes, well, I don't know, It'll be fine, don't worry, it's I said, okay, man. He goes, tell you what, We're gonna do a show at the forty Water Club this weekend. You should come down. I was like,

oh great, okay. So I got my little haircut, my little jacket, little tie. I'm now manager, you know. Go down Athens. Go down to Athens, talk into the dressing room. Before the show. Warren's in the corner. He sees me and he walks away. I'm like, oh, that's weird. Maybe it's pretty show Jeter. Maybe I'm not gonna maybe I won't bother him. So they play the show and it's

all great. After the show, I see him in a dressing me and I walked towards him, and he walks out of the room and I'm like, that's this guy's definitely really avoiding me. So I'm standing in the dressing room and somebody point pats me on the back and says, hey, hey, Slayer, you're back in Georgia. What do you do? And all of a sudden, I feel these two arms grabbed me and turned me around. He goes, that's who you are.

He thought it was from the I R S. I thought I was coming after his sign because I looked like, you know, a complete nerd. But that led to my you know, relationship with Warren, which was really you know, one of the great the great things in my in my working career. And eventually, you know, I got him out of Philadelphia. Why was he in Philadelphia, Well, he had fallen in love with the DJ name Anita, and I think she was the inspiration for the song Reconsider Me.

But uh, I managed to get him an apartment at the Oakwood Gardens Apartments. I was making forty dollars a year and he was in debt to the I R S. And he will you know, he had other issue, other financial issues, and but I signed in this department, and I would get these calls from the norther was on. It was on bar I'm Mountain exactly, so you know, it was where I was like a transient kind of place where actors were auditioning for something. Came in for

two days. Anyway, I got him an apartment there, and all kinds of shenanigans were going on. He was shooting the gun off in the department like a crazy stuff, and you know, but eventually I realized I had to get him a car. And you know, there was the frontline management was in the Atlas Leasing building and somehow I managed to convince the daughter of the owner of the Atlas Leasing company to get Warren a corvette. Oh god,

so Warren had a great court. I got Warren a great corvette, and you know, he had his apartment and I kept giving him money and he was playing me these songs and they were amazing, and I worshiped the guy. I mean, he was you know, Warren Warren was really the writer's right or he was like the He was like the low Archer or the Philip Marlowe to me of the l A scene, and uh, you know, and probably to to a lot of those guys to you know, to Don Henley and the JD. Souther and obviously to

Linda Ronstadt. They had tremendous respect for him as a wrinter. You know, all of his songs that there was never a wasted word in one of those songs. You know. He used to say, he said, you know, when I go for the when Henley goes for the high note, they give him the Grammy. When I go for the high note, they give me the heimlich Maneuver. But eventually, you know, I got him a record deal and eventually

helped him get sober. I mean I get him sober. Well, I mean he these he came with all these kind of crazy ideas he'd have, Like, you know, he had a polaroid camera that he decided he was going to take a polaroid of all of his prescription drugs. So when the cops stopped me, just whip out the polaroid. When he was loaded and couldn't walk the line, he just said, look, I got the thing, you know, But

there was all these this stuff. Eventually, I think that's something that you know, he came to himself, and I was just trying to find a place to to to get him to that. Would you know, he would embrace the idea of being sober. And I just remember driving him around to these rehabs and and he would you know, I remember sitting in one rehab with him, you know, near Fox Studios, and I forget the name of the place.

And you know, we were sitting there in the in the reception room, in the intake thing, and there was some guy in the room and he looked over. The guy looked over at Warren and me, and he said, I drank the lie. I drank the lie. And Warren looked at me and he said, let's get out of here. I'm not going in this place with these cucka boos,

you know. But eventually, eventually he got sober, and you know, through his sobriety eight things happened as that they do for people who okay, So while you were there, he started off eighty granted debt. Did you ever make any money? Did Frontline? Did ever turn around? So they made money? Well, I will tell you something. And this is the great

thing about Howard Kaufman, who I miss every day. You know, Howard said to me, you got this guy back on his feet, and you keep all the money for the commissions. And you know, I mean people don't know what kind of guy that guy was. You know, he was a very tough businessman. I mean, you know, I think if you're a promoter, you probably you know, had had a lot of issues with you know, with how he how he extracted money from you. But you know, he fought

first clients, and he taught me so many things. Man. He taught the first thing you know, he taught me he said, your word has to be good, because if you tell a guy that he's got something, that's it. And I never really had any contract with Howard any papers, and you know, and and all of our partnerships, whether we worked on Don Henley or the Beastie Boys, whatever, whenever he said this is the deal, that was a deal.

And you know that's not always the case in the music industry, as you and I know, it's so so Howard was really really a huge influence, uh for me, and uh and I miss him. But but but but Warren, you know, but Warren didn't make money. And Warren did get out of debt, and Warren did all the things that you know people do when they get sober cleaned up, all the Wreckage and and had and had a great you know, second run of his of his career, and and we we made a record with R. E. M.

For a Virgin called Sentimental Hygiene. And I I was a producer that record, but when I was working on it, I didn't know I was a producer. You know, I had played music with Peter Buck and we so I knew like when a song was too fast, or the key might have been wrong, or maybe there was too many bars in the turnaround between the first chorus and

the second verse, you know, things like that. And I was just saying, hey, this sounds fast, Hey, this sounds So I was in the studio all the time because they were my friends, and I was saying to Warren, I think he was going to do a song called Boom Boo Mancini. And I said, Warren, you know, it's really it seems like it's a piano song. It's not,

you know. And so I was saying these things. And at the end of the record, you know, as we went down to the mix, you know, the engineer Nico Bolos said to me, you know you're producing this record. I said, this is what producing is. He says, yeah, and so you know Warren. That was the beginning of making three records with Warren and a career of you know,

working as a record producer. Taking the things that I had learned from watching Don Henley make records, and the things that I learned from Nico Bolis engineering records and Greg Ladonia engineering records, and applying them to the things that I thought I heard that I couldn't play, but I could find other people to play. Okay, how does it end with Warren? Well, it ends in nineteen ninety one when I get to a place where I have a little traveling problem where I can't really leave my

room that much. You know, I was well, since you're being honest about that, recalling that drugs or agoraphobia. No, it's not a goraphobia. I mean, I'm using the metaphor there. I I mean, it wasn't really that happy. You know. I had gotten to these places where I had tremendous success.

It seemed like on the outside, you know, I was managing these people, I was making this money, but inside, you know, there was that just that hole, and I couldn't figure out why I wasn't happy, And so I was trying to medicate that, to to get the right you know, the right feeling. And really what it was was I just kind of needed, uh, to be sober and to not chase it chemically, to be you know, to have a sense of serenity and and and piece

of myself. And and when I went to do that, because I don't think I was the kind of drinker or drug user that had the lampshade on your head and didn't have it together. You know, I had a job and stuff, but inside there was just a yearning for the noise in my head to to just get to get lower and uh. And I couldn't figure it out. And so when I went to rehab, I mean, a couple of my friends have gotten sober and uh, and I said, you know, maybe this is for me. Maybe

I should try to do this. And and I went to I went to rehab, I went to a place in the marina. And when I went to the marina, I got a phone call from Warren. You know, I said to him, look, man, I gotta I gotta get my ship together because it's just not happening for me. And when that happened, he said, look, man, you know I don't know, if I could really have a manager that's newly sober and and I said, okay, and you know,

and that was it. Well, it's just thinking, do you think, well, I also think at the time that there are other influences of other people trying to tell him a look, you know, come with me. You know, that's just the way. You know, but that's just the way it is. Let's go back. So what came. So you're saying that once you got to rehab, all your problems go away. Well, no, what happens when you go to rehab is all the

bad problem solving things go away. But then your problems are there, and so you have to figure out how to you know, deal with your emotions, uh in a way in reality, and that takes a little bit of time. And you know, luckily, the the twelve step program is is a really great thing because it it it gives you a framework to start looking at things that you didn't look at. And if you know, and I was super cynical. I mean, I was like, look, I am not going to I don't want to be in any club.

I don't even I didn't want to join a fraternity and you know, and you know, in college. But I got to this room where there were a lot of people of musicians who I respected, and people who were talking to me saying, look, man, you know you're a cool guy, and this is if you do this, this, this is what will happen. And I was like, yeah, right, okay. But but they were smart and they were cool, and they embraced me, and you know, I I'm forever indebted to those guys. Um, you know, and and and it

it's slowly worked. It doesn't work overnight, but it does. But if you if you stay with it, uh, and you find your own place in it, you can change your life. And you know, they so they tell you all these things are gonna happen. I fear financial and security is gonna be gone and you're gonna get everything back. And you know, so before I got sober, as I said,

it was the manager of all those artists. And I had been a journalist and I had been a creative director and a record producer and then it all went away. And for four years, not a lot happened, you know. I mean I was managing a band that didn't really do much and sold forty thousand records and got the deal dropped in. I was in a place where where's my beautiful reward. I'm doing what they told me to do,

and you know, and then something very interesting happened. I I was always told in a you know, stay out of their results. Just do the work. Do the work in general and life. You're not in control of the universe. There's an order to the universe. Just do the work and don't worry about what happens. I was like, what is that? Did you have enough money? That's well? I mean I had a little money. I mean I had a call are that had a rip in the hood

that I couldn't drive in the rain. And I had an apart you know, one of those creepy apartments that people have with you know, when they're when they're in that situation. I mean, but I was okay. I mean I was making it work. You know, you you make whatever whatever work. I felt I could live in a you know, one room in one room, as long as I had music and a guitar and you know, in the bed and a TV. But so this this thing happened.

I Howard, you know. And the great thing about Howard again, when I lost everything, Howard said, you have an office here, and you'll always have an office here. And when I went to rehab what I found out? Howard said, got everyone in the office and said, and he went to rehab. If I hear any of you tell anyone in the business what's happening with him, you're fired. I mean, that's

the kind of loyalty that guy had anyone. I came out, I didn't have a going on, and a lot of have a lot going on for for three or four years, and then something strange happened. I had become friends with a lawyer who was representing the Smashing Pumpkins and they were looking for a new manager on Melancholy in the Infinite Sentens and Howard and I went to Chicago to

have a meeting with with Billy and the band. Now we go to this meeting and uh, and you know, Billy's super smart record like a record guy could have been one of the great It wasn't a great artist be one of the great record men of of today. And we talked a lot about music and the things we liked and bands we liked and obscure stuff. And Howard talked about the record business, its night and how you make money on the road, and you know how you make money with T shirts and all the all

the stuff. He knew better than anybody. And we left the meeting and the lawyer said to me, you got it. These guys loved you, and I was like, yeah, right, is right. I'm back. I'm going to be the co manager of the biggest band in the world. This is the greatest thing. And two days later she called me and she said, well, Andy, look they had one more meeting and it was with Cliff Bronstein and they went

with them, and I was devastated. I mean, that was the point where I think all this stuff to tell him he's bullshit, Like I'm I'm doing what they tell me. I'm living the good life, straight life, and I'm going to me and doing all the things I'm supposed to do, helping other people. And where's the reward? And you know I was saying this. I was in New York at the time. It was Christmas, and my girlfriend at the time had a friend who had a kid, and then

she had a babysitter for this kid. And the babysitter I knew somebody who had made a cassette of three songs, so the babysitter gave it to my girlfriend's friend who was in the music business, and she said, look to my girlfriend, I know he's really bummed out. I don't know I got this tape. I don't know what this is, but maybe he can do something with this. That's a tape. It's something. I put the tech cassette tape on and there were three songs on it, and the girl's voice

was other worldly. And that girl was Fiona Apple. Now what? And so I went on, of course, to to meet her and to produce her first record, and and and you know, we know what happened there. She went on to sell four million records. But the point of the story is if I had gotten what I wanted and what I thought, which was to be a manager and to manage the Smashing Pumpkins, I would have probably taken that tape and thrown it, you know, to the side or something, or just not at any time to do

anything with it. But because I produced that record, and then when I went on and I went on to produce the Macy Gray record, being a producer and selling between those two records twelve million records and a manager me to the opportunity to run capitol records. And so what it teaches you is that do the work. Maybe it's not that's not the way it's supposed to work out. So if you get bummed out and you think, you know, I should have gotten that, maybe there's something else down

the road for you. And you know, that's the way you have to live your life, because you know, if you if you if you live in regret and you live in the what if, so you will never get anywhere. Okay, three questions. What happened to the girl who was going to become a doctor? The girl who was going to become a doctor? Well, this is what happened. One night I came home from being on the road and I found a parking ticket in my card five in the morning at some address in Pasadena. I was like, Hey,

what is that? When? When? What is there? Probably with five in the morning. Anyway, it was at some guy's house, and you know, um and he was a doctor. And she eventually married the doctor, but it had two kids as divorced. And and by the way, I she was my high school sweetheart and I and I love her and owe her a lot for for not not the least of which is you know, helping me get seven hundred on my English achievement test. Anyway, Okay, so how did it end with managing Henley? Well, you know, I

I think again it ran its course. Um, maybe a couple of things. Uh. I wasn't that together at that point. It was at the point where I was sort of unhappy. And I also think that, you know, as I was managing Lenny Kravitz and Lenny Kravitz had a number two

hit record with it Ain't over till It's over. You know, I don't think I was together enough to manage both of those things myself, and I was spending more time with Lenny, and you know, I think that also Irving was coming back from being a record executive and he was coming back to management and looked on with his client and you know, his longtime client, and and you know, he had every right, I think, to you know, rekindle his relationship with him, or continue with the relationship that

he had with him, and put the Eagles back together, whatever he wanted to do. And I just think that that, along with my not paying attention and also my not being that together, probably you know, led to you know, to to our you know, working relationship. Okay, and then you we started this with the band who formed in so what was that that was? After you got sober? After I got sober, there was nothing going on. I was playing at the Kivets Room in by the way

two and three. It was happening right there was, I mean, Joni Mitchell was there at one top point and and I remember playing on a Sunday night with these three guys and we were playing down by the river and there were five guys in the in the room and one of them was Rick James. And Rick, you know, saw us playing down by the river and had his like one year old baby in his arms. And I

could which I couldn't believe. You know, we got up on stage and he sang down by the river with I think he was in a band with nearly on and so you know he was sort of smiling. And but that's the kind of stuff that was, you know, going on. And Mike Myers came once and you know, people were I think Rolling Stone wrote an article on like the cover of the music section. They called it the Last Schmaltz, you know, the sort of rock on Rye and and and all the bands that were playing

there with the Chili Peppers came there. It was like a whole scene, you know, in affects it. But what happened to me? So I was playing with these guys and we were doing a bunch of Neil Young songs, and all of a sudden, you know, room was crowded, there was girls, it was it was happening. And this guy jumps up on the stage and it grabs a mic and and he starts singing, and he sounds exactly

like Neil. I mean, he's got it down. So we play a couple of songs and and it's like and then he just runs off the stage and I put my guitar down and I chased after and said, hey man, who whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, where'd you come from? What's going on? He goes, I sell Deli meat to the Canaderas I heard you guys playing, I'm like, oh my god. So so his name was Gary Williams. And so Gary, you know, said to me at the time. He goes, yeah,

I'll come back. Let's we can jam again. So we started playing and Gary says, you know, we should form something and I can write and you play great, and so we started kind of trying to put a you know, a band together. And I'm like thirty two years old, sober, thinking what am I doing with the rest of my life here? So yeah, you know what I'm gonna I'm gonna be in the band. I'm gonna be the band. And then, you know, I had a moment of clarity

at this point. I realized I wasn't that good at twenty two and you know, I didn't do this with Peterbuck and probably not good enough now at thirty two. Um. And then I was starting to work with the Wallflowers and and and then I thought, well, wait a minute, what do I do here? So Gary said to me, look, I know you're working with this band, the Wallflowers. You either got to commit this thing to me. We're going to commit to the Wallfers. And I thought, bet on

myself or bet on Jacob Doylan. I think I would have bet on Jacob Dylan. So I we didn't. The band dissolved, but later, like twenty years later, I saw him at a at a show and and I said, hey, man, you remember remember how we used to you know? He I said, well, let's let's try to play again. Because I was out of capital. I didn't know what I was doing. And so we got the band back together

and we started playing. And and you know, it was really because I was I was dating this girl, and and and she was playing around town, and she was talking about how important all these gigs were, you know, and you're you know, how it is right, we we put up with these things that sometimes our our romantic partners say, you know, because we want to be supportive,

and then we're supportive to a point. And I was saying, she was saying, and it's so you don't understand this gig we have at the I don't know what it was, the hotel cafe. And I said, anybody can play there, it's not that big deal, and and she goes, it's a big deal, and I said, okay, So I called up Gary said Gary, we're gonna play, and we're gonna play every freaking place that she's playing. Okay, I'm gig everywhere. Explained.

So for like you know, a month or so, I just you know, I had my band and I saw, like, you know, honey, see now I'm playing their Thursday. Now I'm playing there Saturday, now I'm playing. There, I'm playing, I'm playing. But and then I thought, you know, then I actually thought, oh wait a minute, because well, we were a cover band, and we we were actually Neelly Young cover band, which I hope Neil Young doesn't here, but he's gonna hear because I just said it to you.

But so we were playing around and I thought, you know, this is fun. This is more fun than having to like make the number for David Muttons and e M I fuck okay. So but you know, we did it a little bit. We played a bunch of things. We played in New York and I don't know. I had this one moment where I was walking on um it was like in the Bowery and I saw this poster and it said the Incredit InCred the Unforgettable Fire, uh a true YouTube experience. And I saw saying I went, oh,

wait a minute, that's me. I don't know if I could do this, And I realized, I just I'm about to take the biggest nose dive in the history of the musical. I'm going from the CEO of Capitol Records to the guitar player in a cover band. What am I doing? So you know I quickly, you know, altered course that was that the other three guys who stayed too or is there? Everybody plays in their session musicians and guys play with other people. But we have a lot of fun when we do it. You know, still

play like once a year. But you know, really it's uh, you know, we're just we're all such diehard crazy Horse fans and Neil Young fans that you know, we we love playing that music. And Gary and Gary and the singer are really great. I mean, you know, Unfortu is still selling Deli meats. Gary is still selling Deli meat at Canner's where you can find him someday and YouTube can join a band with him. Okay, tell us the story of the famous Fiona Apple video, which one the

one in the back seat of the car criminal. I believe it was well that video, I mean I think it's uh, I think it's a it was inspired by the photographs of Nan Golden. Uh. If you look at some of those shots, that's what that is, and that and and that during that time. I mean, you know Mark Romantic, who is the director, who's a genius, I mean one of the great Uh. You always had a point of view that came from a place of art, never a place of commerce. You couldn't talk to me

about selling anything. He was you know, he was a a very well read, uh and and learned guy in terms of the history of photography. And so that video was really based on that. UM I do remember one at one point I came to the set and it was shot in a lot in her house, beautiful house. I came to the set and Jeff Airoff, who was the president of the record company, he says to me, I gotta talk to you. You you've got to do something. I said, what, man, what what? Everything? This looks cool?

Here he goes, she's in her underwear and she's selling and you've got to stop her. And I said, uh, okay. So I went over to the set and found it was like and I don't know if she's in like a nighty or something. And I said, uh, if you know, I just Jeff Aroff just said, you know, you're you know, you're in your underwear filming and you gotta stop. She said,

I know what I'm doing. You tell him I know what I'm doing, and to leave me alone, and you know, and that was and and honestly I mean, you know, Fiona did does what Fiona wants to do always, you know, and I would say that nothing she does is not from a place that's well thought out and uh, you know, and and artistic and and Okay, so the sexual content of that we're attributing to both her and Romanic. I mean, I don't really when I look at that, I don't see it as that. I mean, it looks like a

Calvin Klein ad. You know, it looked like the count cli I don't want to get whatever. My personal opinion, because we're jaded, perception was that it was sexualized of a young woman. Again, you know, I didn't see it like that, and I haven't looked at it in a long time. I would have to look at it through today's and say that. But really, at that time, you know, it was, uh, it seemed to me like a moving

extension of the photographs of Nan Golden. Okay, let's just jump ahead, because you mentioned you produced the Macy Gray record. Both those acts had gigantic, gigantic success and then never really followed it up. Why is that. Well, Fiona has one of the great careers. I mean, I have to say her influence on modern music, you know, and the singer songwriter is pretty pronounced. And the records that she's made since then, and and you know, the second record

is you know, I would think maybe her best record. Um, but they're all like you know, like I said about Zevon, and I would say about Johnny if you read those lyrics, and Bob, you should read those lyrics, there is not a misplaced word. And as an interpretive singer unparalleled to me,

and you know, just look through the stuff. So I think whether it's someone like King Princess, a current artist you know, who is influenced by her, or you know, just her contemporaries, she stands, you know, as to me as as one of the greats. And I'm not that easy to impress it. I think she hasn't had another hit, She has a great career, She can do whatever she wants, She has artistic freedom, she can play in So you don't think that she was inhibited or had a backlash

because of the Gargangelan success on the first album. I think that, as you know, and you have often said in your column, the best way to establish a career in the music business is to build credibility first and a base and expand upon that and never waiver from you know, your artistic endeavors to get to grab for

something elusive like a big hit record. Um, sometimes you have a big hit like Radiohead had a big hit, and but they are they are as good as the success and they decide creatively to go in different directions. You know, you could say the same about Neil Young. You know he has heart of gold and he makes Tonight's tonight. I mean, you know that success gives you the freedom if you're an artist, to create in a

way that you that you want. And you can either be beholden to commercial success, you know, or use the platform to be a true artist and express herself. And and I think in Fiona's case, she used the platform to express herself in the ways that she she wanted to. And what about you know, Macy was different. I mean, you know for me, I I as a record producer, I only wanted to make a record when I had an idea or I had songs that I had an

idea of something to do with. I didn't want to be in a studio and say, okay, this is I make my living. Let me I'll produce the next guy, and I've got to make money doing this, though I was very fortunate to be able to do that with great writers. Warren was an amazing writer, and Fiona is an amazing writer. And that first Macy Gray record has some of the some of her best lyrics on that record. I think if you look at any of those songs, they really are great stories and and real, uh, pure

emotions from the heart, you know. In making the Macy record, I mean that was also such an incredible experience for me because I got to basically take the records I loved his kid and rip them off. I mean, we did sly Stone. You know, why don't you call me? It's just us doing sly Stone and and uh in um, I can't wait to meet you. We're doing kind of al Green and you know, and and still we're doing a Wreath of Franklin. So what I was trying to do was so trying to make some kind of artful

synthesis of old and new. And that's kind of what I always have done, you know. I I have the sonic reference points, so here the string sound of something in something modern, or we'll have the Stevie wondered drum sound you know the high Stevie Wonder high hat on something and you'll hear that really loud. And you know, with that record, I Macy wanted to make a rap record. She she loved Lauren Hill and she won. She gave me The Miseducation of Lauren Hill and said this is

what I wanted to be. And I said, here's Mad Dogs and Englishman. Watch this movie. This is what your band should be. It should be this big rainbow coalition and you should go around and and that's what you should do. And and and there were such crazy things

on that record. I mean, you know, I remember we were we were I wanted to bring wah Wah Watson in to to play on on one of the songs because I was trying to do some stuff with Eric Marshall, who's an amazing, you know, modern young guitar player at the time, and and wa wa Watson and and you know, uh so Wahwah came in and and he set up his whole thing, which took about two hours, which was a wah wah pedal and a guitar um and and we we gave him the track and he started saying, well,

you know what I'm gonna do now is I'm gonna I'm gonna gesticulate, and you know, and he was talking a lot about what he was going to do, and Mace was getting very frustrated it. So so we put the track up and we're already he's built this moment up with the track up, and he goes, what and she literally grasps me by the collar and shed we go outside and she goes, get this guy, why these old guys have to be in my room? But I don't need these guys on my record. And I was like, oh,

ship anyway. But you know, her whole, her whole uh uh posse of people were so amazing to work with. I mean, you know, okay, so why did it? Why couldn't she never follow it up? You know, I don't know. I mean I think sometimes and this is just conjecture. I like making first record with artists because their first record, at least back in the day in fact, you could before you could make one in your house. You you weren't able to utilize all the tools of the studio.

And they come in with these songs that they've worked on their whole lives with and you take the best of these songs and you can maybe build a sound that becomes the foundation for what they're gonna do next. And to me, that's fun because it allows me to do what I want to do. After you sell eight million records as she did, and people tell you, you know, uh, you know how how how great you are I guess, or how great your music is, then you want to try to expand and do other things. I mean, I

will tell you this one story. Jacob Dylan went to Carnegie Hall to play a a Neil Young benefit tribute and it had like Patti Smith and the Roots and you know, all these bands playing nearly Young songs. And I said, Jacob, this is like the after I left Capital. I said, who are you taking to play guitar? He said no, but I'm the house And I said, why don't you take me? He says, you know what, let me call you back to find that answer why not?

And to hit the Jacob's credit. He called me back and he said, you know what, man, you got me to play in front of the Stones at Dodger Stadium, and you got me to play in front of the Who and Madison Square Gun Come with me, said great, So Jake came to my house. We learned the song and be okay, we go to the thing. We go to Carnegie Hall. Okay, I'm standing on a side of

the stage and I'll never forget this. You know, they're about to walk and I saw the people that I know in the business and I think, I think, Pete, you're in the guitar player with sing He says, hey man, you know they were about to say, Jacob, you go on. And so I start to walk on on the stage of Carnegie On Pete your and you can see his face going no, Andy, no, no, no, that not you, not you, And that was it was me. So I went on stage and I played these two solos and

I'll never forget. I got a text from my cousin and he said, hey man, I'm at Carnegie Hall and you know, Jacob Dolan's guitar player looks exactly like it. But I did this thing and after the show, we're at this after party. Were people who were at the show and were you happy with your performance? Yeah? I was great, write the song four thousand times and one thing.

I wasn't nervous, very cool to play Carnegie Hall. And he says, all a one of the great moments of my life that I get to play lead guitar kind of your own people cheer. Was like wow. But here's the point of the story. So after the show, Jacob says to me, Oh, you see those people over there, they're looking at you, and I go, oh yeah, He goes, you know why they look at you? Know? I don't know.

I guess because you're the lead guitar player. And I'm walking around the reception and I'm getting that kind of like fish out from people. Oh hey, I like yoursel, like your sol. And I said to him, you know what this is. While you guys are nuts, if you do this every day, you're gonna be gonna be crazy. So the point is, if you're whoever and you sell eight million records and people do that to you every day, it has to have an effect on you. And you also want to be in control of your own destiny.

And I think Macy wanted to make the records she wanted to make. She didn't want to make that record, and and that's what she did. And whether or not she was able to to, you know, continue the success of eight million records or all I try as a number one record. You know who knows what those factors are. But clearly I think we all get empowered to do things that we shouldn't do. And luckily, you know, some of us in the business world say I must know

my limitations and don't do those things. Okay, let's jump ahead to capital. Was that a job you were looking for? You know? I really never sat in a marketing meeting, let alone ran one. And I was not thinking that was something that I I wanted to do. I had gotten three offers to do it. I had a meeting with Tommy Mattala at Scalinatela and he wanted me to run one of his companies. And I just thought, I don't know, it's doesn't I really want to make some cool ship. I don't know if I that's a big

company that seems very political. And then when Tom Alley was going to leave Interscope and he had signed that deal with Warner Brothers, Jimmy came to me and he said, Jimmy Ivan came to me and he said, you should you know, you should run uh Interscope and go see Doug. And I went to see the Great Doug Morris and I had a great meeting with him, and Doug said to me, you know what, I wanna make Tom Molly work for you, because he was still in his contract.

Tom and I were friends, and I went to see Tom and and I said, hey, man, you know, we had the success with the wallflowers, an airscope and everything, and I said, you know what's going on? He said, look, you know, and you gotta do what you gotta do. And you know, uh, you decide what you want to do, and it just, you know, it didn't feel it felt not right to me. It felt like, I guess, uh, I just didn't see a path to doing something that I wanted to do just to have the job and

have a title. That wasn't it. Really. I was never in it for that. And then Ken Barry came to me and he said, look, you want to own Capitol Records. And to me, at the time, Capitol Records was in

a sort of strange place. Roy Lott had tried to transition it from what Gary Gersh had started there, and he was trying to make it into Arista, and I just saw it as this this brand that if you were able to connect the legacy of the company to the contemporary business in some way and market that that you could make it into a place where people would want to go and sign. And I thought, if you have a couple of hits, that's better. And I have no hits. I have your interscarp you gotta keep having it.

If you're a Sony company, you better have a lot of hits fast. And so I they they made me this crazy offer. And I said, okay, and and and and and the craziest thing, you know, when I got there, I you know, again, I did something. I followed my heart and I didn't really sort of think it through, which I have often done in in my life, probably personally more than business. And and I got to the

first meeting, and I remember calling up. I remember calling Michelle Anthony and saying, you know who I was very close with. And she said and I said, look, um, okay, now what do I do? And she says, well, look, you're a manager, you're a record maker, your in publicity, you know, marketing. Look at their meeting schedule to go to the meetings and see what you think. So I

went to the first meeting. At the marketing meeting, you know, I looked at their records and I listened to everybody talk, and you know, I was I make some suggestions to things that I thought and everybody was agreeing with me. I thought, wow, this is crazy. So went back in my office. I called my brother. I said, is the craziest thing. He said, what. Remember I've been trying to let trying to get you guys to listen to me my whole life. Well, I just went to this meeting.

Everything I say is truly it's incredible. Of course, I later figured out, you know, who was really good at what they were doing and who could do what I wanted to do, and I and I changed that. But a crazy thing happened within the first eight weeks of being there, and I'm just trying to figure it out. In that first eight weeks, ken Berry says to me, We're going to merge Priority Records into Capitol Records. I'm like, whoa,

hey what, oh yeah, yeah, you know. And and you know, their roster there that the company that they built was a great one, but it was a you know, a street It was a you know, like the West Coast sort of uh rap company, and and and the roster was, you know, with all sorts of characters. And but I didn't know anything about hip hop. I mean, I was like, wait a minute, you know, I knew pop rock. But I said, okay, I'll figure that out. And I met with the people and I figured out who knew what

they were doing and who was good. And I kept the people who looked like they knew what they were doing in a and arm promotion. And you know, I said, okay, well we'll go with this. And but two weeks later, my boss gets fired. Ken Barry gets fired the guy who hired me, and I'll never forget this. Like I call up Howard Kaufman and I go, holy sh it, my boss just got fired. What's going to happen with this new guy? And how it says to me, pray he hates you. I go, what he goes, have you

seen your contracts? Later? They'll have to pay you every dime And I said, no, no, no, I don't want the money. I wanted that this looks seems like it could be fun anyway. So Alan Levy and David Bunns came in and and you know, in that first year, I just said, let's just whatever sounds like a hit, let's just go with whatever. Records are done in England, these records are done. Good will promote these, I'll sign some stuff. And you know, in that first year, I

think we had we called him Minogue. We did like a million records, and a band called Dirty Vegas. We did like a half million records. And then I signed Uh the Vines, and you know they did they had almost a million records, and Chingy did three million records. And then I took Coldplay because I thought they were good. I want to see them at the Mayan Theater and

I'll never forget. And I said to the manager, you know, I said, look, if the band will do a hundred and fifty dates in America, we can break the band. You know, you may not have a bigger hit than Yellow. But that's the one problem I've always seen where English bands have hits over in England and they don't spend the time here, you know, because they were having a problem with Robbie Williams and it was all this disparity between England. And you're gonna say that guy doesn't spend

any time. You can't come in and do Jay Leno. I think you're gonna be a hit. So you know, Coldplay did all those dates, and you know, we saw it. We saw all those records, and all of a sudden, you know, months and leaving they were they were sharpening the knife and then getting the noose and the gun ready to put somebody else. We were having hits, and so you know, they focused on Virgin and fixing that.

And you know, through the course of that, through the course of the time of Capital, I mean, we broke a British Act. Every year. We broke We woke Kylie, we wroke dirty Veg. Guess we wrote Lily Allen, we broke ran Belly Ray. Uh, they will cold play. I mean, you know, in the history of Capital, I don't think

you have a British Act being broken every year. And you know, in a way, I think the British company didn't love that because they were so used to ruling the roost and being able to beat up on the Americans. They didn't know anything and these guys can't do anything. And all of a sudden, you know, we were going to the meetings and you know, we had doubled the market share and you know, and double the profits and like in like two years, and so it was it was a good time. And uh, you know, and I

didn't really care where the records came from. I mean, I wanted our records to do well. I wanted to sign our stuff, and you know, and we did. I mean, we did two million Yellow Card records, and we we signed LaToya, We did million records with her, and a million records at least, and Marie Presley and you know, and all sorts of uh, you know, all sorts of other stuff we signed into Paul we broke okay go.

I mean we had a long list of stuff that I thought was you know, we put Snoop with Farrell and did their first record and did beautifully at a number one record. We had a healthy company. I got a new contract. But you know, in the end, it's um, it's not really what I wanted to do every day. You know, at the end of the day, I love music and I love making music. And the things I

did I did from the heart. And making the number was great, and it was a great education, and I got to do some incredible things when I was there, and had great relationships with artists that I really really respect, and that was great. And also learning how to you know, how to run a business and and and having a successful business but corporate life is a killer and you know, you really you have to be more lucky than smart. And how did it end? Well, you know it ended.

It was a long tail. You know, there were things there. It's like when we did well, I think they were kind of piste off, you know, because they didn't want us to do that. They didn't want us to do that. Because they wanted version do that, they hired the guy there. Uh, and when we weren't doing well, and there's always that time, you know, in the course of a five year plan.

They didn't like it. But I do remember, uh, you know, we would have these meetings and um, well, in one of our financial meetings, we would have these conference the video conference meetings, and so you know, our numbers were pretty good. We had this meeting with the guys in New York and and they kept asking us questions and we had answers for the questions. Okay, So at the end of at the end of the financial meeting, they said, okay, yeah, thank you. It sounds too happy, and they clicked the

video off. But they didn't turn the video off, so when we left the room, we could hear everything they were saying. And every time we had one of these meetings. They couldn't figure out how I turned the video conferencing off. So everything they said, we're gonna go after this, and we're gonna look at this, and we're gonna look at that. This is what this was. And we knew everywhere they

were gonna go. So in three weeks when they came looking for the numbers of the things, we had all the answers, you know, But it was that kind of stuff. But I think, you know, to survive in at that time at e AM, I in a corporate environment, I think, you know, you had to be a little bit more political,

and I just wasn't political, you know. I mean, you know, we had a conference at once where we all got together in the marketing conference and I think they had some guy from Sachi and Sachi and they were sort of, yeah, this is in the the months era and they and they had these guys telling us about how to run our business better. And they said, look, the consumer tells you what the product is and what to do with

the product. Then we do this research. And he said, you know the research that we did, will we show you. We're in there, like they got the troop movements and a pointer, and I say, you're going, guys, you want me to make records and run marketing and like make sure the promotion guys are actually getting records played, Like what am I doing? But I didn't say they're my face.

I'm sure didn't look really really happy all day. Anyway, the guy gets to the point where he says, so Paumala, they wanted to know what to do with the soap, and they went and did the research, and the soap they realized from the consumers had to be green. So I raised my hand and I go, yeah, but when I tell the soap at Capitol Records to be green, they tell me funk off because they're artists and their people and like I don't understand what we're doing, and

I never forget. Months pulled me aside and he goes, why do you have to be that guy? And I said, what do you mean that guy? You mean the guy who's processing facts, Like I don't know, like this is not that relevant. He goes, just go back there and listen and you know, and don't disrupt things. So but that was my life, and you know I think that um you know, I I also, I mean I remastered

the Beatles records. Okay, I I wanted to. When I was a kid, as when you were a kid, I had those records, I had some things new I wanted to because the Dylan catalog had been remastered and the Stones catalog had been remastered, and they and like by the time they were going to decide to do it, I just thought, we gotta do this. So I went to Ted Jensen, who was a master guy, and and I went to Neil aspinall what you know, may rest

in peace. What a great guy, you know, who managed to be those And I said, well, let me do this because I really I just want to make these things sound good. And he said, okay, you can take those records and you can you send it to me. The British company did not like that because I went straight to the Beatles, but I had a really good relationship with all of them, and you know, I think that they didn't think I wanted to rip them off or take some money and make my number with their masters.

They knew like I cared, I think, and so we made these American records and it really it's just irritated them. And then I remember I had done a family portrait of our roster. And I had figured out how we could at that time a two thousand three or four take Coldplay and the Beastie Boys and and Radiohead and Kylie and put them in and McCartney and put them in a photo and put it in billboard. And that just made them crazy, because that's they didn't think of

the idea. And so there was constant friction, and I think it ended when they you know, realized they were going to sell the company and they were showing a certain amount of profit and to the new buyer, they were showing a program of merging the company and cutting the overhead. And I guess the new buyer didn't really do the due diligence because they were in the I don't know, bar business and refrigerator business and they yeah,

and they thought, hey, yeah. Then they then they merged the company and they just thought they could run as many records and create as much profit, and they didn't realize that they needed, you know, two companies. And also at the same time, after you know this, there was this like you know, perfect storm going on where Radio was you know, consolidating, and it was very much about

call out research. So that was tightening and retail was going away, and I just don't And I think you had instead of being right on your records because the profit structure, structure would be a certain way it now you had to be right about fifty of the time. And all of that together with a new president who you know, was had also a kind of I think, uh focus in music that wasn't broad enough to carry that company. It all just came crashing down. Okay, let's

jump ahead ten years today. What do you see as the state of the music business and the music today. I mean, it's hard for me to to evaluate the business portion of any of it really because I'm not really astute. I'm not looking at it like like you look at it. I like to ask you that question

and I read what you say about that stuff. Um. I mean, I'm happy that music is thriving, and I'm happy that that that the companies are healthy because there's a another resurgence of of money coming in from streaming and people are, you know, buying their records again, you know, finding news to buy the same music again in new music. So I think it's healthy. I think the unfortunate thing is that everyone can make a record and everyone can

put one out and it doesn't matter. So there's so much you know, we live in this age of of you know, of hyper information and short attention span and being bombarded with stuff, and it's just trying to get above the noise. And so that's just in you know,

in our in our business. And you know, at one time, I think to make a record, you have to be really good because you have to get somebody who's going to invest a coup hundred thousand gollars to put you in the studio, and you know, and then you have to have somebody who had vision to make you into the thing, to create that alchemy that we we know is the brand of the band that we love and that we want to buy the T shirt of. And

I I don't I don't know. Um. If you know, if it's possible, uh to to to affect popular culture through rock music the way it was you know, let's say in the last twenty years before the the the age of the smartphone, where you have all human knowledge in your hand. Um. I mean, obviously the bridge between hip hop and popular culture and pop music is there. It affects other forms of the of the culture. It

affects you know, fashion and and art. But you know the thing that I love and that would be, you know, more rock music. I don't. I think the bridge between alternative culture and pop culture may be broken. It may be broken forever. Okay, so today you consider yourself a manager, Well, you know, I never really consider myself I'm now. I don't know if you I would say that per se

because I'm not looking for management clients. I have relationships with a few artists that I love that I work with, and some of it's as a producer, some of it's as a producer and a manager, some of it's just as a manager. But really, I you know, I wanted to make this film and I and I had this idea and I made this film. Before we get to

the film, so what are those acts you're you're working with. Well, at the moment, it's Jacob Dylan, Fiona Apple, who I've known and for twenty five plus years, Cat Power, and a singer named Jade Costrinos who was in the band called Edward Sharpen the Magnetic Serios. Okay, so let's get back to the movie. So you're sitting on the couch. You see this movie the model Model Shop, Model Shop, excuse me, and then you decide, okay, uh, we should make a record of these old tunes. Continue the story

from there. When we start getting into the songs, I realized the ones that I'm picking, in the ones that Jacob is liking, all have stories behind them. And there are stories that are kind of integral to these bands. Uh, and I just want to know. I want to go find out the you know, the what's behind the songs

from the people and you know. So we start to make this record, and you know, in making the record, because it was a record first, and I get these songs, and I'm trying to find a way to make, like in the other records that I made something modern out of something old. How do I synthesize this into something that's just not tracing paper bar band Hollywood in bar

band shit. And I had this idea of turning these songs into duets, mainly with women, so that when you hear never My Love or you hear Expecting to Fly, that those were songs, you know, sung by bye bye by a bunch of guys or a guy, and I turned it into a conversation between a man and women you showed me done by the Turtles written by mcgwyn and Clark, but when cat Power and Jacob sing it,

it becomes a conversation and it's a great one. And so you know, that gives me the the the impetus to kind of go further and then take some of the arrangements of some things like you would hear in a in a bird song and take the twelve string and put it in a mom momas in Papa song, and you know, take this string line that you would hear here, and you know, and and mix and matches. It gives you the feeling that you're there in that place.

But it's not when you go listen to the original next but it it's like, whoa, this is way different, but it feels the same. So how does that have fun? That to me was interesting and it was fun, and that's so I started. And then at that point I was like, well, this is something bigger because the collection of songs suggests this time and around the time that we were doing this, we first of all, we read

your column about going back. Okay, that's number one, um, and you know that becomes you know, part of our our film. But um, it it, you know it. It's the fiftieth anniversary of the birth of the Birds, and it really starts with the birds, as you know, when the Birds electrified folk music in Nive that that changes

everything for everyone. And I don't know, you know, and when we start to make the movie, we think about the fiftieth anniversary of that, and so I say, you know, I start to write out a treatment and find somebody to I mean, so find somebody to believe enough to to finance it. And I wasn't going to make the film. I had this treatment and I went to very accomplished documentary filmmakers and I said, look, yeah, it was like a rock critic giving them some rock critic theory bullshit.

And I said, look, this is an important thing. And they're like, nah, I don't want to do it now. I need two million dollars. That's like, okay, wait a minute, all right. So somebody said to me, look, you hired video directors. You ran all the marketing and you know advertising, and your company you make records. You know these people, some of them. You make the movie. I said, I can't make I'm not a director. They said, sure you are, you can do it. Because I didn't want to find somebody.

They said, you just get this. So I called this producer and I said, you know, get me a DP that I can talk to, that I can show them the phya and get me an editor and then then let's see what we can do. And and you know, that's that becomes the you know, the beginning of of of making the film. But you know, the the that period we started by thinking it's going to be the electrification of folk music and how people migrate from New

York to l A. And that's the story. And as I find out, as documentary filmmakers later told me, you found out everything we all find out, which is the story is not where you think it is, but the story is somewhere else, and you find the story. And what I found by talking to these people was that California, which was the ultimate horizontal city, the promised land, the land of freedom where anything is possible. Um, you know, you could go and and and and electrify folk music.

And so for me, I used it, expecting to fly as a sort of frame for this film. Uh, the beginning obviously the beginning of the end. And and really to me, that song represents a few things. I mean that song, you know, it's about the end of a relationship. But even in the title, it's like it suggests, no matter how outlanded your dreams are, you think they're going to come true, which is like that era. And as we know, that kind of boundless optimism never lasts. But

you know, that period, it really is there. What the story that I find is that there's really three periods of Little King. There's the period where they were Roger mcgwinn sees the hard Day's Night, sees the twelve string takes the twelve string electric tosting electrifies folk music, and every band comes to California because they are supposed to be the American beatles that got the velvet collars, they

got the whole thing. And and that period of being in a band, you know, which is explored in the film, is really about multiple singers and multiple songwriters and that collective energy that they all saw in a Hard Day's Night.

Hey we're traveling around. Hey, look isn't this great? We're like our little gang and they all come here and that period ends, and and in the film you really find out, you know, Michelle tells you it ends partly because she liked Danny and John, and you know, Crosby tells you that the Birds are you know, and because he's as he says, he was an asshole, and it's sort of tied in some ways to him wanting to put Tryad on the Bird's record and they going back

because they want to have a hit. And Steven Stills tells you, okay, we we were had a wealthy material, but it was divergent directions and in the end, you know, there's Neilly Young in the end, you know, as on the search for the individual, because after the band period, there is the psychedelic period, and after the psychedelic period,

it's a retrenchment back to country rock and roots. And I'm telling you things you're you already know, Bob, and it're written about, but it becomes the search for the individual. So it's not Buffalo Springfield. It's Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.

And so for me, I wanted to explore the idea of the band and that period and the thing that you know, I think with the film, I was sitting there and because the contemporary record business had rejected me in that moment and I left Capital, I was rejecting it, and so I looked back at this film, you know, and I just thought to this time when things were much simpler and it wasn't so complicated, and I didn't have corporate governance and ship on top of me, and

and so it sent me to to somehow interpret and pay homage to that music that I loved that I listened to on w ABC and Cousin Brucey and w m c A. And I was a good guy, and I heard good vibrations and I heard California dreaming, and

I thought, God, there's this place. I'm in my little concrete park playing stoop ball and stickball, and it's cold, and that place that that looks like it does and it's a mad, mad, mad mad world with the big w and it's beautiful by the sea, and you know, and and that's what I wanted to celebrate and the place we live when time was simpler. Because if you squint your eyes and you drive around l A, you know,

and you're always on the edge of nature. There's a coyote in your right, there's you know, and it's that that thing between the city and nature. And I just need to find a way to give my own creative interpretation like those writers did of that time, and this film really represents that for for me. Okay, anybody who refused to be interviewed, not really. I mean, each one of those bands is a documentary in itself. The Beach Boys, the Bird, the Moms and Pop is the Buffalo Springfield.

I mean, you know, they all and even some of those individual members. So to try to, you know, build a singular narrative that takes you from the rick and back or twelve string through that sort of period of the bands, you know, to why bands break up, to the search for the individual, you know, kept it narrow and there's no one really else that we wanted to talk to. You know. Again, we we used Neil Young as the sort of metaphor at the end for the

search for the individual. You know, when Steven tells you right leaves the band gonna be on TV to be on the Johnny Carson Show, and you know, and expecting to fly was really his warning sign and that, you know, and that is also that is also the song that I feel like his arrangement with Jack Nietsi was a kind of nod to a day in the life on Sergeant Pepper. It's their California version of that, I think, and and that ushers in the psychedelic period in a sense.

And and so that's why, you know, that's the end of the movie, and that's the place. How does get in the movie, Well, we were trying to find also the the the arc of how people were influenced in England.

You know, we knew the Beatles, look, I mean in the film it you know, you learned that that bells are Rimney by the Birds influenced George Harrison to write if I Needed Someone, which goes on Robert Soul, which Brian Wilson tells you in the film he heard which makes him write pet Sounds, which the Beatles here and day write Sergeant Pepper. And in in doing this, you know the other people that came from England at the time.

Obviously Cream was you know, one of the biggest bands in the world at that time English band, along with the Beatles and the Stones. Uh, And we just wanted to we knew he had a connection to California and to Laurel Canyon. And when he tells you that that head Sounds was the thing that the Cream was aspiring

to do. I mean, I've never heard that before. And then he tells you that Let It Rain was inspired by Questions, And Stephen tells you that that that Questions was inspired by since you've asked, so the film is really more about the echo of people's ideas than it is about the canyon. The canyon is the place that the canyon is the place where it takes where it

all sort of happens. But you know, and the other thing is that that we shot a lot of stuff in the rooms where these things were recorded, and we recorded in those rooms, and you know, to me, having worked there a lot in my life with Macy, with Fiona, with the Wallflowers, I I always was so humbled by those rooms and the feeling I got when I went in there, and they were always beautiful to me, and so I wanted to shoot them in a way that they could be beautiful because Bob, I don't know if

they're going to be here in ten years, because the with the you know, with Hollywood and the expansion of Hollywood, a single story building on Sunset's worth a lot of land value, and I just don't know if those guys are going to be able to hold out when somebody says, here's fifty million bucks. And you know, so remember that the human voice. What we love about the human voe,

what we love about Sinatra, you know. Besides the tone of his voice is what happens when an echo chamber, When that voice is projected an echo chamber, that's what gives a voice depth, you know, and in some ways, you know, changes the tonality of things in those rooms. It's sunset sound. I mean, you know, some of them are gone. You know, Columbia Studios is gone. You know, gold Stars, Brian tells you he loved the echo of gold Star. That's gone, but those rooms still have it.

In fact, I ran into I was at book soup and I ran into Jimmy Page, who I only no peripherally. I don't really know him, but I ran into him a couple of times, and we were talking about we were talking about Bells are Rimney because he had done a I think he recorded a version of Bells round the end. We were talking about and he said, you know the bells from me that guitar Mcquin's guitar that sounds like the echo chambered studio on its sunset sound,

doesn't it? And you know, so for him and for Mick and Makers to to have that specific a sense about it, like it was a Strata barius, you know, I has a specific guitar. Is is something powerful? So you know, Echo in the Canyon is you know, hopefully a documentation of of of a great moment in Los Angeles history. Okay, Brian Wilson is surprisingly loose see it in your movie? Did you just get them when he was locked on? Or was he loosened the whole time

you interviewed him. Well, I'll tell you. When we went to talk to Brian, I had never met him, and even though I had you know, rand Capital for seven years and we put out sounds of the summer and stuff. But I said to somebody who was friends with him, Hey, you know what, what what should I do here? Because you know I worshiped the guy and you know, I mean and Bob. When you think about it, the Beatles had George Martin, and George Martin was the arranger. The

Beach Boys had Brian Wilson. That was all in his head. He was standing there with those you know, incredible musicians, string players, the Wrecking Crew adults, and he was his kid with these ideas. So I just, you know, the the magnitude of of that I had to kind of, you know, put aside to get to capture the stuff on film. And I said to somebody, hey, when we talked to him, you know what, what what do we do? Like?

What you like? And what is it? And he said, well, you know, Brian, he loves food, you know, don't you know, don't just launch into some stuff like talk to him. I said, okay, So when Brian came to the set, he sat down and you do the interview, and I said, and you know, he knew I had worked there. You know, somebody told him i'd worked there. And I said, hey, man, you you work at the studio and he goes, oh yeah. I said you like chicken? He goes, I love chicken.

I said, you know, this is this chicken place called al Wazire Chicken. You know this down the street. You ever had it? He no. I go, oh man, this is the best. I used to eat this stuff every day. This is the best chicken in Hollywood. And he was like, oh, we had we did ten minutes on Alba's here Chicken and you know, and then luckily, you know, he didn't have to answer for the fiftieth time how you know how genius the arrangement and good Vibrations was okay, but

you know they're playing and I forget the song. I just wasn't made for these times, right, And he says, uh, you know what key? He immediately knows what key and what they're playing. It not a change. It's like, you know, it's like a lightning striking from the sky. Well, I don't hope Brian well enough to tell you if this is true, But you know, maybe he just doesn't want to talk to everybody, so he goes to that. You know, if he wants to talk to you, he'll talk to you.

And if he's doesn't, he'll just kind of say, well, I'm Brian, and then I'm not going to give it to you. Well, actually a new movie is coming out. Interview with Brian Wilson, the editor Jason Fine of Rolling Stone Shirt goes around in a car. I'll save the story for him, but making the movie, Okay, what are

two things you learned that you didn't know? That I have to have a lot of respect for filmmakers because it is a incredibly difficult job, and that I probably could not have done it in any point in my life if I had not done every job in a writer, in a record producer and a musician and an executive, because of what it takes to really piece it together. So you know, I also learned that the film business is UH is a difficult place, and music business is like a playground that I can go on. And but

that would be a different riff. You know. The way I always say is, you know, you could everybody can listen to a record and whether the person be ten or seventy five, they'll say, well, had a good beat, and I could dance to it. But you put a five year old in front of a TV show and say, well, the plot wasn't believable. I didn't like that. Everybody's got a damn viewpoint in the film business, never mind the

money in the distribution. I will tell you that there were people who said to me, just put the concert footage. What is all this stuff with the thing with the eck? Come on? And I was like, oh god, I do remember this. I remember when I you know, it reminded me of a moment UH when I had first produced Shadow Boxer and Fiona and I went to meet Donnie Ironer and I had the demo there to you know, to get to get the funding to do to do the record. We end of the office and Donnie said,

that's fantastic. This is just like visions of Love, Mariah Carrie. You know, visions that's what you need to make this. You need to make this. You don't listen to them, I need to make visions of love. And Fiona looked at me like with horror on her face as we were walking out of there, and I, you know, because I had said, oh, okay, yeah, it's just like ah six eight, it's a waltz all so yeah, I see

where you're going with this. Yeah. Yeah, And you know, I walked out the office and to me like what and I was like no, no, no no, no, no, no no. We just tell him, yes, we just get the money. What do we want? You know. But the same thing in the film business, you know, when you're trying to get money from people, you just you know, unfortunately, you have to be right. I mean, you know, you have to have something that has success because because if you're wrong,

they never talked to you again. Luckily, in the music business, you know, I people made money every time I asked them for money and they get give me money to do things. Um, I was only doing things, and I

thought I could, you know, make something interesting. But the film thing is very was was very tough, and because it takes more money, and and you you know, when you make a song as a producer, you listen down three minutes, you know what you got, You go to sleep, you wake up the next day, you listen three minutes. You get to a certain point when you're making a film. You have to watch the hour and a half film

to know what's going on. And in the course of making this film, there were things that I really wanted to cover. I wanted to cover the sunset strip and love in the beginning of garage rock. And I wanted to cover the Monkeys because they were you know, Hollywood

interpretation of the Beatles. And and you realize that as the narrative is being developed, and as you're you're sitting there, somebody becomes an elbow and it becomes too long, and it could be two minutes, but you've got to watch an hour and a half all the time to really get it. Just like a song, you know, when you think the bridge is too long or turn and it's so you think you watched it, I have to say five hundred. I mean, it just it's what it's what

it takes. And when you're doing the sound, and when you're doing the mix and you're doing dialogue and you have to do then you have to do the the underscore and the dialogue and the some of the effects that you're using, and you know, then the mix, the mix changes things. So you know, it's like it's like three D record making. You know, it's not five one.

You know, it's not a five one mix of record because you've got picture and you and and you've got the color of the picture, and you know all the time you've got old footage and you want to try to blend things. And so I love the process of that. I love being able to create it. I I love that somebody gave me the opportunity and gave me the money to do it. And I hope I can make

their money back for them, Like would you make another movie? Well, I have the rights to to uh to another film and and to another story, another music story, and I and I'm a little beat up to beg for three years. Well yeah, you know so, I but I do want to do it. I mean, the miraculous thing about this film is that somebody decided they liked it and they were going to put it at the Cinerama Dome, and you know, and that's where the arc Light wants to

show him in the arc Light. They you can't really tell them what to do. They know they have the best movie theater in America. And you know, obviously the Landmark has a you know, has a great game has a great theater here too. So I am just, uh, you know, not shocked, but but really in awe the fact that the place that premiered Apocalypse Now and e T and Star Wars uh, and it's the premier movie

house in America. It's eight hundred seats. It's when you go in there, it's incredible that they wanted to show the film there and premiere the film there. So I'm that's Ma's And then how long untill people the rest of the country can see? Uh? It opens in New York had May thirty one, after that at the at the Angelica and at the Landmark of Town, and then it goes to San Francisco, San Diego, Chicago, Boston and all the cities in June fourteen one, and as of

now it's a it's at fifty cities. But the one good thing about what's happening on if this is relevant, uh, the band is going to play music that night. After the performance, they're gonna we're gonna do music four nights in the in the cineramadon which they've never done four nights in a row. And on one of those nights, Steven Stills is going to play, and Cat Power's gonna play, and Jacob's gonna play, and it's it's it's gonna be. Uh, it's gonna be a great celebratory event with the old

and the new. Okay, you've been wonderful, Andy. You know we could really go on for hours. You've done a good job of telling your story and keeping it in interesting. That's the Andy s leader, writer and director of the new film Echo in the Canyon, and you've heard in the podcast all the other things he's accomplishing the music business. Andy, thanks for coming. Thank you, Bob. Okay, until next time, it's the Bob Left Sets Podcast.