Don Was

Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Lefts That's podcast. My guest today is the one and only Don was Don, what did your parents say when you dropped out of college?

You know something? They were remarkably cool. They were. They were incredibly supportive, both of them. And I didn't just drop out to uh, you know, to to go to the beach. I knew what I wanted to do, and they supported me both in spirit and uh uh from their wallet. And it took a while to get on my feet. And my dad was always there to loane me some bread if I needed it. They were great.

Okay, how many kids in the family?

Is my sister and myself and your sister older, younger younger sister. When she retired, she was a chief Statistician of the United States of America.

And that sounds very impressive, but I have no idea what that is.

It's extremely well, she ran the Census Bureau, Okay for a number of years. Well how did she get there? She understood management, She had a degree in management, and I think she had like fifty thousand people reporting to her at the Census.

Well, I guess I'm more interested you and your sister are both very successful. What was in the water, what was going in your house that you're both successful?

Well, it probably goes back to my parents just understanding that you can you can do just as well doing something you love something you don't love to do, and so they encourage us to, you know, follow our hearts and back to sup And Yeah, I went to my fifty second high school reunion bah way Way just because to cousin Covid, I.

Got roped in to go to my college region. That was the first reunion I ever went to. How did you decide? How'd you been to previous reunion?

The Okay, what motivates you to go? There's nothing like you know, touch and base with these people that you've known for sixty years, seventy years, You can't. You only get that opportunity once to build relationships that last that long.

Yeah, But in the old days when we grew up, if you left your hometown moved to the West coast, unless you made a big effort, you lost touch. Whereas today today's kids will never lose touch with anybody.

It's all available.

So when you go back, if you maintain relationships with these people or you just check it in on the reunion.

It depends, you know, that a lot of people. There's three hundred people in my class, and some are still my closest friends. I see, I got a place in Detroit on Mairland.

Okay, so I interrupted. You just came back from your fifty second What was that like?

It was beautiful, man, you know, it's a wonderful experience, and I love going to them. But one thing I did notice was that, you know, everybody was seventy and some of them looked ninety, and some of them are pretty much the same as they were when they were

There's the famous story of Jani's Joblin going back to Port Arthur to her reunion. It's sort of a victory lap. The whole thing didn't work out well and she was derided in high school. Where was your role amongst the three hundred and when you went to one of these reunions after having success, how did people treat you?

People have been really nice. They're supportive. I think when you come from a little village and you go out in the world and you do well, you do well on behalf of everybody else. I think they feel some ownership of the success of people from our high school class.

So if there were three hundred in the class, were you the art guy known as the musician? We're a good student in class? Did you play sports? Were you unknown? Where were you in the landscape?

David wasn't I We were hippie kids, you know, and we well, I'll be honest with you, man, It's why I relate to what you do so well, because we were provocateurs. Oh yeah, and game recognized game.

That's something that's totally lost his day. You know, this is about you. I can tell you things we did in high school, pranks, et cetera, just try to get people. It wasn't purely for fun. You wanted to make them think, yeah.

Exactly, you're trying to stimulate a real discussion, and it's actually the provocateur. It's a Youngian art type, you know. And the people like us, we were valued. Kings would invite us to dinners and see us at a table with people who didn't know each other to get conversation going. Just say something that's provocative and you get a lively discussion. And when you have that, people have a good time. They walk away feeling refreshed.

Well, since we're having a conversation as opposed to just making it about you. I find in today's group think world a lot of times if you don't say and follow the accepted norm or whatever, there's trouble.

What kind of trouble?

Okay, you know, I'm inter interacting with people. When I write something, people responding, which is you know, there's a direct communication, which is different. But let's say there's a political issue, okay, and I go to somewhere. Everybody's got an opinion. Most of the people are getting their opinion from television. Who are our demo? And you say, well, no, that's not true.

Blah blah blah.

They say, you know who the fuck is this guy? What the fuck does he know? So just to stay on the same topic. One thing I've noticed in the music business the very top person at all these enterprises, the labels ag live nation, they can hear something contrary. They're open, whereas the people below have drunk the kool aid. And it's very weird for me in the environment because I like to be stimulated, which is the flip side of being a profocateur. And we grew up when there

Well, I'll look at it from a slightly different skew. I think every one of us has got Trump and them, and every one of us has got mother Teresa, you know, And that's the that's the great human conflict, is altruism versus greed.

It's probably going to be the undoing species. But that conflict is it's just part of life. So when people are reacting emotionally to things that they see, whether whether it's AOC or Trump, you know, it's because they see part of themselves in that, and it's reprehensible. They don't want that to be whichever side you're on the argument, they don't want that to be part of it. I think we all it's in our DNA man, you know, like altruism and community action. DNA knows that that's better

Okay, let's compare them to fifty five years ago. So the late sixties, huge anti Vietnam movement. I went to unlike University of Michigan, I went to a small college. You could literally pick out the Republicans on campus.

Same thing.

The music was identified with left wing causes, etc.

So how do you.

Compare what was going on then to what's going on now?

But i's see happening right now. Yesterday they basically passed a tax package that gave breaks to the very wealthy at the expense of the medical care of the average people. I see. I see altruism and empathy being cast in a negative light, and that that's that's the big difference. Altruism wasn't held in the negative. It was a virtue. And now I still think it is a virtue, and a lot of people think it's still We've yet to see what the reaction to everything that's going on in

Now, you have children, I don't have children, so we're both in our seventies. Do you detach and say there's just too much I'm gonna do what I'm doing or do you get involved?

Well that's the million dollar question man there, And also how you what you consider to be involved. I believe making music that helps helps you deal with this conflict is vital and I see that as activism, And honestly, that was the thing that made me want to get into music. Seriously, it was to it was to make music that would help people deal with the chaos and confusion and uncertainty of being a human being. It's rough,

Okay, So, when done right, what does it look like?

Well, when done right, it looks a little bit like the Rolling Stones. If you want to know my feeling about it, I spent thirty years working with them, and in that band you have really different different mindsets, you know, sometimes one hundred eighty degree opposite mindset, which is where the beauty in that band comes from. Because when they find a place in the middle where all sides are represented, the whole becomes greater than the sum of the parts.

Let's just go back one step before we go back to the stones. You talked about, Hey, a society, we don't know if we're going to die in ten seconds whatever. You don't know if you're going to get divorced. How many times you been married?

They're married twice.

How old were you when you were married the first time.

I'm not sure if i'd actually marriaged, but we moved in together when I was nineteen, lasted eleven years, probably should have lasted, you know, eleven minutes, but a lot of good things came from that. And my second wife been with her now forty some years.

And your kids are with your second wife.

My oldest kid is with my first wife? Is with the younger the first wife, Yeah, the the oldest one, Tony.

Okay, I know about the second wife. I don't know about the first wife. You moved in together when you were nineteen. How did you know her?

She's my neighbor. Yeah, I was going to University of Michigan. She lived downstairs from me.

You know, at a state university. Of all these socioeconomic classes, what was her background relative to yours?

There wasn't a whole lot in common except where we're horny kids. Oh okay, so, which is a pretty good common ground.

We've all lived in it whatever, at least in our generation. Okay, so you drop out to play music. Does she stay in school or does she go with you? What does she do? She?

Uh, she was a month she's older than me. She was like a month from graduating. Oh really yeah, but then she's in nursing school. Didn't want to be a nurse, so so we moved to Detroit from an arbor. But she did graduate. No, I she strapped out.

Okay, where's she todaym Skeig in Michigan. Okay, if we go to the end the eleven years, how did you finally blow the whistle.

Well, you know, the details are kind of personal and I wouldn't go into them other than to just say, eventually you have enough, then there's enough. And when you have kids in the picture, you you gotta do what's maybe best for them, best for them meetings split up in this case. Yes, okay, So going back to the Stones, how'd you get to work with Stones in the first place. Well, I'm not exactly sure. You know, I started. I went from being a bum to having hits and we wait.

You're a bomb. There was not was walk the Dinosaur. You have success, you expand it. Actually, I want to get into that a little bit. You have the big breakthrough with Bonnie Raid was the Stones thing. As a result of your success, they were looking around.

I think actually the record company was looking around. My first meeting with them was I'll tell you a story, man. I went to meet them at essay hour because they were auditioning bass players to replace Bill Want So I got to sit there and watch a set of The Rolling Stones with a different bass player, like from two feet away. And it was mind blown because, as a lifelong fan Sam for the first time in nineteen sixty four, went to every show about every album. Now I'm in

But Don did the new Barbarians records.

That the expensive Winos records, the Solo records, which I thought was a really good sonic template for a rolling Stone celt And I thought Don was just a wonderful engineer. Man. He's gone now, but he had a real gift, so he said, but he said, doesn't want me to use them because he doesn't he wants an impartial guy. And I said, wow, he's he's my guy too, you know. I said, I'll call Mick, and I said, and Mix said, all right, if you're saying he's your guy and that

Let's go back to the original meeting. During the audition, they have their conflicting stories. You had to sell yourself a little bit.

What did you say? I don't remember, well, do you honestly do you remember selling yourself? My memory of it is seeing them play and like not being able to believes in a room with them and then having the two of them talking at me. Okay, same time.

Most people don't realize that what most people say is complete horseshit. Things don't happen by accident.

In that you have to have.

The right personality. You have to put yourself in the right situations, and frequently you have to ask, Okay, what do I know you're in?

Was not? Was?

I go to the VMA sometimes in the nineties you're running the house band. I remember you played that song from Extreme Wholehearted, which crack me up. Okay, that doesn't happen by accident. Okay, you don't sit at home, especially someone like where you were at the time and the phone rings. You have to work it a little bit.

So what's your style of working? Well, I'll probably stems from my dad, you know, who is a guidance counselor counselor and very cool headed guy, didn't get worked up, and he listened to people, and he was empathetic and a diplomat. I guess that's my style. I don't really, it's really hard for me to identify that kind of thing. I can tell you this to get to the point where I was in a meeting with the Rolling Stones. That took some doing for a number of years, and

One of the things you know Bob doing obfuscates all the time, but he also does a little bit of hypher his records. One time on sixty minutes sometime the last twenty five years ago, he goes, I won't tell my hopes in dreams because people just laugh at me and give me a hard time. You got to keep them interior.

Yeah that's interesting. Well that's that's I think that's a very human response. It was really hard for me to do this. But if you've bottomed out right far ago, right, So I did it. I really thought about it, and I wrote this down a little piece of paper and I got up. I was the first guy, and in one year I said I want to be out of this fucking job. And I got the big laugh of the night for that, because everyone was there to try

We went a little bit slower. What were the lessons they taught you?

Oh, it's just like, uh, you know, don't just if you're if you're doing a sales pitch, you got to keep people saying yes. So if you're if you're the fuller brush man going door to door, if I could show you away that you wouldn't have to work so hard, scrub and your sink you'd want to know about it, right, Yeah, sure, and you just keep saying yes and then you go for the kill after about twenty yeses. So I'll say

Okay, way a little bit slower. While you're working in the copy or repair of business, is there a band or just you and David with a fantasy?

Me and David with a fantasy and a couple of songs. And I knew a lot of musicians because I and I'd been i'd been working in studios. I would go to the studio. I'd play in the bar till two o'clock in the morning. Then from two to like eight, I'd go to the studio. And there's a there's a great studio in Detroit called Sound Sweet Studios. And they were just extremely kind to me and generous. They gave me the key and if no one was in there after midnight, I could go in and work till someone

Well a little bit slower, a little bit so, so you have X number of tracks and you personally go to the record company get the deal. There's no manager, no lawyer, no anybody.

We didn't have a manager or lawyer. But here's what we did to David was it was the jazz critic for the now defunct La Herald Examiner. So we concocted the scheme where David called Michael Silka under the guys of doing an interview, but I don't even think he was rolling tape. He got forty five minutes into the interview and then he said, you know, as I'm thinking about it and talking to you, there's this band in

Okay, a little clean up work. If David is the jazz critic for the Herald Examiners, he living in l A. Yeah, he's living living okay. And how long did you actually work in the copy repair of business?

Six weeks? Okay.

I can't imagine there was a ton of money in this record deal, was there?

No? But I learned a lesson previously we'd cut a twelve inch on Sweetpea, a dance record of him covering Bob Seekers heavy music. Okay, it was good man, and Sweetpea was like the voice I always wished I had, you know, he was, he was my vocal hero. I was just thrilled to meet him and know him. Such a character, such a you know, an intimidating character at first, but huge heart of gold underneath. Tough guy. You know, no one, no one ever wants to mess with sweepy.

Okay, you're nobody in Detroit, you get a little buzz, you end up on the island. When does it start to coalesce that you're on the landscape and you're outside of Detroit and you get to know people.

It's hard to say. It seems like it seems like a there was a lot of struggle, is the way I feel. But really it's just a couple of years between between putting that first record out and working with Bonnie.

Okay, it's like friends of mine managed one direction. They have no people have no idea how hard they worked. You know, they're working all day long. You're just seeing the end results now. You know, there were the day, the heyday, the pre internet days. Yeah, the label supported you, But when you were struggling, how much were you on the road. How much were you trying to make something great in the studio? What were you doing when you were struggling.

It's trying to figure out how to make great records. I could hear what other people were doing. I'll listened to everything. I had the advantage of someone just before. You couldn't make records in your laptops, right, there were no laptops, right, There was no pro tools and none of that. So you had someone had to invest in at least half a million dollars you know worth of stuff, and more than that. Usually I had the advantage of

Let's go back, where exactly do you grow up in Michigan?

I grew up in Oak Park, Michigan, which is just across eight mile from the Detroit city limits.

Okay, Detroit was no own is its own scene very early there was New York, LA, eventually San Francisco. You're growing up, are you aware of Motown? Are you ware there's a house you drive by? Do you feel some ownership, or it could be in Timbuctoo.

It's the samely we felt about the Detroit Tigers winning the World Series in nineteen sixty That's how we felt about Motown. That was victory for all of us. And there's a lot of local pride and even for yeah whatever in seventh eighth grade when those records started coming out, but I still felt tremendous pride it was coming from our town. And also there is a Detroit sound. There's a thing to the music that comes out of there.

So when do you first play a musical instrument?

Oh? Yeah, I think I started playing piano when I was eight seminary eight.

Okay, your seven or eight when you're eleven twelve when the Beatles hit, was that the transitional moment in You're getting deeper or it was something before.

I was into it, and then folk music was actually right, Like there was a summer when Peter Palm and Mary was alternative rock and roll and so and hoot Nanny. It was a big show.

Well that's what I told you that you have no idea even had its own TV show.

Yeah, yeah, no, there was.

Everybody had a nylon string guitar. You when everybody was singing the songs.

So I was in sixth grade and we had a band called the Saturns and we did basically Peter Palm, Mary's first album, and then Tom Dooley, some Kingston trio and the first gig, actually my first gig sixth grade, hoot Nanny. The headliner was a guy named moish Last who talked guitar at the Jewish Center. The second on the and somewhere I got I still have the mimeograph. Flyer is Chuck Mitchell and wife. That's hysterical.

That's Joni Mitchell.

And then my band, our band.

Okay, you're playing the piano. Does a piano migrate to the bass?

What is thing? No, what happened was my dad went to I don't know, he was someplace, but there was a rock and roll band and he came back with a guitar that he bought for five bucks, which I still have, the old Harmony acoustic guitar. So he tried to he took some lessons and it didn't click for him, so he gave me the guitar and gave me all the chord charts and I started just learning on my own. But there was a turning point in February in nineteen

Okay, you talk about being on that bill with Mitchell and wife. Was that an anomaly or were you guys doing gigs?

No, it's our It was our elementary school.

It's a funas so once you once the beatles and you get motivated, and you know, we all live through that. Everybody's playing, everybody's forming bands, although we're certain people were more serious than others. At what point do you have a band and they play a gig?

That band played gigs. We used to work in fact, where was that someplace? And I ran into like the grandson or the grand nephew of a guy who used to be a band. What used to happen was the adult bands that would play weddings and bar mitzvahs. They'd hire us to play in their breaks because we could play the kids stuff, especially at thirteen year olds. Want they didn't want to hear hovin ne Guila. So we

You were rich, right, What were you playing guitar in those bands?

Yeah? Well the first band we didn't know about bass. I didn't know what bass was, and then we so we didn't have a bass player. One day we're looking at some pictures the Beatles studying it and we see McCartney's only got four strings. Fck that. I auditioned. I think I was in sixth grade, seventh grade. I auditioned for a band some guys who were older than us actually went out called the Shy Guys. They actually had a big hit, regional hit in Detroit, We Gotta Go.

Bingo, Okay, I don't understand the bass. I played guitar, guitar, Still have a guitar or whatever. The bass seems to be a calling. Okay, you know you have a guitar to play the rhythm, you can play the lead. There are people like McCarty plays very melodic notes, but historically most of the rock players do not. So is it something that you just it resonates go, oh, I know where this is in the record, I know how to do this? Or was it more of a chore?

Oh, it's not a chore, man, I was wonderful. The beautiful thing about the bass is that if you wanted to, if you really wanted to play the bass, I could sit here with you for ten minutes and show you enough of the geometry of the neck to play any four chord rock and roll song you ever heard in your life. It's the easiest instrument to get by on, but if you want to really get deep and dig into it, it's beautiful. Look I'm seventy three and I'm

Business you were studying music and going.

I snuck in. Yeah, I couldn't get into the music college, but but no one wanted to be in the school in natural resources. Ecology was yet the word was yet to be coined. I think. So it's easy to get in there. And once I was in then I could start taking music classes and transfer.

Okay, let's go back to bass players. You know, even at this laid date, people Rivera Jocko Pastorio, Are you one of those people's.

He's not my favorite bass player, but I'm in awe of what he does.

He's Oh, okay, so your favorite would be Ron Carter my favorite? Yeah, anybody else in his league?

Sure? I mean there are people today who who are blow my mind. You may not know their names, like Larry Grenadier is just an incredible bassis. Willie Dixon was a big hero of mine. I thought he I like the guys who don't play a million notes right, but hold the thing down and keep it swinging and choose interesting notes, but can groove like crazy and keep swinging

Okay, the obvious dumb question, you place the end up bass. There are bass electric bassed guitars with no frets. Is it feel or do you sort of memorize where the threts would be. What's the trick?

Yes, it's feel. You can actually even if you don't hear it yourself, because especially you know when you have a really good bass that resonates as one piece of wood, even though it's a couple pieces of wood put together, you feel it on your body. It's very physical on the bass, and you can tell from the vibration whether you're in tune and you're just and you don't necessarily

Okay, let's set the stage. It's sixty four. You hear the Beatles. In terms of what comes out of Detroit, we have Motown breaks around the same time where did Our Love go goes top forty goes big? Then in terms of what comes out of Detroit, it's big, is pretty much Mitch Ryder Okay, Stugents sixty nine seventy, same thing with the MC five. They don't make big commercial impacts. Bob Seekers on independent labels. You keep hearing about them. Was this something we live in Los Angeles, a giant

You mean a cross between like.

You, Oh me, yeah, little DoD Well. You know it's like, oh, Bob Seeker his bass player lives down the street. I go to somebody's house, I listen. Oh yeah, I sat in on the studio or as they could have been in you know, Seattle for all you knew.

Well, there's a there's a local consciousness that permeates that music, that makes it feel more personal, I think. But to me, there was effectively no difference in Detroit between Bob Seeger or the Beatles, or really John Sinclair, who was quite a heroic figure to me.

Okay, John Sinclair, what do we know? You bought the original MC five record that wasn't uncentried. You open it up, you had a whole squeed. What we knew was John Sinclair was the manager with Air quotes and they arrested him for two joints. You know, this is not like today we could go deep into somebody. So what did John Sinclair represent for you?

John Sinclair was the leader of the alternative culture in Detroit. He was a political activist. His role with the MC five was really in grasping the idea that you could have a guitar army, which is a phrase that he pined, and that you could change the hearts and minds of young people and open them up to bigger ideas through rock and roll. But he was a beat poet and an advocate for jazz, and he was just everywhere I knew, more as an anti war activist than as the manager

But did you know the times it changed he was in jail. I should know that he worked with you, but obviously I didn't. Was he the same guy with the same charisma?

He never faltered man, you know, he passed man, but to this last breath. Man he was rebellious and a little crotchety about it, you know, but he did. He never surrendered when everybody else did, when everyone else said, he never gave up the fight. And it was it was an admirable quality. It represented real conviction. Most people he could have cashed out. It was several junctions.

That's the story of our generation. You know, we protested in the sixties seventies, back to the Land movement. We're licking the wounds. Reagan legitimized greed. All of a sudden, everybody's values flipped. Yeah, you know, they wanted to make money. It was really very strange. You get some success with was Not was so Bonnie Rate he loses her record deal. Ultimately, the guy worked at Warners, working at Capital, they sign her. Where do you come in in that process?

Before they signed her, what happened was there's a guy named Hal Wilner who was a very dear friend aside from COVID. From COVID early on, you know, the first couple of weeks of it. I think beautiful Cat just loved music. Earned a living by being the the music supervisor maybe of Saturday Night Live. I'm not sure what the title was, but any kind of music you heard

Okay, So all the stuff you cut before the deal, none of those were masters. It was after the deal you recut everything.

We recut everything, and we cut it pretty quickly. We didn't have a lot of bread. We had one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, which now actually seems like a big boat, right, but that was like that was minimal kind of budget in those days.

Did you bring any of the songs or did she bring all the songs?

I'm sure she brought all the songs. She's a great musicologist. People would send She always had boxes cassettes of demos. In fact, on the second album, Luck of the Draw, we'd cut most of the album. We were ready, but we didn't have the up tempost single that we thought it was gonna require. And she was going through every box and way at the bottom of like the last box, she found Shirty Elkhart's song something to Talk About Me.

Okay, niked, time is done. You know, it has success that no one could foresee. But when it was done, how do you feel about it?

I mean she'd been up and down.

She cut, you know, records on FOD track at a summer camp she worked with Paul Roth, a Jerry raggvoy. Everything had been tried and nothing really worked. So you're there, I mean the record is done. You say, wait a second, there's something specially. He said, Well, you know, we gave it our all.

We'll see what happens. We never considered that kind of success, the kind of success we enjoyed, never considered that to be in the cards. We just were trying to make something we'd be proud of in twenty five years. That was something that we have actually said, let's not compromise for the marketplace, don't imitate what's out now, because what was out then was like flock of seagulls, and you know, it was just the opposite, the antithesis of what she

Okay, it's a very interesting thing with Bonnie. For a long time. My favorite record was the second record give it Up. Then she works with you. After a little bit of hiatus, having no label deal, you put on Nick of Time, very successful. Luck of the Draw is a peak that's actually for me and I told everybody involved except maybe you, that better than give it Up. So now you have the pressure of having had success. So what was the mental state of going in to record Luck of the Draw?

Uh? I think we were remarkably cool about it, to be I think we were uh. I think it gave us confidence to follow our instincts. And by the way, when I talk about us, I can't talk about us.

Yeah, you are you going to break down? You're going to mention the engineer here, very sad story.

Ah, I can't talk about us without mentioning Ed Shirney Ship Bobby.

Well, you know, I became close. I mean I knew Ed Brobab probably ten or fifteen years before. Body became close just before he died. And I didn't really think he was going to die.

You know.

I guess I spoke with him, you know, one time, just before you because he used to talk to Al Schmidt every day they used to wake up. And then they both died.

But you know, I.

Guess he died before his time. And it's not like he died in his twenties. It's and he was such a you know, upbeat, fun guy. Not that he didn't have his darkness whatever, It's just not the type of guy you expect not to be here. It's hard to explain if you didn't know him.

Yeah. No, He's a wonderful guy and just had this great spirit about him and he he changed the energy of the sessions. So much. He made it such a positive thing and relaxed people. And but in addition to all his human characteristics, he uh, he was a genius engineer and nick ad time and lucky to draw on. Those records are as much his design. Because we were torn. We didn't know how this record should sound. I wanted

So how did you meet Ed and start working with him.

Over that record? I didn't know him before that, and.

So how did you end up with him?

He had done Right Cooter's It is a bop to your draft. I'm trying to remember.

Which I was earlier. Well, he did a Right Cooder record.

He did a Right Cooter record right around the time. Bonnie liked the sound of it, so she said, let's let's get together with that. We went to move Sewing Franks and it was like it is like the three of us had known each other forever.

Okay, Bonnie, after a number of records you no longer work with. This has happened with other acts. Why does it run out? And how do you feel about it?

I don't know the answer.

Well, you got to know the answer to how it feels when they don't call you.

Well, we talked about making the next record, and she liked, ah, what's the the Lost Lobos record? How well the worst will survive? That one after that? The one that's very experimental, that that Mitchell Prum did, Mitchell Fruman, Chad Blake. She I just can't think of the name of the alright, but it's a great, incredible record. She wanted to go for more of those kind of sounds, and it wasn't really what Ed and I did, and there's no no

Okay, you mentioned Pharaoh, Saunders and all these other people. Where does this jazz influence come from.

Well, tell your story. I was I was fourteen years old in Detroit, my mom was making me drive around with her on Sunday running errands, right, and I just wanted to be at Northland Mall with my friends and to hang out with my mom. So it was a pretty crabby, obnoxious kid that afternoon. She was disgusted. She left me in the car, gave me the keys. He said, just play with the radio. I'll be right back. I

Okay, A couple of questions, jazz had a peek conventional wisdom. Don't argue with me. I'm just putting it out. Pejorative jazz is dead, just like rock and roll is dead. Now now, there have been so many iterations of jazz, there's been smooth jazz, et cetera. How does someone who is not a jazz fan, where is the entry point?

Yeah, but that's a that's a very good question to me. The essence of jazz or even improvisational music. I extend that to like The Grateful Dead and Goose and bands like that. They're conversations. They're there are people listening to each other and reacting. The best musicians are the ones who listen to what everyone else is playing and not only react, but suggests something new that advances the conversation further. Not every if you go to a party, not every

Okay, what do we say to the people who know nothing but say jazz is discordant?

When you're playing something else. When I first started Blue Notte, we started, we did some some research. We have focus groups come in of people, just every type of person. And what do you think of jazz? I hate jazz man, it's all discord It's terrible, all right, I understand that. Then we put on a Sidewinder by Lee Morgan. I say, oh, I love that. What do you call that music? If someone says it's all discordant, I don't dig it. I said, well,

Okay, let's just stay on that topic for a minute, people, Let's just talk rock music for a minutes. Yesha, very rare, extremely rare for someone to create something unlest we're talking about Bonnie Raid of the quality of their initial period decades later, especially today with recording revenues for most of these acts small. They make the money on the road, and the people want to wear, they hear, they hits. There's an occasional being like the Doobie Brothers puts out

I don't think that there's like a singular cutoff point at which point you're doomed to just repeat what you did in your glory years. The artists that I admire most have it's it's cicular, you know, cyclical that you ride these waves of you're inspired. You ride a wave of an inspired time, and then then the trough of the waves when you're not inspired, and if you stay in it for forty fifty years, you get a couple of crests.

Well, well, let's put it out differently.

Okay.

Certainly, if you were a rock fan and you're buying records in the sixties, the interest leaves would have pictures of every album that whatever you bought Atlantic records, there were a lot of jobs, less McCann whatever. What do we know? Those records were never million sellers. This was a business. We like your music, we're making a record. We're not going to lose money because then we're going to stop. So when you're making records at Blue Note today,

I see albums. I still make albums, still believe in the album is a statement, but I see it I seem as postcards. You know, hey, Bo'm in Minnesota today. Man, it's great here heading to you know, we'll be in Saint Louis tomorrow night. Just dropping the mailbox picture. You're standing by the Paul Bunyan statue, right right right. That's what the albums are. This is where I am at this moment in my life.

Well, this is very different from the pre Internet era, where the goal was to sell tonnage on every record on a major label.

Ony. Yeah, well, I believe the best business plan is to make great records. If you make great records, you'll the revenue will find you.

Okay, Blue Note, how many records you put out a year?

We do around twenty Frontline albums, and last year we did fifty high quality audio, file quality vinyl reissues of.

The catalog Frontline product. What's the budget for one of those records.

It depends, could be Norah Jones, or it could be if it's a new jazz artist, it might be fifteen thousand dollars. Okay, how'd you get this gig?

Good question.

I was in New York City. I was producing a John Mayer record. Born and Raised twenty eleven, were recording an Electric Lady, and we took a night off. So I looked in the village voice just thought, oh God, and here's some music clear my head. And I saw that an artist named Gregory Porter was appearing at a little club called Smoke Up near Harlem. And I'd heard Gregory on the local jazz station, and I was blown away.

I haven't used it to this day, okay.

And so I also know that you have a finite number of synoptic pathways that you can keep open at any given time, and when you don't use them, you shut them down to make room for the things you're currently using. So I thought, well, I'm gonna I'm gonna. I may learn how to do this, but I may never write a song. I can live with that. It seemed like a high high adventure to try to learn, but I was woefully unprepared. I don't know anything.

About okay, but you know, it's not like the old days where it labels. Every five years, it would be turnover, get a new president. They wipe everybody out. You've had this gig for a long time. I would assume you don't listen. Everyone likes to get paid. But I assume you don't need the money.

I don't need the Braain.

Do you actually have an office? Do you actually go in?

Yeah?

Well, all I know is you're always out on the road with somebody.

Well I learned, Well, here's the deal. OK. It took about five years to figure out how to do the job as myself. I couldn't be Bruce Man. Bruce was so good. If you wrote him an email, if you send him an email, he'd answer you within like thirty seconds. You'd get a reply. He always returned calls. He could do all these things. Now we have a living refutation of astrology, Bruce and myself, because we have the same birthday, September thirteenth.

He was a time out timeout you believe in astrology.

No, we refuted astrology because we are so different. But we were really different. And they were huge footprints, you know, to walk in possible to fill the shoes. But I couldn't be him, he couldn't be me. So how can I be myself and do this? And that may not be going into an office and sitting there and you know, just sitting there on the phone punching in and out from eight in the morning to five or whatever. That that wasn't my style. I found a style, do it?

Okay, how much administrative work do you do.

Enough?

Okay, you're on the you're on the road with Bob Weird. You know you're only on stage a very small portion of the day. Are you working on Blue Note every day?

Absolutely? Man? You know I'm up at eight o'clock in the morning on calls. And also you know, if you you know how people you put the names on the dressing rooms right mine's they's a Blue Note World headquarters. We're just a full time gig. Man. I go to bed thinking about it. I'm talking to the musicians. I can have better conversations with the musicians because I'm playing improvisational music.

I'm not like, Okay, you're out with Bob Weir, but you're out all the fucking time. You're out with a band, you Last Waltz Tour, it seems like you're working all the time.

It just seems that way. You don't see every day I'm there.

Well, no, I'm not justifying your work, and I'm more interested in what is driving you to go on the road. It's got to be more than you know. Gives me insight and not every and you know, the electricity talk about a moment with the dead is different from a regular concert that is not improvisational. Not that the audience can't connect to a certain degree. There must be somebody, you know, is this type of thing where okay a month, okay, okay, I'll do it, or you really want to go on the road.

I love I love play. But here I'll give you an example this because this isn't like a grateful dead improvisational thing. When you mentioned the Last Waltz Tour, which we do heavy so often with Warren Haynes and Jamie Johnson and John Medeski and a rotating cast to other characters too. One year I was positioned behind Warren Samp clocked it in at about one hundred and thirteen decibels. The sound coming out of it had the back cover off, and it was just hurt in my ears and I

Get older? Yeah, okay, I'm gonna jump. What was going through your mind? And how did you make cap in the Brian Wilson movie.

I was producing my old school buddy Doug Figer in his group The Knack right around the corner from here. In fact, and Doug and Burton Averar the guitar player, had laid the Smile bootlegs on me. I was unaware of I knew about it, but I didn't really know the story. Holy cow, man, I got so deep into listening to these things it just blew me away. And then the mystique about them being unfinished and fragmented like that, probably to the detriment of the Knack record. That's all

Wait wait, wait, I've had my interactions with Brian from going back forty years to more recent stuff on the bus whatever. It's not a regular conversation.

No, it's not.

So you testify. When you testify to the average household name musician, yeah, most of them just say thank you. That's not the way to connect with people and say you know that's not you. But you can't hold back at certain points. But occasionally get someone and.

Said oh yeah, blah blah blah.

So normally Brian most of the time blank, other times sort of enthusiastic, over amped. I mean, what was his reaction to you testify?

I think it meant something to him that someone had listened that closely and heard what he was trying to do.

So you were talking about the smile, that's.

How much smile stuff and being very specific in my references, more specific than I could be today. I was steeped in it, and I guess I heard what he was going for and it meant something to him, and just you know, finish your shrimp and you come come to the studios. So they invited me to the studio. I went over there and we became pretty friendly.

Do you have any idea who you were when he met you?

I don't know, but yeah, he knew I was a producer. I guess yeah. But we became friendly and then I played some gigs with him, would just be me and him. He played piano and sing. I played bass. It just one off charity things. One Sunday we played something. It was something for the Elizabeth Glazer Foundation. She was still alive. Then it was somehouse up in Benedic Canyon in place, big, big place for a huge backyard. Ronald Reagan was there, Paul Buls, a bunch of people there, and Brian and

Okay, I'm a huge Beach Boys fan. I mean gigantic. I tell people all the time. I've been tell him for fifty years to I live in California because of the Beach Boys. There are some very surprising moments, most of them in the seventies. Marcella carl and the Passions not mediocre record. That track is unbelievable. Of course, there's selon Sailor on holland good.

Time in on La the Light album.

But as he goes back on tour, because you and me both know he sang all the high parts on all those original records, it seemed to me a little bit of the Emperor's new clothes. I saw him many times. Was evolved on a very oblique level with the redoers.

Smile, and.

His voice was far from perfect. Let's not talk about his psychological state, which always wasn't the best and I had inside information. Did he still really have it those last thirty odd years?

Yes, Yes, And I remember when we were we were recording something and had a studio full of guys Waddie Ben montench Keltner. We were cutting some song for him and he was sitting at it. He walked in and sat down at the piano, put his head down, and I thought he was asleep, right, But we just kept cutting the song and we get to like the third verse. All of a sudden, we're here in piano and his head still down. I thought he was Gone's bilt man.

You Okay, forget you go to sundance. Yeah, that means you've got to spend a good amount of time with him not working.

Yeah.

Could you have a conversation like a regular personager?

Yeah? Yeah, I mean, well there's nothing regular about him. Okay, but could I have a conversation yes, And he lived a really interesting life and you know, remembered everything, even towards the end. He remembered everything from the past and could tell you great stories. And also, sometimes it's just not necessary to make aimless chatter small talk. You know, sometimes you can have an artistic relationship with someone that transcends that.

Okay, then let's switch gears back to the Stones. They agreed to make a record. Stones they legendarily would make records. They'd bring in a piece that was recorded years before, they would write the songs in the studio. People did that after, but they were one of the first people. So what is your role. Now, Let's say you're finally working with the Stones. Certainly, as time went on, they made some records that were not as good as the early records. So your goal is to get beyond that.

Well, the first thing is just start with songs, which, by the way, is something peculiar to the Rolling Stones. It's for everybody. If you don't have great songs, you're not going to make a great record. So it was to try to encourage them to write to the level of greatness that they.

Ok, let's be clear, you make a deal. Do you have the studio time booked? Are they writing these songs before you go to the studio or are you waiting for them to write songs for you do go in the studio.

They were working on songs before I got together with them, and then I went to Ireland. They're the rehearse in at Ronnie Woods Place, and both Mick and Keith were incredibly prolific. In that period of time. There were probably forty to fifty songs really parts of songs that could

Okay, you show up next Tuesday. Where are you working.

We're working at Windmill Lane. Okay.

Is there a thought that you're going to finish something or is it we're going to be here for month? Lord only knows.

I think we had a finite timebook and you thought you were going to finish an album in that time. Now we're just going to get basic tracks cut. Okay, Yeah, and so we did. I think food Launch is a really good record. Every album I did with them, there was a we did a version that was thirty six minutes long. I was aware that there's a legacy that

Well, it was worse than that because on a vinyl record, you knew the first track on both sides and the last track on both sides were the best tracks, so you would know where to start, whereas on a CD it ran all the way through where the fuck do you start?

And that's a real thing. Also, each side would have a mood to it too, and it was it was very difficult to find seventy two minutes to listen to something as a whole, almost insane. Yeah, but Evan could find fifteen to twenty minutes to listen to a side. So we did versions that were tight edits and left out a bunch of songs, and it was really good, which stood the test of time against what's considered to be their classic period. I think there's some great stuff.

Okay, these are very experienced people on every level, experience in the studio, experience stars. They know what their image is, whatever, what's the special sauce, because they proved a lot of records themselves, because the Glimmer Twins. So are you basically saying, well, you know, I gotta be low key and know when to hold them, when to fold them. What did you actually do?

Well, there's a lot, you know, it's hard to just overgeneralize the thing. But it was first of all, keeping the vibe in the room conducive to making music, making good music and stressing. I wasn't Keith's guy. I wasn't mixed guy, a Rolling Stones guy. I love the Rolling Stones and I believe that they're at their best when they cooperate, and when you get both, you get everybody's essence on there. And I don't, by the way, I don't underestimate the power Charlie Watts or Ronnie would in

You know, the stuff sends him and you know, on record and live it's like we were talking about ron Carter. They're playing, but if you're a student, you could hear the difference.

Yeah, oh yeah, they I got to play with them a lot, you know. If Daryl Jones couldn't make it to a rehearsal, something I play, and that really gave me a great understanding of what they were about, because it was and being on the interior of the conversation, I realized that all that, all the tension that everybody reports on and everything like that, which is based in reality,

I don't know what you're talking about in a in a in.

A baseball game before the inning starts, the infield or just toss balls around. Yeah, I think that's just the warm up. So that's what the Rolling Stones are like. They're playing musical. Charlie plays something on his high hat to Keith to pick up on and play off of it. That would affect how mcphrased. And it was jocular and they were having fun and it was super relaxed. It

You know, I've seen the Stones a million times. It's kind of like The Grateful Dead. They'd say they don't play that long Grateful Dead do. I saw plenty of times they played for four hours. I only saw him be consistently good from beginning to end. Once other times play for four hours, one hour unlistenable, one hour great, two hours sort of. So until this last tour at so far was it two summers ago, maybe maybe last summer.

Any band, it's kind of like that. Takes a minute to get going, I think, But that's just part of the thing. The audience needs to sink into it too, a little bit, you know.

Yeah, but the game has changed. Okay, you know.

You would.

I'm sure you saw a million acts. Forget the acts that are headline acts like the Stones. You would go because you have the record, you love this band. You go to seem at someplace, a whole a few thousand people had an experience and came home and then tell your buddy's got to come the next time.

Through it.

Today a lot of arena shows that's like an MTV video Come Alive. Yeah, I agree, it's not really the same thing, which brings me to the question of where is it going.

Well, that's a good question, man. I don't know, I think there are some underpinnings to music that can't be You can't get rid of these things. And that's has to do with making an emotional connection to the listeners. You gotta touch them, you gotta make them feel something. Hopefully it's not just a random feeling. Hopefully it's helpful. You know, it helps them make sense out of their life somehow. You know, life is crazy. Music helps him make sense of it. That's why it's so important.

Okay, let's be very specific. Lou Christie recently died. Whatever is in Lightning Strikes and I'm not I say, there is something in that record that is just undeniable.

What was it?

Narls Barkley Crazy.

That's a more modern.

Record where there's something, you know what. The New York I never do this, but they had, like they put out a weekly playlist of, you know, ten tracks, and this was the Women, all of them except one was terrible, the Sabrina Carpenter track, which and I've got no time for her. I said, I hear this as a hit, but it's nothing like Lightning Strikes whatever. So it's got these changes. Whatever, it does not communicate on that emotional level that you're talking about.

Yeah, it might, it might go deep.

I don't think so, because this is ridiculous. I remember buying Disraeli gears and not many people talk about this track, but it's the opening on the second side is Tales of Brave Ulysses. We're telling my mother had no interest in rock and roll. I gotta play this for you. Yeah, this shit has sound wheel, it goes. There was a thought that lat Winter. It's like there was a feeling in that record.

I'll tell you something, man, if you can get seventy thousand people, fifty thousand people into us to come to a state him to sit in traffic, pay for parking, pay for babysitters, whatever you know, and to come there, it's speaking to you in a in some kind of way. You don't go. If it's not.

Okay, I'm just gonna fuck with you. Then what do you say about new kids.

On the block. I think they spoke to somebody.

Wait, wait, so the question is I'm not arguing with people deciding to go pay their money now more than ever, there's a penumber, You shoot selfies, you post on social media. Things are hot. Yeah, okay, we both I mean the biggest thing you live in Los Angeles because you see these people. People who could leave the hotel room now you see them at Ralph's. It's hysterical. Nobody's making a big deal about them where they're where other people go, like Brian Wilson, it's just to be in this Prince.

Well, I see it. Yeah, I'll tell you a story. Man. In nineteen ninety, not was got booked on the Club MTV tour. So we were out with a tone low Paula Abdul, Millie Vanilli Us and the Information Society. We're the only ones playing live and we were bombing every night. That required the extreme generosity and kind spirit of downtown Julie Brown to come out with her dancers and rescue our set every night because because the people wanted to hear the records, like the records, and we didn't sound

Yeah, it is not like it was in the sixties and seventhes. Not for you and me.

But it's not It would.

Have been seventy in the sixties.

We'd have we are seventy. Well.

I always say, there's a renaissance. Okay, they painted and sculptured, Retaissance. They've painted and sculpted hundreds of years since. There's never been another renaissance. There've been great painters and great sculptors, but was in the you know, a lot of things had to come together, the radio without all this stuff like that. And also the other thing is today middle class people know the reality of society. You talk to someone, they don't want to be broke. I remember I graduated

With? It might be strong? Look at all the people the Taylor Swift drass to the shows. Man, you know you know she's speaking directly.

Wait, I'm gonna let's get since you're a pro dangerous subject because she wrote a song about me. But the first two albums that she wrote, the songs with Liz Rose, it was like teenage Joni Mitchell, phenomenal. Okay, whatever she's selling now, it is not the same thing. This is a business proposition because the previous tour did not go clean. Okay, if I put all the tickets on sale, it wance, it'll be such mania. And then you there's fomo et cetera.

I don't know that that's true. I don't think I agree with you. I was in a played in Tronto. We've played a two thousand seater the same night that Taylor Swift was doing one of several nights in the stadium, and I, you know, I went out for a walk in all these women with the sparkles and the bracelets and dressed a certain way. It means as much to them as give piece of Chance meant to you.

And I'll leave it here because I don't agree with you, but I'm gonna whip out a bad analogy. Okay, television today compared to what it was when we were growing up, Yeah, okay, we would have said Banana's a phenomenal show. Yeah my mother the Car maybe I watched it and not great. The sopranos, I mean, holy fuck, better than any movie in the theater.

Okay.

There are people, you know, you go somewhere. They can sing all the theme song, they can talk about mash whatever, mash was in the league of What's on TV today crap. I will agree that these people like it by all, just to go one step for this was everything for us. People don't understand, just like I was talking about. You

That's sixty five.

There was not a soul alive on the planet who had not heard Satisfaction, not a single person. Doesn't mean they liked it, but they heard it the same way. I can sing every lick of Hello Dolly by Louis Armstrong because I had to sit through it to hear the beat song. Things do change, you know, there is and there are different eras. So the question would become, if we circle back forget the reissues. That's something different.

Him to the ether.

There's not enough promotion, marketing dollars to reach even a fraction of people to make it work. You're just putting it out their audience knows it. You could get lucky, just like Mom Dommie. I don't want to talk about the politics whatever, blah blah blah. Big story in the paper today saying that on social media it was embraced by all these people who made their own videos. So you don't know nothing is going to be as big

Song can take off. Yeah, it's I don't think it's all that complicated. Man. You know, you try to try to make records for soulful people, communicative people. They have more choice today. You can hear everything all the time. You have millions of songs we couldn't before. You know, I was just I just found my copy of I Get Around, which I had Brian sign and for me in the nineties, and I still got the jacket them

Let's leave Taylor Swift in her career out in terms of identity for a second. But she made records with Max Martin unbelievably talented. Yeah, okay, Mutt Lang didn't make as many records, but he can make the records himself.

In his day.

But in today's mainstream record business, there's a lot of writing by committee remixing. What is your philosophy on those processes?

If it touches people who cares how you came up with it, Man, it doesn't matter.

You don't think you can squeeze out the essence.

I can show you shitty records that were made in every era, any any golden period. You want a sight, probably probably the week that like a rolling Stone was number one, Probably like they're coming to take me away? That was probably right. There's always great stuff, there's always bad stuff. Just try to make stuff that you believe in. It's it's so uncomplicated. It's so simple, man. Just make real stuff, work with people who can who can tap into their heart and and and and that's what an

Okay, going on the road, running blue note. Are you still available to produce albums?

I am? What does it take?

You have a limited amount of time or an unlimited amount of time if it's the right stuff.

I got a limited amount of time. I couldn't I couldn't do another Stones album if they wanted me to, you know, I mean, I don't have that kind of time. Try it. You know, my favorite album, man, one of my favorite albums I was Blue and Lonesome, which is the last finished record that was three days.

I like those kind of records, but you know there's something you can capture in three days to boot.

Yeah.

Okay, So you're a musician. You talk about going on the road, going on to make these Stones records.

How do you have a.

Family and raise your kids and have them be reasonable?

How do you balance that out? Well? You do it. You make the effort. When when my youngest kids, Solomon sal was produced Beyonce, really, all my kids are musicians and they're all I'll produce and I'll play. So when I dropped them at USC, which when all three of my kids went to USC and they all graduated, only Henry graduated. Uh, family tradition, right, rights. But dropping them off is maybe one of the worst days you're gonna have and you're your life. It's like you've lost your kid.

Just a couple more questions. Hey, do you ever go on a traditional vacation?

Ah? No, okay?

Is music all consuming? Or do you have other passions? Or do you watch streaming TV? Read books? What your everyday life look like?

I'm pretty much in it all the time. I got three or four things going on. Last night at midnight I was I do two radio shows. You know, you gotta like you prepared for this. There's research that goes on. It takes it takes time. I did a I do a two hour live radio show every Friday night on a station called wd E T, the NPR station in Detroit. And it's work. You know, it's okay.

So if someone is not in Detroit, how can they hear it?

A streams on wd et dot org.

And is it available after you do it?

Yeah, for a couple of weeks and then I do them every f so what is the show. It's pretty free for him. I play everything from Albert Eiler to you know her Hermits.

What's your favorite Herman's Hermits song?

I like, can't you Hear My Heartbeat? It's pretty great. Uh, I just I was just watching him the other night. He was at some so on some kind of cruise. He's a badass.

Oh yeah, he knows what he's doing and he's got a sense that you were about himself. Somewhat it works.

He's a good guy. Yeah, I really I thought he was quite good. He's hitting all the notes and yeah, can't you hear my heartbeat? Listen to people? Pretty great song.

Phenomenal, Yeah, phenomenal. I was going to say, you know when first it was Missus Brown, but really it's listened to people. Just the sound of that record came out in the winter. Just to go back a step, the best Stones record is other than the ones you made. You're taking those off the board?

Well late come around more to Between the Buttons. I think Between the button's pretty great. But I you know, you got a rank. I don't know that anyone's made a better record than Beggars Banquet. Or let it bleed. You know, I'm with you.

People talk about sticky fingers. I don't want to say anything negative about sticky fingers, but let it bleed unbelievable and at dis laid date. I don't want to sound like a hipster, but Eggs on Main Street is really really something.

It's pretty cool. I'll go through different phases with it. And it's cool because I've been able to listen to it with them, you know, and I've played records. Keith once gave me a verbal tour through Exile and Okay Street just.

To hang in there. Just want to see his face what he say about that.

I don't remember.

That is such an eerie record. I think one of the other problems is, you know, they sent me these really great genial X speakers.

No one would have speakers like this for your computer.

I think it's retail, like sixteen hundred dollars or something. So those are really good. And if you're listening in high res, you know whatever, that's great. But I fired up the big rig the other day, which is not far away. They sound different when you play these records. They take up the whole room. The experience is different from listening on headphones or earbuds.

Oh yeah, and listening to vinyl too. It's a great In the last few years, we cracked the code on pressing good vinyl.

Just just just with this deep Okay. If a record is cut digitally, yeah, does it make any sense to press it on vinyl. I'm talking about I don't an audio level forget.

Yeah, yes, yeah, uh it does. It's not gonna sound the same as it does coming from analog tape.

Well, it's gonna you know, as you talk to the experts, you say, well, vinyl has a sound.

Vinyl has a sound. By the way, it's the sound of it. You could call it distortion. I'm gonna yeah, it's just a distortion. Is great, right, Jimmy Hendrix, Right, great, you said MC five great use of distortion. So the distortion is not a bad thing, But as far as it being an accurate reflection of what the thing sounds like, no, But I love vinyl and there are ways to make great vinyl. You know, I grew up producing vinyl records.

Wait, wait, just break it down a little bit. But forget the audio fields, which is a world done to itself. Did they prefer the original pressings?

I don't know. I just know we got a lot of criticism over it. And then what happened was we had been licensing the masters out to a company called Music Matters who were doing audio file vinyl, and so I started listening to those and I'm like, Wow, in the world do they make this happen? And I finally met the guy, a guy named Joe Hurley masters with Kevin Gray, and I was just in awe of him.

Bad word so do you have any idea with the secret sauces?

It's no one thing. But I can tell you one thing he taught me I never considered I don't think anyone considered this before. He believes that individual presses have a sound, so it could be by the same manufacturer. And if you apply it to like musical instruments, every fender strat sounds different. It's an individual piece of wood. Man, two pieces of wood, They're all going to have a

So on these records, catalog records, Yeah, how much vinyl do you press?

We can do twenty thousand of them.

And you know there's much more capacity than there used to be. Is your relationship and volumes such that you can get all the stuff pressed in time.

The delay times are coming down, and you build relationships with plants where that they'll help you. Artier has been real good to us. A few other plants have been good to us. But we do all the all the all the all the tone poet stuff. It's mastered by Kevin Gray at his place and manufactured at Artier.

Okay, do you have a great stereo at.

Home, not like Joe Harley, who's got you know, like the Wilsons whatever table? Yeah, but okay, you don't have a boom box either. I go to your house. Yeah, you're going to play me two records to say, the sound on these is unbelievable.

Yeah, other than Blue Note, what would you play?

You remember everyone used to play The Night Fly by Donald Fagan that that's still a pretty great sound record. Uh. Well, I don't really show off the things. But for my own reference, uh, I play Born and Raised, the John Mayer record. I play something I know you know I'll play. I'm proud of that record. Born and Raised. John Mayer is a bad motherfucker.

Okay, just to stay on John Mayer. You made one record with him, I made three records. Okay, what was was that the first born and.

Raised, Born and raised the first one. Then we did Paradise Valley and we did Sad Rock during COVID.

So who have you not produced that you have a hankrey for it? Mean you've been to the mountaintop with the Stones. But if I said, forget about Blue note your schedule, we're dreaming here, you know, who would you want?

Who?

I think my point is clear, who would you want to work with?

Well, I've pretty much been to my bucket list of living people. You know. I wish Muddy Waters to come back. I wish John Lennon would come back, but they're not coming back. I like people who are really expressive. I played live with Miley Cyrus. I thought she was awesome. I'd make a record with her in a minute. Yeah, that's something I think it's great.

Let's just assume you make a record with Miley Cris. She brings her talent. Is your goal to get that talent? Or do you say I have a vision where I can take my Lee Cris.

I don't do that to anybody. I wouldn't do that to a new artist that no one's ever heard of. That's not my style of producing. My style producing very specific. I try to sit with an artist and figure out what they're hearing in their head, and I try to help them get there.

Just how would you uncover what they're hearing in their head?

You talk, you play records, What do you think of this sound like? You like the way this record sounds? You just spend time and talk about things. I worked with Waylon Jennings, and I know what his records sound like. But what do you want to do? He said he wanted he liked Mercy Bob Dylan record Daniel Daniel, and it's it's Bob with some great songs, singing beautifully and uh and the atmospheric things that Daniel specializes in. All right,

You know, back when the business was more comprehensible, there were legendary producers, and then there were engineers. Then a lot of the engineers became producers. Well, there are a lot of things the old traditional producers might do that an engineer doesn't.

You know.

First it might be well we need a bridge here or something like that. To what degree might you rear change or change the song in what degree? Why you actually participate, say well, let me play this for you, not writing the whole song, but let me play you this part, or why don't we change this line instead of this?

How about this? Will you do that? Sure? Yeah, I won't write it for them without invitation. I think that's a bit presumptuous, and it's become suspect. It looks like a publishing grab. And I told the Stones when we first started, I said, I'm going to suggest things that have to do with songwriting. And I don't want you to think that I'm it's a money grab. It's because I think it'll make a better record. So consider me an editor, not a co writer, even if I do

Okay, you have interests in a lot of records that have sold records, so they're in the blacks something. Usually producers, they're paid from record one. What are you finding that you're accounted to accurately?

Yeah, it seems about right. You know, I've worked. I've been part of the Universal Music Group for fifteen years. I've never ever encountered a situation where someone was deliberately trying to steal an artists money. It's mythology I've never once had. I've only had a positive experience of Blue Note. Lucian Grange has never said to me, don you need to do this or do that. He's always supported stuff. You're doing a great job with Blue Note. You keep

Would you sell your rights?

Yeah? I think so. Yeah. I don't have any sentimental attachment to it.

I mean at this point, I must believe you've gotten offers. Yeah, I've had offers, So what would it take?

Just the right number? Uh? Yeah, I mean I'm not opposed to it at all. A feel I feel a little bit weird. As a producer, your deals are sometimes with the artists directly, So like if I were to do a deal like that for what the Rolling Stones catalog, then they're going to have some people who are going to come in and audit all the time and not be as genial as I am about it. And I don't know that I love this guy, So I'm grateful to them or what they did. I'm not sure I

And.

I get that and I understand how he felt. So that's really been my hesitation. You know, I'm going to bring some people going to come in and audit Bonnie. I never audited Bonnie right ever? Man, never is your deal with her? Yeah? Yeah? Okay.

Final question, Gregory Porter?

Yeah, okay.

First time I heard him, saw it, you know, face to face. I didn't know anything about him other than his name.

Mind blowing? Yeah. Is there any way I thought you had to think of capital right time? Yeah, that's right.

I thought this guy was on the verge of superstardom. Is there any way or what is holding back?

Or where are the stars? Not a line? Why is this guy not a household name in the United States? Because he had huge success in He sold a million records. The first album that came out in Blue Note sold a million.

Records, So how many domestic how many for him.

Forty thousand domestic rest forms? So he concentrated on where that audience was, and he spends most of his time. He lives in Bakersfield. I know he spends most of his time overseas. And if he really decided to focus a grass roots campaign over a long period of time on this country, I think you would be better now. But he's got you know, like four or five Grammys, and he can sell out the well turned theater. I just went to see mc Carnegie Hall this year. Sold

Okay, then I'll add one more question once again, records. You haven't worked with a couple of records that these should have been giant hits and they fell through the cracks.

Some of I love Buddy Miller's records. Yeah, Buddy should have more recognition. Buddy and Julie his wife, great lyricists. Man. You know, they're great songwriters and they're both incredibly soulful singers and musicians. Play a lot with Buddy. I've done a lot of kicks them. I play with them every year at the Americana Awards. I've done it, Yeah, fifteen sixteen years, I've gone and been in the house band.

Okay, keep adding more questions your every day life. Are people looking to get we put the right connotation here, not so much to get something from you, but are they looking for something, whether it be free work or whatever. Yeah, are you having to fend that often do you do that yourself? You don't have somebody else, you know.

I remember, like it was yesterday, being in the position of needing someone to help me, right, I remember taking that before, Yeah, I remember taking that was and I was thing with the two songs to a public image show and Corner and John Lyden with it. Here's what we're doing. I think you'll dig it. It breaks my heart thinking of the desperation it takes to do that, to subject a guide to that, you know. So my heart breaks for people who've chosen a career like this.

You drop them for purely economical reasons.

Uh, well it it's not purely. It manifests itself in economically. I mean.

What people also don't realize about this business is people don't want to work with assholes. So a lot of people don't know because they don't actually interact with these people. Hey, I don't care how talent you are, I just.

Don't want to work with you. Whether it's stubborn or whatever. They hard to work with. I'm also luly that too, because I've been warned off of so many people about producing them. It's going to be a nightmare for you. And it was never a nightmare.

I just had to have people said, oh, you know, I just mentioned one Ricky Lee Jones. Everybody said, oh yeah to her, she was the greatest. It was like, you know, we went to school together. So you try to tell yourself, but usually most of these people, it's not a one on one thing. Anyway, I was in the studio, I was the assistant engineer or something like that.

It's if you treat people with respect, they usually return the favor. You know, you know, it's just simple basic stuff. Treat musicians the way you want to be treated in the like. One of the things is I was explaining to there was this kid who came with Ron Carter to the studio and I let him produce the overdub, sit there and talk to him on the talkback, just to get some experience doing it and understand what was involved.

Well, you've certainly been empathetic and kept everybody's attention this afternoon. Don I want to thank you for taking this time with my audience.

It's a pleasure, man, It's really good to talk to you. I think you're a great interviewer. We've we've talked about this before. I've actually, you know, I do a lot of interview viewing of other people, and I've studied your technique. You're you're, you're, you're really good.

Well, two things I remember vividly doing that gig grammy time sixteen months ago, and you came up to me and he goes, I see what you're doing. That meant so much, right, I told my psychiatrist said, I gotta tell you this story now. Oh absolutely. I mean, first and foremost, being a writer is I don't want to say it's a lonely jump. First of all, I don't want don't put me in the camp of people who

There's way if you.

Go out, you find forget the point. You don't always do it great yourself. I mean, if I do something that's eleven, I know. Can I do something that's eleven every day? No fucking way. But you know when you reach it. So when someone you know, this is back point, I mean talking more. I remember I was in a really bad spot thirty years ago. That's an understatement, really bad spot. First, since you mentioned the psychiatrist says, well,

Nothing. Okay.

The other thing is, well, what are you doing you know to sell this that I said. Listen, Whenever I tried to advance my career never works because the people.

Don't get it.

It's like someone says, come speak at my conference for you know, Yeah, you pay me, I'll go. Is it'll be good for you, good for me? If I stay home and write something phenomenal, that will be good for me and all the benefits have come from that. So you're a smart guy, very smart and I'm not saying that to stroke you. So you got it because it's like I don't come with a list of questions. It's like, where are you going? To go and where are you gonna go?

By? Save Doug?

And I know shit, I want to cover. I got a circle in my brain. I'm coming back because you know, some of these people are friends of mine.

But two things.

We've had conversation only for one reason. I was talking to Peter Wolf. Peter Wolf, fascinating character, because gin me, your guys, what the fuck was going on with you that they done away wanted you?

Okay?

Some people, you know, you just got to take one look at him. That's not Peter Wolf. Not that he's an unattractive guy, okay, and your talk. I couldn't figure it out for a really long time. Is he's actually empathetic and interested, which almost I was at a party last night. I got somebody's life story. You know how much they asked me about me? Zero didn't even occur to them. Okay, not that I have to tell my story, but okay, I got your story. It's not like I'm

For that moment.

The other thing that I loved that you said was talked about getting the job and the copy repair. Everybody who's made it big time, they were all on the verge. You're giving up at some point. It's just really desperate. So in any event, circled back to the Peter Wolf thing. At the end, he's opening up you.

He wrote a.

Book and got a lot of press. It's a fucking book business, so we antiquate it, and they didn't press enough copies, so for like six weeks there are no books in the story. He's doing press and I'm talking to him about it. I didn't think twice I was gonna cut it off. All the emails and oh when you were talking to him about that. So when we started off, I mean, even like on these you know, i'd also think these philosophical points, like you're talking about

Oh?

It wasn't believable, the acting was bad. You put somebody listen to record about it? As most they can say is had a good beat and I could dance to it. I love it right, But it has that power.

Yeah, yeah, it's the greatest, man, It's absolutely essential.

Do you have a go to track like when you're in a bad mood or something?

I do. It's actually a Blue Note album. I've been going to it since it came out in sixty six. I think I bought it like sixty eight sixty nine Speak No Evil by Way in Shorter, which I think is my favorite record in the catalog side too. When I was nineteen, man, I was, I was, I dropped out of school, movedan I wanted to be in a

Oh yeah, if I.

Have a rough day, I'll put on that record. By the time I get from Hollywood to Santa Monica, I'm good. And thankfully, you know, we got to sign Wayne. We re signed him the Blue Note first year I was there and I made a couple of records, but him, I got to know him, beautiful guy. I got to tell him that.

And really, well, it sounds like you got to tell the number of your heroes, got to tell Brian Wilson. Did you ever tell the Stones you were a fan? Sure?

Yeah, they knew. I think fans make the best producers. I would find that reassuring.

Are you trying to create a bond that that sort of separates you?

I think that if you try to make the record that you would buy. That's that's that's that's good producing. You just got to assume that other people share your taste.

Okay, but you're a very soulful guy who is warm. Is it important to make the musicians of the room feel that they're connecting with you.

It's important to make them feel comfortable. They don't. I don't care whether they feel that they're connected. They're not making a record for me, they but I want them to feel is safe enough that if they take a chance on something and it fails and they fall off the cliff musically, that it's okay, get no, mad man, We'll do another take, you know, like but to feel comfortable to take the chance, so you don't just get you know, the biggest enemy making a record is good

Well, do you have a technique to push them to get into grate?

You know, it's really weird. I've been told that this happens, but it's nothing I do deliberately. I don't know what I do, but something puts people at ease. I'm aware of the phenomena, but I don't know. I don't know why it happens. There's nothing deliberate.

It's like Mick.

I remember telling him he's got something in his voice. He's audiogenic. I don't know what that word means. Well, you know what photogenic is Claudia Schiffer on an ad and she jumps out, catches your eye because she just got this quality. And that's why she's a popular model, because it draws your attention to the genes they're trying to sell. That's photogenic. Audiogenic means your voice leaps out of the speakers. And some people just have this thing.

Yeah, those are two good examples. But you're working with Mick is if they are one hundred percent of the timer. You have to get him in the zone.

He warms up into the character and you can see the physical transformation and it's just it's it's so awesome, especially if you're a fan. Right, so comes in, he's got a sweater and a dress shirt, you know, and he stands there and he's singing It's Mick Jagger, but he's he's not the guy and you gotta go four or five takes in and then sweater comes off, the dress shirt comes off. Now he's in a T shirt and the lips start, they transform. He becomes the character.

Well, they just to stay on the stones for a minute, especially at glaston very recently with all the controversies with villains and the kneecap. The stones were dangerous back in their era. And then of course in the sixty nine to seventy two era, I mean there were no cell phone cameras. They were in the south of France. There's been some footage town. It was almost as fucked up as they said it was okay, whereas now it's fifty

Just weird.

I mean, it's really weird if something. This is why I got to give Keith Richards much credit. He's not trying to look young. It's like when these guys get plastic surgery and they look forty years younger than the audience it's coming to see them. But as they say, it's not the Stones, I guess it's the same thing in the show. There's always a moment where it locks on and you go, that is it.

They're fucking great man. I've seen him. I've seen him as a I started the first time I went to see him as in sixty four, they played for two hundred people at Olympia Stadium, which is an arena in Detroit, two hundred people in an eighteen thousand seat places. Before they were on that Cellivant show, I saw him three or four times with Brian Jones, so I'm gonna gimme shelter tour. I've seen him, you know, throughout, and then once I started working with him, I saw him another

Okay, did you go to the show with Fonda? Okay, they were great but it's the stones in a room with under two thousand people. Song ends all the rabble rousing. You know, you think it's the fucking stones. They don't do a lot of pattern between the numbers anyway. It was just it was disrespectful. But I just couldn't believe it.

It was a weird It was an industry audience, I think you could call it, and that's a that's a tough audience to play for. I thought they were great. I saw them at the Echoplex too, and I didn't see that show. That was just the most surreal thing. To be in a bar with the rolling stones.

Well, the great thing about them is they are a bar band.

Well they can be the roots.

We go into the production era of let it bleed whatever, But at the core, it's guys who listened to a lot of blues records and want it to be and that's out is supposed to someone who, you know, other than satanic majesties, maybe supposed to someone who blew with the wind. It's pure to what it is and very few things are that long.

That's why I love the Blue and Lonesome record, because I think that was utterly not only was it made utterly without self consciousness or thinking they've adjust themselves. And because it was all in one room and the drum sound was coming primarily from mixed vocal mic, there was no overdubbing, no punching, no fixing, nothing. That's just listen out what a great band they are.

The problem is, you'll remember in the seventies, you know, bands put out live albums to get out of their contracts, and they change the contracts, doesn't count as an album.

Et cetera. Live music was so weird.

I remember it was in a bar in Aspen, Colorado in nineteen seventy They taped the concert off the radio and they had it.

You could listen to it.

Then there was a King Biscuit flower arm. This ship was so rare. If the Stones had got nothing to do with the record. But if the Stones are put low down on whatever the hell the name of the track is that if they put it out in nineteen seventy three, it would have been like everybody would have known it.

Times changed, yeah, times changed. But what I love is that they you know, Keith Richard's man, he's just he's such a great soulful musician. You know, he's one hundred percent for real. And I've gone to see them live and I've seen him like walk past on the runway there. He's like transfixed. Man, he's in a trance, and I've had eye contact with him, and but he's he's somewhere else. He's so deep into what he's playing. And he said, night after night after night, he goes there every night.

Well, you know, I don't know whether you went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and then it was the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame whatever they called it, with everybody's guitars and you saw his less Paul with four strings. That's when it all came out. And then I remember being on stage talking to his guitar deck. I said, you know what the deal was, We let it do we go on the road, we have to

Up in there. The factor.

You know you only gonna play on four strings.

Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

What do you think of the Mick Taylor era?

That's beautiful.

I can talk because I didn't work with him. Although Ronnie Wood, you know, bass player with Jeff Beck, the ship that he did with Rod Stewart unbelievable. Okay, the only problem I have with Ronnie Wood is his sound is somewhat similar to Keith's, whereas Mick Taylor was came from a completely different place.

Well, Ronnie is one of these guys man. You could put anything in his hands. One time I ordered there's like an oil can dulcimer. There's like someone put a neck, a dulcimer neck on an oil can and strung it up and they brought it to the studio for me. Right, I sound like a jerk. Playing It just gonna take some time. And to Ronnie, he just made something spectacular happen almost instantly on this thing, and just found a

Now there are tons of stadium shows. There weren't shows for a couple of decades. People don't know in the seventies all these stadium shows. I've already living in la and it was Fleetwood Mac with Stevie and Lindsay Loggins in the scene in the headline were the faces, okay. And that was just when rumors were seventy five, just when rumors were coming out that he was going to be the Stones guitarist. Well now it's fifty years later, he's been the Stones guitarist. You know, Brian Jone isn't

Strangely, but when you live the phenomenon you're talking about, it's tougher for him. On songs that Mick Taylor originally played. He's better on the songs where he initiated the part, like Beast of Burden. Those are the guitar weaving that goes on. It's a different relationship Keith and Ronnie. You have a different relationship than Keith and Brian Head. I'm talking about musically, and they do this guitar weaving thing

It's like when Mick Taylor or whatever it was supposed to be the fifty at the anniversary too, I think it was the fifty first, and he would sit in for a couple of songs. Yeah, whatever he was playing was nothing like what they were playing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Well and it was great. You know, yeah, they've been at it for a while. Well.

The only other thing we know is for years we've been hearing it. I mean, you and me go under different circumstances here.

You know, you gotta go. It could be the last time.

Now we're getting to the point where, fuck, everybody's dying. You don't know, it could be the last time.

I remember that we cut one song right over here in Hollywood. It's now called East West we're in studio too, and it was meant to be the last song on for Just a Babylon Well, how can I stop? It was one of Keith's songs and we were all set up in a circle and there were other people playing. Jim Keltner was there with Charlie and Wayne Shorter is playing on it. Blondie Chaplin was playing the grand piano.

Well, since you're talking the Bridges to Babylon, my favorite song on that track is not unknown, not that it was a huge hit, sane of.

Me, Oh, you never mixed saying to me, yeah.

Yeah, it's just got to feel that it's just great.

Yeah, it's a cool track. Yeah, yeah, they're good moments.

There are great.

Moments on all all those records. I think that it's a it's a tough thing to live up to. Man. You know, when when when people have so much of their own personal memories intertwined with certain music, it takes twenty It's only now are people starting to tell me how good Voodoo Lounge is. It takes it takes decades to attach your own sensory triggers to these songs and

Man, you know how the interesting thing not at this level, but Todd Rungren, who's really incredibly successful. He goes on the road, no matter how much he till people, I'm gonna do my electronic stuff.

They come.

They want to hear the hits. They want to hear more than Hello, it's me, and they can't believe it. I give them credit for doing it, but it's got to be tough.

You just do it because that's what you do. Man. Musicians play, you just want to play. I think it's it's really most of the.

People from our era, not the ones on the oldies tours, who can sell out areenas whatever they've sailed far beyond that, because a it is about the money, because they have lifestyles that they you know, they're not keeping every one of these dollars. And then the other thing is they need the adulation, and many will not take that risk.

Well, the people I know, Bob Dylan stones, that's not what they don't need the bread, They don't really need the adulation. It's what you do, man, Dylan.

Dylan wrote the fucking book. I mean you look at the Beatles. They didn't do any endorsements whatever, which influencer, but they didn't really know what they were doing. Bob Dylan was conscious of all this stuff that he was doing. And then you know, you remember Self Portrait came out first of his records to get negative reviews. That came out in June, comes out with New Morning in October, and it's phenomenal. Okay, and there's some recor. I mean,

You can't. He has an adventure every night if you listen closely, because I follow him on YouTube and Minched, I watch all the shows. Man, he's he digs in real, he doesn't throw away syllables. He's a great singer, and he's really he's not walking through it. He's really trying to interpret the songs and do it fresh every night. Bob Wear does the same thing.

But Bob weare that's the roots. Yeah yeah, But with Dylan, as I say, I agree with everything you said here.

Him with Barbi straisand I haven't heard yet it's fucking great, and he sounds awesome, and he cuts closer to the emotional core of that song than just about anybody, and he does it without historyonics, without showing off. He does it through understatement. It's a brilliant reading of that song. And he sounds wonderful too.

I mean, I could talk about so many Dylan things, but you talk about the go to tracks. This is not number one, but it's in the top five. I and I from Infidels. You know, I literally can picture of place when the song wasn't even out yet. Is it just resonates. It's just so incredible.

You know.

The other thing about DM, I remember he was he was hyping some album he works too, and he was in he said, you know, they talked about the earlier records, goes can't do that anymore. And then you get old enough you realize it's not that you lose something.

You have to get to the next thing. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I think he's been as consistently great over a sixty seventy sixty year period as anybody.

So if you want to compare him with somebody, absolutely well, he's the only person who's making different records as time goes by everybody else if they're making them. I mean, it's like the movie. I had a problem with the movie because A it was not always accurate and B it's hot giography. The guy is fucking from Hibbing, Minnesota comes to New York. People have no idea how hard it is to make it, no idea sticking to his vision and any of the other thing, you know, no

Yeah. True. Well, you know, one time I asked him how come you can write Gates of Eden and I can't, which, actually it's a line in the movie, right everyone wants but I was unaware. This is probably nineteen ninety or something like that, and he said, well, look, man, if it makes you feel any better, I didn't actually write it, he said, I remember moving the pencil of old Age, but it came from without. And at the time I thought I was very sweet of him. He's just trying

I don't want to compare myself to those people. But when done right, you are channeling.

Yeah.

And the worst thing is when you realize you're channeling.

And then it goes left.

Oh yeah, yeah, it's like you're just so there's always an inspiration and motivation, but it comes out. I mean, I have my tricks. One I won't mention, the other one to take a shower. It's like you have no idea what will come to try to get you in the zone.

Yeah, but it's hard, man. You don't you don't control it. You know. It's like surfing. You can you can learn how to stay up on the board, but you don't control the fucking ocean. Man. You know, it's like the ocean. You're gonna get the waves you get and you can't make him bigger. You can't change him. Okay.

One of my favorite stories, al Cooper is not doing great now, good friend of mine. He's getting inducted.

To the Rock Walk.

You know whatever the guitar said, I'm talking to him backstage. I guess he was telling the story of Sweet Home Alabama, how the first album Leonard Skinnard had just come out and he got a call from Ronnie van Zen, like very shortly thereafter, I got a new song got to come up. And that was on a Friday. They came in and they cut it on Monday. Sweet Home Alabama did not come out for a year.

Okay, I said, al did you know he goes it was Sweet Home Alabama.

You know it's like that thing. Yeah, you know when you know when people I mean yeah, things can be hits not hits. It's like we connected in your movie. You made a big bit about till I Die off surfs Up, which I never heard anybody talk about whatever's in that record, and whenever read, you know, they don't have to play it on the radio every twenty minutes, et cetera. And when you do something like that, you absolutely know. The only thing I'm interested in is people.

Well, how about I'll go step further. How about Bob still rewrites his lyrics. We were with Weird we do when I paint my masterpiece right, and Bob Dylan must have heard it, and he said, tell Bob we are he's singing the wrong lyrics. What do you mean? He said, no, I changed him and he and he and he typed him out for me to give to the Weird to sing And okay, this is, you know, on an amateur level, but starting I think it was a seventy four.

He put out a big lyric book. Okay, yeah, the lyrics are not the same as they are on the record. If you on the website now, they're not necessarily the same. I don't know if you continue sin, but they're not the same as they are on the record.

He's updating constantly, so yes, it might have come from a flash in the moment, but he's still refining it. Well.

It's interesting because Joni Mitchell has no time for him, and she's pretty crazy, but when she was at her peak, as good as any of them.

Yeah, I don't know what Joni's issues, but he's he's a superhero as far as i'm Yeah, but you know, you don't want to be these people.

Because you can't go anywhere. I mean, he could talk to you. There's a lot of So are you ever starstruck?

Yeah? Sure, I try. If I'm working with someone, I try to be professional. There's no place for that. That's not why you're there. But yeah, always, I'm always starting. It'll be, it'll be. It looks like you're talking about it's a flash. I'll be sitting in the control room and I go, oh my god, that's wait short, Oh my god. Last week iding with bron Carter. Bron Carter is a lifetime here. It comes from Detroit, grew up about a mile and a half from where I did.

I've had those moments, and I know exactly what you're talking about. I'm talking about a slightly different moment, somewhat similar to your initial Brian Wilson thing where you're so starstruck either you can't say anything or you can't shut up as you're saying.

Oh, yeah, it happens. I mean the other thing.

You know, people say most of these people are tortured, okay, ian most don't live up to who you want them to be. But then they're occasionally people to do like Steven Tyler. I say, no, he's that guy. He lives up to the rep So I guess, you know, going back to our earlier conversation, these people they were not entertainment. They were then they were not only successful, what they were saying was so important. Even some of the penumbra. Remember when you you you lived a slightly different world.

This is Bob Left, says sh