Dave Koz

lot of touring together and made records together. And she um. It was actually a funny thing because when are We made this album called Summer Horns in two thousand and thirteen, and at the time I was working with this guy named Eric Querra on a wine project sort of like a side project for us that we do for charity. And over the years we've made a raised a lot of money for a charity called the Starlight Children's Foundation through the sale of Cause Wine, which is basically wine

with my name on it. That's you can find it whole Foods and it raises money for charity. As I like to say, drink for the kids. But these are kids that are in the hospital for long periods of time, and this is one way just to kind of help them. So anyway, Eric guarra Um is a good friend of mine in the wine business, and he was helping me for a number of years make this wine and we

were having wonderful success. And we just finished the Summer Horns record and I sent him the cover of the album as basically just because he's my friend, I said, here's our new album, and you know, I wanted to share this with you. And he wrote back immediately he said, who is that blonde? And is she's single? And I said, hey, slow your roll, brother, you know, let's let's go a little slower here. I thought I was gonna be your favorite saxophone player, and he said, You're always gonna be

my favorite saxophone player. But who is that blonde? So I called Mindy and I said, this guy Eric is is kind of interested in meeting you. Are you interested in meeting him? And I showed her a picture of Eric. Now, since this is a non visual medium, bob um, let me just say he's kind of a He's he's a hot guy, right, He's got these like the total uh, you know, George Clooney with the gray hair and the just the tan and just you know, a very suave guy. So she's looked at him and she said, yes, I

do want to meet him immediately. So they had their first date and I was not there, but evidently it went very very well, and um they started dating and then they got really involved and they've been involved ever since. You know. That was it. So Mindy and Eric came to me many years later and said, we're thinking about tying the knot. And it was in conjunction with Mindy's fiftieth birthday, which was Memorial Day weekend. And I came up with the idea because I presided over one like

a gay wedding about five or six years ago. That was a total surprise as well, and it was so much fun because people came to a party not knowing that the they were gonna get married or they weren't witnessed a wedding, and it was so much fun. And so I suggested to them, I said, well, what about just having a fiftieth birthday party, but at the party, we just have a surprise wedding. And they loved it, and so that's that's how it all happened. Okay, how

long before the party did you have this conversation? Say, it's probably three months a long time because she has a party every Memorial Day weekend. And I was sitting in the kitchen. It's mostly an outdoor party, and my friend Elbow b said he Eric came out in the suit and then all of said they're gonna get married. I guess I'm slow on the uptake. But then it could all put together. And that was before they entered

the Uh. The outside where the suble multitude mostly was well, if you've never been to a surprise wedding, there's there's that moment exactly what you just described, Bob, where like the turn that the situation changes. You're coming to a party expecting one thing, and then all of a sudden you start noticing cues that oh something is changing, and then there's this energy that just erupts and people are

so excited. You know, So I think it's it's um, it's not for everybody's taste, but for if you kind of like that adventurous spirit. It worked for Indian era list. It was great. It's great vibe and everybody was there. But in addition, you performed the ceremony extremely Well, so is it your How did you come up with your lines and you felt comfortable because you're always on stage or what happened there, that's a different thing, that's right, That's why I'm asking. But it was very loose. But

you said you felt so comfortable from the outside observer. Well, that's nice to you to say, and I'm glad it came off that way. I was rather nervous. I get pretty nervous for things like That's one thing to have a saxophone in my mouth on stage. It's another thing to be marrying, you know, two people you really really love. But I think it came from them. They were, uh, they said to me like, they didn't put any parameters on me. They just said, let's have something that's fun, reverent.

We don't have to we're nonconformists, so let's just not have a We're having a surprise wedding, so it doesn't have to conform to anything that you would normally typically think a wedding should be. And so I just went

with it. And I knew I knew that um that Mindy had worked a lot with Adam Sandler, and so I was doing some uh you know, just research before that, and I found a great Adam Sandler quote that really from the wedding singer that just was the perfect way to start, and it just basically diffused the energy and let everybody know that this was not going to be a typical wedding, and it just kind of remember remember

the quote, I can't remember it right, right right? I should have knew that You've known you're gonna ask me that question. Okay, let's go back to the beginning. When's the first time you picked up a saxophone. I was thirteen years old, seventh grade, Portola Junior High School here in Los Angeles and the Valley Tarzana, California, where I grew up, and that was the uh the for I

played other instruments. Well, that's my question. Coming from a Jewish background like myself, we started taking piano lessons at age six, So did you have any of that experience or something in the school before this accident. We had the same piano teacher because did you play Hot Cross Buns?

Probably so he hated piano. I mean, my mom forced my brother and sister and I to take it up when we were growing up and I just hated it, and so I rebelled when I was around ten and I took up the drum set because I thought I was gonna really show my parents whose boss. And this

is a true story. There was a time when my dad came to pick me up from my drum lesson at Kay's music scene in uh In Mercida, and the drum teacher came to say hello to my dad, and I was right there so I could hear what he said to my dad, and he said, dr Cos you might want to think about sports for Dave, because it's just not gonna have I was crushed. This is two instruments now that I basically crashed and burn was terrible piano player, terrible drummer, and so I thought this was it.

There's there's no music for me. Let's go back to your family said your father was a doctor. What kind of doctor was dermatologist? Dermatologist? So was that something he didn't discuss his work over the dinner table. Yeah, there was a healthy diet of zits and karatosis, and uh, you know, my dad was a very Both my parents are passed, but my mom was a pharmacist too, So my my parents in addition to being you know, Jews, they were also medical Jews, so they had that kind

of perspective. And all three kids, my older brother and sister and I all went into the music business, if you can believe that, and they were very supportive. Surprisingly and to their credit, they were incredibly supportive of of us following are okay, it's just staying on that topic. Your father is a dermatologist. Most teenagers get it. Did you then go to see your father? Of course there was no charge. Yeah, I guess that's the only thing.

It wasn't weird because you didn't know something. Dermot Toms is always sort of weird when they're addressing yours. It's so, there are three kids in the family. Where are you in the hierarchy? I'm the youngest, you're the youngest, so you're the oldest. Is my brother Jeff? Okay, and how much older is he than you? Almost four years older than me? And then your sister is the middle kid, Roberta, and she's two years two years old and me? Okay,

Like in my family, it's all two years. And then if you do the math, you realize this is nine months after the re anniversary, which is kind of creepy. I know, it's it's amazing that our parents kind of got to it exactly. I can't imagine it. They just like god to it and had and they basically spit out three kids within less than four years. And um, I marvel at my parents, my you know, somehow they were able to make it happen. And I never I grew up in a very you know, I grew up

in Tarzana and and never really thought about anything. I mean, I had my own issues to deal with, which we're you know, kind of having to deal with them on my own. Like what kind of issues? Well, I grew up I'm gay? You know, Wait, just since you brought it up, at what point do you realize you're gay? I would say, like my earliest memories sitting on my parents bed, reading the Sunday newspaper and looking at some of those circulars were that show, you know, people in

in bathing suits. And I think I was noticing guys way back when, even before there was any sort of understanding of what that meant. So were you in single digits, were already a teenager probably six seven something like that? Okay, need let's just say los Angeles is very liberal on this, so just like San Francisco. But to what degree did you try to repress those feelings, if at all, I completely tried to replace repress the I made have made a serious habit of repressing them for a long time,

because it's just there was nothing. I didn't really know what to do with those feelings. And and and this is what and I don't mean to be over dramatic, be as dramatic, but um, when I discovered the saxophone finally at thirteen, this is the connection to your earlier question. Discovering the saxophone at thirteen when my body was exploding, you know, like all theteen year olds. Um, it was finally finding that best friend that I could talk to.

And I've thought about this a lot, and I wonder why I have a career that I feel very blessed and fortunate that I'm still able to do this. I've been doing it for almost thirty years, making records and traveling around. What is why does somebody want to hear me play the saxophone? When I've said this before, there

are people who can blow circles around me. There's something in the sound that I think was made like a blueprint of the sound was made when I first picked it up, because there was so much of that internal like emotion going into this sound, Like the saxophone was the one vehicle that I could express myself with, and I think because it was, it started out as this is that you know, there's a lot of real emotion

and real pain that's in that sound. Even though ironically the music that I make is is very uplifting and I consider kind of kind of happy. It's not sad music, but they're inside of that sound, there is some sort of thing that I think people maybe on some level, uh connect to because we all go through that stuff no matter what we're dealing with. We can recognize that if there's something in a sound that that that connects

with us on that level. So, uh well, let's stay let's go back to a little bit of fill in. So did you ever date girls? If I did, you did, and that was a good or bad experience. I think my my most successful relationship was with a woman to this day, to this day, Okay informed me of that. Lisa Rosendam. She was my high school girlfriend into college and we had a great We had a really great relationship I'm hoping that she's not upset for me outing her on your podcast. Um. She was so great because

I was very honest with her. I told her what was going on with me, and I was committed to her, and I said, I really want to see this through. And then one day, about two years in, she came to me and she said, I just kind of need to know, like, do you think that we have a future? Are you gonna want a date? Guys? And I said, um, I think it was on a on a Friday, and

I said, can I take the weekend? So on Monday, I said, I thought about this over the weekend and I definitely will want to explore this and I think it would be a mistake to not And she said totally cool, and we broke up and remained great friends. Very soon after she met her husband. There's a guy named Jeff and to this day it was a long time ago now and to this day, every time I see him, he thanks me well, as he should you.

But you know, this is not an uncommon story. I have a friend who was married to someone and she said, right up front, you know, I'm into women as well as you, which maybe this is you know, bisexual as opposed to They were married very briefly. She came home and said, Hey, I want to date this woman. He divorced her. She's still with that woman decades later. So. Uh, but going back, you said, your sister and brother with the music business, what do they do. My brother is

a incredibly talented um composer, plays guitar. Uh. There was a time in his life, in the early part of his life where he wanted to be a recording artist and really really went for it. But for whatever reason, you know, it just didn't happen in that way for him.

So he retooled along the way and decided to do to get more behind the scenes, and he started a company that was doing mostly music for commercials and films and stuff like that, and built a career uh for approximately thirty years that really was very successful until that

business kind of started to change. My sister was an executive at MTV before it was called MTV, when it was owned by Warner American Express, and she was one of the on the business side, not in the music or programming side, but on the on the cable side. She was one of the early executives. She worked her way all the way up to running the whole West Coast office until she decided that she wanted to be more focused on her kids when she had kids, so

she left that. And then, just as a like a little anti or addendum to that whole story, my brother and sister and the most unlikely marriage of all decided about two years ago to get into the marijuana business. So, well, let's I think we missed a chapter here. Your sister started making cookies. So how long ago did she start making cookies? Well, my mom was a baker, uh, And my mom dispensed these. She was a pharmacist, but she's dispensed these chocolate chip cookies and they were just amazing.

She never sold them, but she brought them everywhere. And she my mom was a typical Jewish mom. She equated food with love, and if she loved you, she was going to feed you, whether you liked it or not. And so she had these cookies. And in the beginning part of my career, Bob it was it was funny because Capitol Records, I was signed to Capital for twenty years. Capital fell in love with my mom and her cookies so much that back in the day and the early

part of my career. They would send her out, not me, her out on a promotional visits to warehouse records and liquor, spizza and sam goodies, and and she would get you know, she would get placement for me just by these cookies. Were that good. Well that's a great story, irrelevant of the cookie. So anyway, she was a great baker. How did it transition to your sister, Well, my mom passed in twenty oh five, and um, people would she was larger than life, you though she was only five ft tall.

But my um, all of us just to stay here. So your mother and father were born in America. They were born in Canada, Canada, and then their parents immigrated from the Old Country as we say, yes, how did they get from Winnipeg to Los Angeles? I think in a covered wagon. I didn't know the room went in that direction. I thought it was just east to west. No, my parents got married and they were my dad hated the cold, and they grew up in Winnipeg, of all places,

you know, fifty below zero. So when they got married, my dad was immediately, we're moving to California, and they did, and my mom went along with him. I don't think that she really wanted to go, but he really wanted to go, and so he developed. He was brought into a practice dermatology practice in in Encino, and my mom came along and that's where my brother and sister and I were all raised. That begs a question, do you

have a lot of relatives in Canada? Yeah, all over Canada, but but especially in Winnipeg's and do you ever see them? I do, Yeah, I do a lot. Okay, so let's go back to the cookies. How does your sister decide to make started making cookies? Well, when my mom passed, her name was Audrey. And when my mom passed, people always said, you know, we miss Audrey so much, but white cookies. So Roberta, my sister said enough already, I'm

gonna try and find the recipe. She, you know, went through my mom's things, found the recipe and she started making the cookies and everybody was very happy. And then she said, I think there's a business here, and she started doing it. She developed a company called Audrey's Cookies, and for a while she had a pretty good, you know, little company never made any money, you know, because because her competitors were Nabisco and it was very difficult, but

she still got on the shelves and whole food. She got on the shelves in Costco and a test. She was in a bunch of different markets, and she would take two steps forward, one step back, three steps forward,

two steps back. It never really took off. My brother when he saw the winds of change happening in the cannabis world in in um, you know, like two or three years ago here in the state of California, he suggested to my sister, we should turn Audrey's Cookies into an edibles company and incorporate marijuana, cannabis and um and then we can You know, most people uh honor their dead parents, especially with their Jewish dead parents with maybe a plant, a tree in Israel, maybe you put a

plaque in the synagogue with their name on it. My family, we're just in the pot cookie business. So it's my mom's recipe and it's my dad's name. They're called doctor Norms, and you can find them pretty much at any dispensary up and down the state of California. Right now. I know it's their business, not yours, but I know a lot of people entered that business. Very competitive now at this point in time legally and commercially. How difficult has

it been for them. I think it's been difficult because they started before it was legal in in the state of California, so there were much different rules. It was pretty much like the Wild Wild West when they first started, which is not even that long ago, it's only maybe

two and a half years ago. But when it was the the the rule was passed in the state of California and the rules changed, and then the it's like the government wasn't prepared to figure out how to do all that at the same time, so it was just chaos for at least like six months. So they've been dealing with a lot of that stuff. But um, their sales are very strong. They were acquired by a big company and um so they're off to the races. So once they put in the annibis, it turned into a

profitable business. And they're still very both very heavily involved. They're incredibly involved. Yeah, they have so pretty much. If I go to a dispensary, I asked for Audrey's cookies Dr Norms. Dr Norm's. The brand name changed. Dr Norms. Okay, so let's go back to you. How do you end up picking up the saxophone at age thirteen? Well that was my brother. Um, god, this is turning into a really this is your life exactly. I hope it's interesting

for your listenership. Did people already turn off? Okay? Okay, seven people listening now, most of them related to me. But that's besides the point. You have a lot of fans. I mean, it's your name comes up, it's like, you know, spontaneous of my nutritionist. I have high cholesterol. Huge fan tells me she's going to your shows. You know, well yes, absolutely, Well god, but you know you do these cruises. But

let's start at the beginning. So your brother, My brother had a band when I was growing up with his friends that were they were doing weddings and bar mitzvah's fraternity parties. It's called Randy and Company. And uh, they did not have a saxophone player. I wanted to be in that band. When I was a kid, I saw him and his buddies. Everybody else had to get jobs, you know, working at Burger King or McDonald's or whatever, flipping burgers. These guys played music on the weekend. So

I was thought, this is so cool. I want to be in the band. Of course, going back to what I was telling you before, I really had no uh like, there was no indication that I had any musical talent whatsoever. But my brother said in in passing one when one time he said, the only way that First of all, you're never getting in this band. Right. Of course he's four years older. That's what I think, total older brother

never getting in this band. But the only way that you could get in this band, if possibly in a million years, could ever happen, is if you played the saxophone player saxophone, because we don't have a saxophone player. And it was the time when you know, this is like the late seventies early eighties when when every pop song had a saxolo. If you didn't have a sax player in your band for a wedding, I mean, you really were out of touch. So that's all I heard.

And it was basically at the same exact time I was going into seventh grade, I could pick up an instrument, uh part of the curriculum, and so I picked up the saxophone. And then I just drove my brother crazy until he let me be in the band. Okay, let's go back one step. Were you a huge popular music fan yourself? For sure? Yeah. I was pretty much an

amalgam of everything that was going on in my house. So, Uh, my parents were listening to the great singers, you know, whether it was Sara Van or Ella Fitzgerald of Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr. My sister had Chicago Earth Wind and Fire and a lot of the you know, the horn bands, and and my brother was listening to more progressive rocks. So I was kind of like just listened to everything, and then um, when I picked up the saxophone, it

really became about David Sanborn, Grover Washington, Junior, Um Wine Light. Yeah, I mean those like the real pop because I, in my in my core, I was never really a jazz musician. It was more of just a pop fan. Okay, But were you hearing that those songs on the radio where you're searching them out? Uh? Probably a combination of them and being turned on by uh. I mean you know this like there was that time period where you get turned onto music by people. There was in a maybe

more so than it is now. Yeah, exactly what is somebody's house? You gotta hear this record? They put it on, or even just record shopping. Remember when you would go down the aisle and you'd talk to somebody and they would be saying, oh did you check this? I was a regular certain record store. They would hold record for me, they would tip me, oh yeah, that was part of the whole process. I love that time. What record store did you go to? Well, we had the Warehouse Records,

which was right down the street in Tarzana. There was liquorice pizza. That's really going way back in Tarzana. Um those are the two main one and of course Tower Records on Sunset. But but that was like a special outing right right, that was a big trip. That was a very but going there was always the greatest. And I remember when my first record came out. Do you remember the big when they those oversized record covers on

the side of the building. Well, for my first record they did that, and I I remember driving down Sunset Boulevard and so this was probably fall of when it first came out, and I I freaked, I mean literally freaked out because that's like a dream come true for for any music fan to see your well, to have a record come out, period, but then to see the cover on the side of Tower Records. That's also better than hearing it on the radio, for sure. But wait,

we're driving down the street. I hate to bust into the story. Did you know what was gonna be there? Um? Yeah, they had told me that it was going. Okay, So you're taking lessons in school? Are you taking lessons outside of school? Um? Basically playing in school? I never really had. Um. I took saxophone lessons for a very short period of time. I studied improvisation when I was in high school quite uh. When you say it took lessons briefly, that was at

the advent of your playing career or somewhere later. It was probably maybe a few years into it. So most of the learning that I did on the saxophone. The funny thing about the sacks, to Bob was that it was unlike the piano, drums or any other instrument. The minute it came into my hands, there was a kinship with the instrument, like it felt right. It was not a struggle. It was just it had a different texture. Like all of a sudden, I was okay at it, you know, and I got good quick. And then two

years later, after playing for two years. I basically, you know, drove my brother so crazy that he let me be in the band. And then I was playing with people who were much better musicians than I was, so it allowed me. It's like the same thing when you want to take up a sport or play tennis. Something you play with people who are much better than you gets you better quicker. That was exactly the way it worked for me, because I got all these amazing musicians I

get to play with. You know, the bar mits was every weekend. Okay, so that's the next question. How much did you work, um, at least a couple of times a week, and what kind of money were you ending up making. I made ten dollars on my first one, where everybody else played got a hunter bucks. Um, my brother paid me ten dollars and uh, I filed that away and uh later on down the road when my brother and I wrote some songs from my first album, I think he might have gotten paid ten dollars because

paybacks a bit. Jeff. Although usually people who were successful musicians, wedding musicians, bar mitzva musicians in high school, they're making a good chunck of change. Honestly, I from the time that my first record came out at least six months. At least six months, I was still working every weekend doing weddings even though I was a recording artist now and getting played on the radio because the money was great. But when you were in high school, you were making

a lot of money. What did you do with the money? Drugs? Not just kidding, um, I just I don't know. I think I what did I do with the money. I probably bought equipment, and I bought a car. That's why I was usually that that's what you did. What kind of car was it? My first car that I ever got was a Honda Accord hatchback copper color, and uh cost me. So you want a brand new I remember that model. That model would run forever if something. You didn't want a new car? Yeah, so I had it

for a long time. Well let's stay on the car thing for one time. I remember, for ecological reasons, you switch from your Mercedes to your Prius. But you wanted something a little more luxurious. So what do you drive in now? I drive a Tesla, That's what I figured. And you drive I was gonna just say, so you drive a Tesla? S I drive a test last, So, uh do you use the automatic driving mode? You know, I don't have that on my on my car. You

could update it because some are upgradable, some aren't. This one is not because I had I got my Tesla the second year that they came out, and so it's not it doesn't have the software capability of being U Okay, So your Tesla is like six years old exactly. Okay, how had any problems with It's been a great car. I mean you hear everybody who's got a Tesla doesn't stop raving, said they would only drive an electric car

out what do you drive? I drive a SOB that's really a subru so the only thing I drove to BMW's before that, I wanted to get a Japanese car. And actually this guy, Jim Ron Denelly record producer, worked with Matthew sweet Wilko a million people. His father was in the car business, and he called me up so I ushould drive this car. You've got a special deal whatever, and I get a you know service at the super Group plate SOB. They didn't really know what they were doing.

The only thing the car drives well, because after you have a BMW, you're into that driving ability. Okay, the only thing it does well is drive. Well. It's a turbo charge d engine that's got four wheel drive. But all the bells and whistles, the computerized stuff. No. I mean, I got a stereo better than you can buy in any car. But I was hoping to drive that car until we went to no one owning cars. I drove my first BMW for eleven years and my second BMW

for twenty years. You know, it's like I was attached to them. This is before the days of leasing, and leasing is really just a way of burning money. And I take very good care of my stuff. And then you see, well what what a new car right cost? You don't want to get a new car. It's like they say the guy in the Wall Street Journal, the big he's a number one auto guys is don't buy a gas combunction combustion car internal combustion because it's gonna

fall off a cliff in a matter of years. So my nephew is the number, depending on the month, the number two or three BMW salesman in America. This is an amazing story. My sister now lives in the valley, and uh, he didn't make it. In college and then he bounced around one story worse than another. He ended up working last job for his karate teacher didn't show up on time. He was down and out forget it,

and people were stick of getting him jobs. He answered an ad to work in the Internet department in Keys Lexus on Wilshore Boulevard. First you're doing nothing. Then he found out he had a real flair for it, so he sold lex I for a while. He met his wife there, and he sells BMW. He sells so many cars. He told me. I saw him a couple of weeks ago.

He sold nine cars in a month. That's amazing. So I mean, if I want to BMW, it's not so much that it's a deal, but if you want to get a used one, he has all that you know, he knows which ones are good, etcetera. And my car was looked like it was on his last legs a year ago, and I was gonna get one, but I'm not into leasing. But then I say, if I buy one having owned BMW's incredible service, costs, unbelievable, great driving experience, but I said, I don't want to make a big

investment and then find out it's worth nothing. And as far as a Tesla, especially with a Tesla three, that's very enticing. But you know my girlfriend well, and we lived together. She's got a one car garage and her car is in the garage and you have to charge it. So that's my car story. Note she has. It's interesting because this is how we all we know each other. But her sister has been leasing a car every three years. Okay,

the irony is her car is up next month. That you think of not getting a car at all, which I know a number of people have done that, just take over. But because she doesn't drive that much, and

if you're leasing, your really upside down. But what happened was they wanted to lease a new car and they had bought one car they leased and it was a fully I mean he had everything, the Macabici, stereo, the cool seats, whatever, lexus and she sold it to my girlfriend, her twin sister, four years ago with not even thirty thousand miles on it. So that's the car she drops. You know, uh uh suddenly I g S three. Do you think that cars will actually go the way of

land lines? Absolutely? You know, I know a lot of people that do not have landline. I still have one. I kind of like it. Actually I still have one, and I and I have one because it's now baked into the triple plate with cable, okay, And everyone said, oh, you know, it's not gonna be as good as landline, much better than dealing with GT which was and then Verizon. But uh, you know, I find myself, you know, I do you keep on your phone to use the ICL

calendar app to have all your appointments? Yes, you know, I find so addicted that. And then I I have people, you know, I used to always helps call my landline. Now there say call my cell phone, and unless I'm literally at home, I really don't use it. And the other thing I find is people now forget that people text. What astounds me is when I look, I still have an answering machine, very specifically because with voicemail, the landline

you pick up to know how many calls. If you have an answering machine, you can hear and know whether to pick up, and other than junk calls, if anybody calls at all, they don't call my landline. You have an answering machine, like absolutely absolutely listen. It was hard to get one when the last one, where do you get it? Okay, well, you know you you'll find the

cassette players. This is what I got on Amazon. But if you remember in your old enough to remember, the answering machines had a very brief lifespan, like two years, and then they switched to digital to s s D s uh you know, solid state storage and then but they only couldn't have a little things. So now the irony is I bought one which is nowhere near as good as the ones you used to be able to buy,

but it's made for Mexico. Because this is a big surprise. Now, this is something I would have never expected to hear come out of your mouth. Let's let's say you're at home and you're working at the computer and I really can't be up to interrupted when I work, I get in the mood and the phone rings, and you see to yourself, hmm, I was expecting that important call. But if it's not the important call and I pick up the phone, it's gonna change my mood. It really can

suck me up. But what about color I D like where you can see who's calling calor I D is a good point, but lot of people have their numbers blocked. So this way I used to turn let's forget really into it. I used to turn the machine off when it worked. When I work this machine. After once you get a call in them, you can't turn the voice coming in down completely. But I could be sitting there and I could hear if it's somebody important calling. Okay,

as you know, let's go five steps further. We're not quite like the younger generation, but no one calls anymore anyway. It is true. My goal is to never talk on the phone, because what I find is people call you and they say, ay, how you doing, having a good summer? What have you seen? And then they get to the ask, which you don't want to provide no matter what. Uh. This guy Peter gross life, He was an agent at William Morris. He ran their department for a while. He

got this very weird disease. He ultimately died of pancreatic cancer. But this is before that. They couldn't figure out what it was, and R. A. M Annual ultimately ran wm ME. When William Morris merged with Endeavor and his brother Rom was running was chief of staff for Obama and Peter wanted his disease whatever it was studied by the National Institute of Health, so rom Connect already connected it with ROM. He dialed ROM ROM picked up the phone. The first

thing he says, what do you need? Just got right there, etcetera. And uh so, you know, I mean I just had some guy doing some work yesterday and the whole thing was done in texts. I mean, people bare leave an

email anymore. It's crazy. Those are my justifications. Well, you know, it's possible that we could, as the world moves hurls forward through technological barriers that you and I never thought postule because of our age um, that there might be it seems plausible that there could be a faction of us that go back to the real old school voicemail or stuff. That it's kind of fun. It's sort of like a it's fun to think about going back in time like that. Well, and you're touching a little bit

of a nerve for me. Yes, there's the steampunk movement, which is like that. But as a dedicated reader of like four newspapers a day and I read the New York Times cover to cover, they are so anti technology it blows my mind. It's uh Thompson. I think that's the name of the company is big student book company. They just went completely digital. But if you read in the New York Times, oh, physical books are where it's at.

And then if you buy digital books, which I do, and I could sing the praises all day long, they've raised the prices so much that sometimes they're higher than the physical book. One thing we know for sure is digital books will come. Then you get someone who says, oh, yeah, i'm anti you know, you know this is BYS and you find they have an upgraded this is in the

New York Time. They have an upgraded their operating system for three generations, if nothing else, for security reasons, they should then Chuck Schumer uses a flip phone, which I think is just insane. So I am a very nostalgic person. So as long we can be nostalgic, just as le long as we can't deny the future. It's like this whole Vinyl craze. If the album was cut analog and you want to make vinyl, fantastic, But if the album

was cut totally digital and you're making vinyl, that's just insane. Yeah, I know, I get it, But let's go back to your tesla. So you essentially have had no problems. I've had no problems, and when you've had to have service, you haven't had to wait or anything. No. And actually the last time I had at service, they gave me a brand new Tesla and I was like, I'm not I'm sorry, I'm not returning this. I was very happy with my loner. Uh No, they've been great. They really

have been great. And I follow that, you know, the whole thing with Elon Muskin, who I think is a guy that is such a visionary, and I feel like we need to take care of these people. I couldn't agree more the true visionaries of our of our world, like he's he's one of them. That and almost and this is maybe an unfair thing to say, but I feel like we should, we should protect them in a way. Uh that they're not because he is soul like from every imaginable side there after, that guy, I just see

it in his face. You know, it's like it's terrible. It's the internet error is bad enough where if you're playing online, do you get any hate email, hate tweets or anything. I don't really, I mean I'm sure that I do. Um, but I really, I mean, if if it happens, it's probably very small number. And I really don't. I try not to get to inside of it, especially on social media. My social media is is kind of

one way. I don't really partake in it in an exchange because I feel like, you know, it's it's um First of all, it's an energy and time suck big time. I'm just like a full time job if you really they want it right, So, but I understand the necessary you know, it's a necessary thing too for promotion, and we're out on tour right now. We want people to know that we're coming to their city. So social media is an important thing. But to get involved in that

kind of discourse with people can can be a slippery slope. Well, I find because I have a lot of incoming and I've learned through experience it's about you. Otherwise I could tell my own experiences specifically. But ten percent of the public is certifiably insane. Literally literally, I'm not a good joke because I have a bad experience. But you don't know which ten percent it is. That's funny. The person who seems so reasonable, all of a sudden you find

they're the craziest. Just kind of like email. The people who send the longest email are bad person of person people send the briefest email, they're the ones you connect with offlat Okay, but let's get back. So when you're when you're playing the saxophone, you're playing in your brother's band. Are you also playing in school bands marching bands? Yeah? I was not coordinated enough to to march and play at the same time, so I kind of got excused

from marching band. I had a band teacher named Mr camp Uh in at Taft High School in in Tarzana are in Woodland Hills, and he excused me from marching in the marching band. And I God, bless that guy. You know, she's so nice to me. But since you were playing in this band, did you get any recognition

in your high school for that? Well? Mr camp was really there were two music teachers, Mrs Brown and Junior High school was my first real music teacher, and then Mr camp Uh And these are two people that that truly kind of saw something in me and and nurtured that. And then when I started to have more when I graduated from college and I met a couple of other people that were really, you know, those are the people.

The best way that that I could describe them is when you go to a bowling alley when the kids playing uh bowling, you know, and then they now nowadays you can put those things in the in the gutters, so you don't ever have a gutter ball football. Those people. I've had some people that were like those kinds of things for me that kept my ball in play. If you're part of the expression um and and without whom I don't think that I would be sitting here talking

to you. They saw something in me that I didn't know was there. And whether it was Mr Camp who kind of like the just and he was a real like salty character. This was the time. It was a chain smoker, bad attitude, just miserable guy. You know. This was a time when the he was he was a saxophone player himself and a music teacher and it was a time in public schools where the music classes were being shrunk and so he was having to teach more math, which he hated. So he was just a cranky old

you know, sot and uh. But yet with me he was he showed a real soft side and real nurturing side and really gave me some of those those early moments where I saw a little glimmer of what could be. But I never ever thought that this would be my my living Let's go back to the beginning. As someone who's never put her my mouth to a read on a saxophone, you had a natural affinity. But it looks like something that would be hard to learn. How how long does it take for someone to actually be able

to play the saxophone? When I picked up the instrument in the first uh, in the first few months, my mom, God bless her, she made me stuff a sock in the bell of my mom which only half masks the sound. But let me just say this, for that first year, you gotta have some really loving people around you, because otherwise you're going to drive people crazy because it's not a not a particularly nice sound. But my parents, this

is the kind of people that they were. They turned their garage into a music room, a soundproof music room from my brother and I to be able to to to do what to our hearts content, what we wanted to do. So they were very I mean, I'm looking back at them and what they did for us. They were exceptional parents, very loving and very nurtural, which is not necessarily something that you'd see every day from you know the no believe me. No, I could go on,

but as I say, this podcast is about you. So were you a good student and they're talking about academics. M you know, not bad okay, never never really loving school? But but did okay you know, B plus a minus. So you end up going to u c l A. Yeah, you're living in tar Siana. Did you live in Westwood or did you commute? Know? The first year I lived in Sprawl Hall in the dorms at U c l A.

And uh I was a communications major. I took one year off during the five years that I was in that time period, and I went to a music school called the Dick Grove School of Music, which sadly no longer exists, but at the time it was an amazing place to go where it was very international. A lot of other people came from from different countries to learn composing and arranging. It was not necessarily a music school

about performing. I mean, they did have performance classes, but for me that the principal program was this thing called c A P Composing and Arranging programs where Dick Grove taught that, and every week you'd have to write a chart in a different format, a different genre. So you one week was country, the next few week was big band, the next week was Broadway, and you had to actually right and copy a whole chart for an orchestra every week. It was the hard I think it might have been

the hardest thing I ever did musically. Um. But by the end of that year, you knew a lot about music, and you knew how to read and write at a level that many people do not, almost no popular musicians. So when was that in your college career? That was in my third oh, no second year, so I had a one year of college. It took one year off and then I've been went back to c l A. Okay, So what was the thought process going to Dick Grove? Um, It just seemed like, if I was ever going to

do this, this was the time to do it. And I had the support of my parents and my brother who went through the the CAP program before. He said, this is something you really need to do, and so it just seemed like the right thing to do. But then I went back to U c l A and I graduated. Okay, you went back to U c l A. There was no thought of turning professional at that point. No, okay, so you go back to U c l A. And you end up majoring in communications and then you graduate.

What year do you graduate? So six? The economy is relatively good. What are your thoughts for a career of any stripe? On my graduation day, my Jewish parents look at me with that look. You know you you're off the payroll. You better knew. I had no prospects of anything, and so I made a deal with them. I said, I'm gonna try music for six months and if I can get something going with music, great, and if not, after six months, I will go and get some job. And I was fine with that. I was fine and

making that deal. And two weeks after I graduated, I got a call from Bobby Calwell if you remember that, And of course, and Bobby was putting together a band, A new band can do some gigs in Los Angeles, and I auditioned for him and I got the gig, and um, a couple of weeks later, after rehearsal, we're at a place called at my place, remember that. So this was and everybody was there because Bobby called. This was his re emergence too, and um, it was very exciting.

So it was a two show night True story. First show and every uh every song of Bobby's had a sack solo, so that's why I was there. So um and I noticed he would sing the song and then during the sex sol he would kind of move off from the side of the stage, but I didn't move. I stayed in my little spot because I was kind of shy. And uh. So the show ends and Bobby says, I need to talk to you, and I figured, okay, I'm gonna get fired my first freaking gig. So he

he comes and he says, what are you doing? Man? Uh, what do you mean? He said, I'm trying to you know, during your sex sol, I'm giving you the space. You should go up there and take it over. That's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to give you the spotlight. And I was like, okay. Well he never needed to say anything again because the second show I just launched

right into it. It It was the first time I remember that it was like that, the rush of being the focus of attention on on a bandstand, because up to that point I had never been the guy that people focus on and I was very comfortable being in the background. I didn't even know that this was something that was inside of me. And Bobby was the first person to to nurture that and say to push me to the front of the stage. And then I really liked it

a lot. Okay, for those who've seen you live, you're very active and to use the uh the phrase, everybody's very into it. Were you that active and into it from the beginning, I think I learned learned it and probably those early days I was trying to feel my way through it. Um. The second gig that I got, the big prominent gig was from Bobby. I met a guy named Jeff Lorver. I hear from Jeff lord an email all the time. Yeah. Now he's you know, he's

very thoughtful and very interesting guys. He's brilliant. I mean, he's a genius. And so I just want to go back to the Bobby called gig very slowly. He was aware of you, or you were aware of him. How did you get the audition? There was a woman and I'm trying to remember her name, but she was a publisher who had seen me play with somebody else and back then like that was really the way it worked back then. Maybe it's still this, you know, for for new artists now it's like that word of mouth kind

of thing. But somebody sees you and goes yeah, And then they talked to somebody else, and it was this publisher talking to another publisher who happened to be the publisher for Bobby Calwell, who told him about me, And the next thing I knew, I got this call from him. Okay, now trying to see how to think of how to verbalize this if you're a hot guitarist in that era. There are a million hot guitarists in Los Angeles, million people calls. Some might be a little bit better than

others when you're getting this gig. How many exceptional saxophonists are there in Los Angeles? I think there's a lot, you know, I think that there were a lot. There's always a lot of really wonderful musicians, especially in Los Angeles. This is to me still to this day, Bob. I feel like I, you know, I've been here my whole life pretty much, and I feel like I know the community of musicians, and then all of a sudden I'll find this whole other vat of musicians that I didn't

even know about. An incredible musicians. So it was that way back then. Maybe not as many as there are now today, but there's certainly no shortage of people that could do that gig, right, Okay, so then you get a gig with Jeff Lerber. Yeah, And so what happens then or thereafter? Well, the audition for Laudber took place at his house and Pacific Palisades, and it was because of the Bobby gig. And so I walked in and we played a blues I remember this, and and Lauder

has talked about this too. We talked about that because he was a guest on our cruise, this last cruise in Australia, and we had a one arm one where we talked about that exact moment of walking into his studio. I was a nervous wreck. I'm like, this is a guy that I grew up listening to and idolizing, and now I mean his studio, keyboards plastered everywhere, and I'm auditioning to be in his band. And um, he says, why don't we just play like a B flat blues?

And so we got one course through the blues and he stopped playing and I said, okay, well I didn't get this gig, and so he says, yeah, man, um let me. Uh, I'm gonna talk to my managers. We'll get your information and uh, the first gig is in like three weeks and here's what we're gonna be wearing. And I also want to talk to you about like, I think you should make your own records, dude, and uh, you know, typical Larber, just just going for it. And I'm like, my jaw is on the floor. I'm like,

what the hell are you talking about? What are you smoking? What? Really? And he was the first person that said on that day, on my audition day, that I should make my own records. And up to that point, I had never the thought had never even crossed my mind. So I am I worship the ground that that man walks on. And he said, we're gonna make some demos and we're gonna get you signed. And that's exactly what happened. Wow, So we have to

credit Larber. Okay, so because Bobby, but I've tried to say, as far as the vision to be recording artists, So from that first date, how much longer period of time after that, do you make those demos we started right away. Really yeah. I think I got signed in by Bruce lan involved me. He rest in peace. I'm sure you've talked about Bruce on your show in years past. Uh. He was one of the greats of music. And he

signed me. I think it was to Capitol Records and my first record came out in I remember really uh, um a great meeting with Lorber and myself and my manager at the time, who will remain nameless. I was

gonna get there next but keep going. Um at at Warner Brothers Records with Tommy Lapuma and we played the demos for Tommy Lapuma and I could tell that Tommy liked it, but I think that he was not particularly excited about having an other artists with the manager at the time, and so he he said, I'm not going to sign you. And that's when we went to Bruce len Ball And it's like one of those things when you think about at the time, I was crushed because

let's be on Warner Brothers, that amazing roster. Think about alg Ro, George Benson and all those incredible artists, Miles David So anyway, um, and then the next thing it was. It was Bruce ln Ball and there was a cassette. This was back in the time when the demo was on cassette. It wound up on Bruce Lamball's office, uh, in his desk in his office and um, I remember getting this this. Um there's no from him saying I really really love your love your music. I want to

meet you. And that was the beginning. It was just unbelievable how that all. Because the thing is, that's it's funny if you if you have that dream from the start and then it happens, it's got that feeling to it. But if you don't, if it's not part of your dream, because it really wasn't. When it happens, it is like it's just a head scratcher, like how did how did I get here? And still to this day, so many years later, Bob, I'm still saying the same thing, like

how did I get here? Why am I here? Like there are people showing up to hear me play saxophones, just like it's still and I don't mean to be you know, if it's sounds if it's coming off sounding uh not authentic. It really it's I understand what you're saying it's you're You're not just you know, being humble for for appearances. Do you ever go to therapy to

discuss these issues. Not in therapy per se um. I have used therapy in years past, but I have There's some people that are in my life, teachers and and um, you know, spiritual people that I will talk to about these kinds of things to put in perspective and to understand what's going on. Um. It's been been an interesting thing because I just had This is a very timely thing because I had back surgery about seven weeks ago

and now I'm starting on on this tour. We're on a Summer Horns tour this summer, and this is the first time ever where I've kind of in my whole life I really had to show up as being a bit needy. And it's a very awkward feeling for me. And so I'm staying on the because I can't really do of what I want to do on stage at this moment. I will come back to it eventually, but

I'm probably about fifty of the antics. It's interesting too, because without having I can't actually do the physical things jumping around that I have done what people expect of me. But it's forcing me to be to really focus more on the music side of things. And these shows we just started, so it's just now three shows in. I could tell there's like a different texture to the music this time. So it's kind of an interesting thing to embrace. How long after you had pain, did you have surgery?

I've been dealing with the uh. I mean, this is workplace stuff, so I've been because of my jumping around for the almost thirty years, I've had a lot of back problems and it just had to be addressed. So but it was really bad pain for about the last two years. And what was the diagnosis. I mean it was the most uh, like harsh sciatica, so herniated discs herniated disc. And then are you doing the physical therapy? Haven't started physical therapy because it's not quite ready yet. Okay,

when it is ready, that's the most important thing. Let's go back. When did you get that first manager? The first manager was the same. You can probably put two

and two together. One of my gigs right after Jeff Lorber was working with a guy named Richard Marks, and Richard Marks, the a songwriter and singer, UH was on Manhattan Records, also signed by Bruce Lunn Ball and we shared a manager at the time, and our manager, my manager and his manager said you should really go out and play uh this tour with Richard and he was a brand new artist and playing music that was not jazz. Obviously, he was playing more rock. Had a monster hit though

you Ain't Seen Nothing or whatever it was called. Yea even play on it Haven't done Nothing good memory, but he had. I brought the record because the track was so good. He had a string of hits, right, but that was the first one. Then he came more Mellow. That was a real rocket track. Yeah, I mean he had had a bunch of hits up that first album. It was a really interesting thing to see because I remember the first shows that we did. Do you remember a club called Sash and it was in North Hollywood

somewhere around there. That was his first gig, probably about a hundred people and most you're not talking about that long low club north of Ventura in between Laurel Canyon and UH Universe. Oh yeah, I was there. Had I had a process through from the eighties more than once. It was a dance club when it wasn't a live show. Right, that was his first show and there's probably a hundred people there. And on that same tour, that was the

very first show. And on that same tour, which lasted almost um, about a year and a half, we were playing to ten thou people at night. And so part of that unit of watching an artist go, seeing the power of hit songs to propel an artist forward, it was an interesting thing to see. And UM, so that's how that's how that happened. So when did you switch managers? Um? It happened right around the time that my first record came out. And how did how did that happen? I'd

you decided to break it off? I decided to get a new person. Well, UM, okay, I can tell this story. I mean this is a podcast, right, can you can I tell this story? Richard? Um? And Richard and I are great now. But um, at the time, UM, he when I didn't want to, Um, I didn't want to play in his band anymore. I wanted to focus on my solo stuff. He didn't really love that idea so much. And then UM, he made it kind of very clear to his manager, was my manager, that this was not appropriate.

And so the manager said to me, I'm sorry, I can't manage you anymore. But I got this other person and it turned At the time I was devastated, it turned out to be the great thing. And so this woman who her name was Shelley Hebrew and she's out of the business now, but Shelley for seven years was my manager and she was great. You know, she really knew what to do and she and then that relationship

sort of came to an end. And then uh, in the late nineties, I started working with Bill Leopold and Mark Graham, who have been my managers for all these twenty years, and we've developed an incredible relationship and and they've helped me. I can't even tell you how much they've helped me. So it's kind of a it takes a village, Okay, So ultimately you have a hit, right I do. So that was when their first or second album, well the first album was that came out on Capitol.

I remember because the there was Bruce Lemon was so upset at the sales department for not taking it seriously. He was trying to make this a real priority, and the sales department said, well, it's a saxophone player. What we don't have to. How do you remember? Amazing? Okay, keep going so uh. I think at the they put something like eleventh thousand units out for the first week, which back then was a very low number, and um,

but then it's it just started to sell. My record came out at the same time in the fall when there was an explosion of radio in the smooth jazz world, Like there were radio stations popping up in every city smooth jazz radio stations, and it just sort of like was sort of dovetailed at the same time that this radio format was burgeoning, and the music just fit right in and I started doing a lot of promotions with the radio stations and it just worked. And that first album,

um became I think it's sold probably four thousand. It ended up selling something like four thousand, surprising everybody at Capital. And then my next record, which came out about three years later, put a lot of resources into it. It's called was called Lucky Man, and I think that's the song that you're talking about, A song called You Make Me Smile. It came out that really became not a real pop hit, but pretty close. I mean, for an

instrumental came pretty close getting into the business side. You sold four hundred thousand records. Do you get a royalty check? After the second album? You get a royalty check. I've never received a royalty check. That's definitive. That's what I wanted to know. Okay, so you have a hit off the second album kind of walked me through when's when's

the third album come out? The third album came out in six and that was my um Like all artists, most artists, I should say where they say, I've got another idea, and it was coming off a huge success. That second album went gold. I think it's sold maybe close to seven thousand. Can you imagine seven thousand copies of a SOX player's albums Cheez So? And then I came up with this ideas like, I don't want to be boxed in by by um foreman, I don't want to be boxed in by the sound. I have this idea.

I went up. I had this place up in northern California and Saucelito. I came up with this, this idea to combine the saxophone with instruments that you would normally not hear it, with mandolin and melotron and oregon and uh, steel string guitar and um, you know, I came up with this album called alf the Beaten Path, and it

was the biggest dud ever. It came out with a thump, and I think it's still sold probably, you know, but it was not going to the right direction now and it was a huge disappointment, and I was crushed because I really put a lot of myself in retrospect. Do you still like it? I do, actually, And there are some fans. There's a group of fans that will still say that that is to them, that is their favorite album because it was very, very different. It was took

a lot of chances. But because of that experience, uh, and I look at album making is sort of like stepping stones. I couldn't have made the next album, which was ended up being my most successful one, called The Dance. I couldn't have made The Dance had I not made Off the Beaten Path and and gone through that experience to make an album like The Dance, which was really like a return to the sound that that made me popular. Well, how self conscious were you when you before you made

The Dance that I have to use this particular line. Um, it was not like somebody saying there was never any pressure from record company person or because I look at it my situation as a recording artist. Over the years that I've been doing this and I've had I've gotten a chance to work with people who are great that never stuffed things down my throat. If they made suggestions, they were suggestions, they were not you have to do this.

And usually the advice and the people who came to came to me with with things to say, their advice was good and I would often listen to them and they would be right, you know. So it's it was kind of a collaborative process. Now, what point do you become a dj uh? That happened kind of probably around maybe in the mid nineties. How did that gig come about? We had the Wave which was like the first smooth jazz UH station of any note in America. They played

your music. How did you end up becoming a DJ Well, it was a syndicated show first where this this Fellows program director came to me. He got a gig doing a network um show and he said, we wanted to our Our idea is to have recording artists most weekend shows on the radio, and we think that you could be you could have your own show. And I was like,

really no experience whatsoever. And I remember those first demos of going into the studio and putting it together and I put on my radio voice and stop, stop it. Don't do that anymore. Just be yourself. There was a really good lesson to learn, and I started doing that

in the early days. That was in How many stations did it ultimately get to we had on our syndicated show in the United States at the time we were the biggest was probably well over a hundred significant number, well over a hundred, and then there was the international side of things, and the show was how long. There's a two hour weekends show called The Dave CAUs Radio Show, which by the way, is still on the radio twenty over, twenty five years later. It's uninterrupted on the radio for

twenty five years. Okay, you're making new shows. Yeah, so you make a new show. Yeah, I'm sure you string them together, you do like three in a day, fortnity. And how often you have guests? We do guests every show. We have one featured artist every show. We have some other drops that we use with other artists. Okay, and

then how do you get on the wave? The wave happened later on down the road where the program director, who's the same guy by the way that uh that I started the weekend show with, he said, UM, would you ever be interested in doing this in the morning, and we're thinking about doing an artist driven morning show. And so that's when Pat Prescott from New York, who's radio legend, she came out. She's one of my great friends.

I went to New York and I said, if I'm going to do this, you have to do this with me, because I cannot do this alone. And we did that for six years on the radio every morning and uh, which for a musician is quite the feat. And I knew that I wouldn't be something that I would do forever,

but I really enjoyed doing that for six years. And then we morphed into an afternoon syndicated show that was on a bunch of smooth jazz stations through a network for I think I did that for about maybe another three or four years, and then the smooth jazz as

a format kind of started to really wane. A lot of these stations flip formats, and UM, about three years ago I started working with my friend Trinity Cologne at Sirius XM, and we developed something called the Dave Case Lounge that you can now hear on Sirius XM on the weekends and you can only hear that one is only okay, So, uh, how to what degreeed being on the radio every morning? We havoc with your musical career?

It was not easy. Those those years were like trying to it was it was time well for the age that I was at. Because I was on the road. We had this apparatus that I would take with me that I could connect back into UH to Los Angeles. It was really quite technologically impressive, especially for me who was an analog man in a in a digital world. But it really it was a very nice thing. And they the station and the producers really went above and

beyond to make it work. And admittedly we did record some shows, not all shows, but some shows were recorded in advance UH and played the morning of when I couldn't actually be there. And it was how many hours? That was three hours? That's a lot of hours. So when you were on the wave, it was only heard on the wave. Yeah, that was was it lucrative? Very

and did it pay dividends for your career. I think it did in that it was the first sort of lately now i've kind of I'm sort of looked at as somewhat of a host of bringing people together, uh collaborator, you know, or bringing artists together under a canopy. And that was kind of like the beginning of of that uh stage of my life where I got a chance to really interview a lot of artists and be a

cheerleader for other artists. And that's something that I that comes very natural to me and something I love to do because I think especially when you talk about jazz music or instrumental music, which is a niche, it's sort of off to the side, but I think it's an important thing, you know, even for people who have taste in music that are completely different, that there's a time and a place for instrumental music for every music lover, uh,

no matter what it is that they love most. And so I just love being a cheerleader, being able to stand up and and and and share this great music and the artists that are making it. And I think also what happened I've seen it a lot too, where if artists come on the show, if I'm talking to them, that there's a intimacy of an artist talking to another artist, that the communication can can be have a different texture. There was one time that where it was so apparent

where I was interviewing. Because of our schedules, a lot of the interviews have to be on the phone. So I was interviewing George Benson on the phone and George was just I guess it was one of the one interview of a bunch for the whole day, and he was just giving me these one two word answers, and I was like, what am I gonna do to connect with this guy? It's just not happening. And so finally I said, George, oh no, he said, He said, is this the Dave cause that plays the Sacks Dave Come.

I said, George, it's me. You know, we're friends, shared the stage together. I have a show, you know. And then I could not get the guy shut up. It's like, oh my god. But it was a great illustration of what can happen when when artists are talking to other artists and feel that, you know, I mean, it's like, I know you're not a musician, but I feel so comfortable talking to you because I know that you love it. You love it and you understand it and you're inside

of it. And so much of us artists, we we talked to people who just are not there. They're just answers or asking the questions that are on the piece of paper, and you feel it and you just don't know. It's not it's you don't want to open up. But when you feel somebody on the other end of the microphone that really is empathetic, that understands it, really gets inside of it, you want to talk forever. Okay, so

the dances, Yes, when's the next album? The next album was uh something called uh I think now I'm losing track of number four. The reason I really ask I don't need the specifics is starting in the turn of the century, the whole music business goes with change as a result of napster, digitization, the Internet. Do you feel that on your end? Well, I did, eventually I made.

I spent twenty years in Capital um seven presidents or not and um, I don't know if that's a Guinness Book of World Records feat But to survive, to actually survive as an artist on a label with seven different presidents, if they're not vested in you. It's very hard if they didn't sign you. I had a I had this like m O where I would just keep my head down. I would not really, you know, try and be noticed that much. Just turn in my records. They would release them,

they would be they do fine. And that's how we made it happen. But eventually my contract, believe it or not, my contract actually expired after twenty years. It was renewed a couple of times and then it was done. And it was like, yeah, your contract is done. And they didn't renew it. And I didn't think that they would

dream new it. And so that's when I think. I can't remember what year it was, but it was in the early two thousand's that I went over to to Concord, and um it was Hal Gaba and Norman Leard that that made it a very very comfortable home for me. And I got to work with my buddy John Burke on a bunch of albums, and um, that was a great relationship and still is. I don't I release some stuff on my own and if I want to, I think that the opportunity is there now. If I wanted

to release an album on concorde. I think that the doors always open um. But to what degree is your career presently driven by recorded music? Interesting? I've gone through, admittedly kind of a bad attitude about recorded music over the last say, seven or eight years, because of the

reasons you're talking about. You pour over these things, these are like children, these songs, and you spend the time and spend the money, and then there's no radio stations to play it, and then there's no record company or no record stores. And you know, what's the purpose? Why? I remember that only the beginning of my career, it was you you make a record, you go out on tour to support the record. The record is it? That's what you're doing? You know, it's all to sell the record.

And now I mean I've gone through the last several years where I've made recordings to promote tours, right, just the reverse. Okay, So at this point from your perspective, interesting, because I certainly can see it on my level, used to be a cohesive business. Now really everybody is just their own business. Do you view it that way? I'm just in the Dave Cose business, and forget the numbers, the charts, etcetera. If it's working for me and it's

what I want to do. I'm satisfied. Well, I think that that streaming has revolutionized and I don't need to tell you it's given a tremendous shot in the arm to our business. And I'm a fan like I think that Spotify is amazing where you can some song or artist hits your head and two seconds later you can be listening to that music right there. It's amazing. What that's what's what's possible nowadays. And I do think that

it's it's forced us. The the technological um uh achievements of recently that have happened recently have forced musicians and artists to be to wear more hats. Like it used to be where you could just be an artist and where that hat, you'd have the manager, you'd have the record company, you'd have the promotion people blah blah blah, and you could have the team of people that do all that work for you. But now most of the people that are in my world do it all themselves,

you know. And I still have management, um but I now I'm starting to release to self release. We just came out with a live album from our cruise that we put out by ourselves because we can. It's so easy,

you know, flick of a switch. It's available everywhere. And I think that now you whereas it used to be in the beginning of my career where we would try and hit big home runs or get as much you know, throw things out there and try and get as money many people as possible, now I look at it being more of a Instead of a horizontal picture, it's more of a vertical picture. So it's a small audience or

smaller audience. Let's just say there's I'm gonna be super conservative and say say there's fifty thousand people on planet Earth that are really super interested in what I have to do or what I have to say, and so we we we really target those fifty thou people, and how can we capture them and keep them engaged with a variety of different things. On one level, there's the there might be an album that comes out, okay, On

the very top level, there's a cruise. So if you're really a fan and you want to have that immersive experience, you're gonna come on the day of cons That's exactly where I was going. So when was the first cruise? Uh? It happened almost about fifteen years ago, and I did five for UH another producer and learned the business. And then after five years of of doing that, then we took it in house. And we've now produced about ten

years of cruises on our own. And has it always been the whole ship or part of a ship, always a full ship charter and always seven days seven days? Okay, So how did you how did you first? How did the first one start? The producer came to you. The producer came to me as a guy named Michael Lazarov and who had done a UH. He had a company called Jazz Cruises, and he thought that there should be a Dave Coss cruise and he went to my managers and said, you know, and and my managers came to

me with the offer. And I saw the word cruise and I said thank you no, because immediately I thought about the cruise that my family and I took to in Sonata, and I hear it that was the worst thing ever. I was like, I don't want to be at a cruise ship, no way. And then he kept coming back and eventually came back with an offer that could not say no too. So that was my first experience,

and then I saw what could happen. And I'm gonna say this, Uh that now within our world, with how much negativity and how much the public discourses so so kind of filled with vitriol, that these cruises have become havens for people that just want to for one week. And I know that people get off the ship and they go back to their regular lives and you know, goes back to normal, but for one week you can have young and old, and Republican and Democrat and gain

Straits and every race. I mean, it's really a melting pot on these ships. And when you step foot on the ship, you even if you know not one person, you're amongst friends because the power of music to to to get people there and to unite people, that's an amazing thing. You could have two people that completely disagree about everything, but you play one song that they both like and you've got an opening. And that's what these

cruises have proven proven to me. They're they're they're less about music and more about proving to all of us what's possible. It's a reminder of what's possible. But there is a lot of music tons. Okay, so you know, I'm friendly with Kid Rock and his old manager, and they would say first, you know, Kid Rock would literally shake everybody's hands. He's like, he's up twenty four hours

straight and he doesn't even do a whole week. What's it like being the epicenter of the cruise, Well, it's the it's the hardest work that that I do during the year. We do two back to back nowadays, uh they sell out about a year in advance, and uh so and and our mantra is seeing the world together through music, So every year we go to a different place on the planet. Our last one was Australia, and so you if you can imagine, uh we had just the shy of four thousand people for two weeks, and

nine percent of them came from the United States. So they have to get to Australia just to take the cruise. That's a huge commitment. So when they get there, they're pretty darn excited, and all the artists and musicians are excited. And so it is something that is not just top of mind or in the back of my mind. It's completely I wake up and go to bed with the thought of these guests and how can I deliver to them an experience that is unforgettable because I I know

that there. They're really one thing about the money because it's not cheap, but it's another thing like they're giving me a week of their life to entertain them. So it's a it's a huge undertaking, it's a huge responsibility. But the funny thing is in in the moment, Like when I'm on the ship. I don't know how it's it's possible. Maybe it's just adrenaline or fumes or whatever, but I have this incredible energy level and I think it's really comes from our guests. I'm just so amazing.

So if I'm one of the four thousand, am I gonna get face time with you? If I want it? Absolutely? It sounds me one week is bad enough. You do them back to back just because economically it's better to do it that way. Well, if you've imagine taking our our whole entourage is about a hundred and twenty people, So we take a hundred and twenty people musicians, crew, staff.

We have to fly them to to Sydney. So if we did a cruise and then took time off, it just would be It's just that would make financials okay. So you do it for two weeks, How long does it take you to recover? I try not to talk for at least a week after two weeks vig on the cruise. Uh. This last time, I went to a place called i uh songs Saw in Cambodia, which is a private island. It's one of those islands that's so small that the huts are actually on jetties stilts. It's

one of those kind of places. And I went with one of my best friends after the two weeks and pretty much didn't speak for about four days and then emotionally, okay, you don't speak for four days? How long? Because I know people have been on the tour for two and a half years, literally took him a year to recover. So how long does it take before you work again? Uh? It was probably about a month and a half or so. I think it was maybe about a month. I went and did a tour of Japan about a month after

that that cruise. Okay, so these are obviously very lucrative. What do you do with the money? Uh? I just redid my kitchen. Yeah, I don't know, it's funny, like I don't um. I feel very blessed to be able to make a living for music and for to have done this for a for a long time. And I can.

I could cry my eyes out if I really let myself think about my life and how this has all happened for me and the fact that I can that I can do this and and still um, after all these years, that people are still interested and still you know that the money is is it's not about money, It's not I know it's not about but the money is sitting in the bank. Do you spend it on? I mean, and you travel for business, so it's not like you're dying to travel. And like Tom Styer says,

you can only have so many cars. You're only one person. You know. I'm not thinking deep, I'm just wondering because that's always somewhat of a driver. If I said go do it for free, you wouldn't do it for free. This this is a good question. And and I don't know because I don't think that nothing changes my life. My life is great. And uh, it's not like I want for anything, although I will tell you one thing, but this is gonna this is gonna take a lot

of cruises to get to this point. But when I did UM two years of touring with Barry Manilow as his opening act. And Barry is a good friend of mine, so he said to me, why don't you come travel with me in the private plane? Like, of course, I so two years and we traveled. We did that a worldwide tour and it was an amazing experience for me after because this is already twenty five years into my solo career of having to prove myself again as an

opening act. That was really really good because that I hadn't gone into the tool shed to do that UM in a long time. Where you're now in front of ten thousand people that have no idea who I am. Maybe they've heard my name, but they haven't heard my music, and I've got twenty five minutes or thirty minutes to prove myself. That was an amazing experience. But the best part was just, you know, living this life of of

complete luxury. As soon as Barry shows over which I did the encore with him, were in the car that's inside the arena, into the right to the tarmac onto the private plane. Oftentimes we would do a show in the East Coast and I would be asleep in my bed the same night in Los Angeles after the after that show. So that tour ends and now I'm back doing my own shows. You love on it. I'm sitting

like kid, you not Bob. I'm in the middle seats on Southwest Airlines and I take a picture of myself and I send it to Barry and I said, Barry, who are these people on our plane? I mean that he ruined me. So I would say, if if there was one way to get to that level where I could travel privately, that would be like the biggest carrot in the world. But there I'm a long ways away from there. Okay, you paint a picture of your career always being on the ascension from your viewpoint where they're

low moments, um, low moments. Well I have my I have the answer my question. If nothing immediately jumps to mind, there really weren't well, I mean there I told you about that the album that I made, that that was a big flop, um, But there hasn't been. I wouldn't say that there are places were I really had to go back and and think about, well, total restructuring of who I am and what what I'm doing there. There hasn't been like that because I feel like in overall

I'm a curious person and I love collaboration. I think if I was more of an artist that really uh had where where I did my own production and I wrote songs always by myself, I think that I would have probably gotten into some creative blocks. But because just by my nature, I love to collaborate, and collaboration allows you to constantly be expanding. Remever hit the point we say, God, my career might be over. I can't work your way. You knew you could work at some level? Yeah, I

think so. And there's been a lot of diversification to you know, try and radio and cruises and stuff like that. There's I'm a naturally a person that that gets easily bored. So if I was doing one thing over and over, I'd probably myself. But there's always something, some new wrinkle that is somewhat related to the core business that keeps me motivating other than the cruises. How many dates do you do in a year? Uh? Probably about are okay

at this age? Which just with this level of success, other than having your own plane or annett jetcount or something, what would you like to achieve? If anything? Wow, I already got on the Bob Left Sets podcast. So I mean that's that's a big one that you would invite me on your podcast. Okay, okay, but leaving me out of it. Uh, what would you like to achieve, whether it be personally, career wise, impact on society? I think, yeah, I feel like I've If it all ended tomorrow, I

wouldn't have any regrets. I mean I would just my two words would be thank Okay, I understand that. But you are an individual on the planet. You do have this career, You do have fans, which is not a usual experience that gives you some level of power and some levels satisfaction if it goes on the way it does until you choose not to do it. Is that enough or is there something else you need to do? I don't feel like I need to do anything else.

The things that are the most motivating factors for me are things that are new, that are that are undiscovered areas like, for example, um working with this band called wolf Pack I don't know if you know about, of course, and getting a chance to to understand how that whole machine works, and being uh embraced by by these kids they're basically playing the music that we play, I mean, but they're playing it to kids, so getting a chance

to work with with them. And this this guy, this young kid named Corey Wong, who plays in wolf Pack as a guitar player, who mounted this whole campaign last year to get what he called the cause nod because he wanted to get into the world of smooth jazz. And he's killing it over in the Wolfpeck world, right, but he wanted the smooth jazz world. So he mounted this this social media campaign to get my attention. And not only did you get mad Test, but we've written

a bunch of songs together. I invited him on our cruise and he's incredible. He's like one of the new voices of instrumental music, whether it's wolf Peck or um. I hadn't gotten a chance to to sit in with the food Fighters on a bunch of shows over the last couple of years. I like showing up in places that are unexpected. So if there, if there was something more for me in music, I love to continue my

my world and expand that horizon. But I really really loved the idea of being pulled into places where you would least expect to see me Dave, we could go on for hours. You really very equacious, very interesting. Uh, it really amazing you light right up. I don't know whether it's your personality or experience or both, but you've really been wonderful. Well, thank you, and it's a pleasure to talk with you. And I'm a fan for a long time, but you know that well. As I say,

we're also personal friends. But as I say, it's it's funny certain people we don't talk every day, but you can sit down with them and just pick right up where there's so many people you can act for them for years and you can never connect. Well, I really appreciate this is a real dream come true to sit and talk with you for like Okay, once again, you've been listening to Day and Cause on the Bob Left Sets podcast. Sign up for the Cruise Beat Dave. Until next time,