Fee Waybill

the polo club, I played polo and uh. When I first started playing polo, I tried to disguise the fact that I was some rock guy, and I told him my name was John, so they all call me John. Okay. Polo is known as the sport of kings. How does a row star end up playing polo? Well? I was raised on a horse. My brother and I have been horsemen our whole lives. My dad was a riding instructor

and a horse show judge. So we grew up in Scottsdale, Arizona, and we're on a horse from the time I was about five years old until I bailed out at eighteen I was on a horse, and uh, and my brother. I moved to California and obviously got into music, and my brother stayed and he still lives in Scottsdale, Arizona, and he would always and he has horses, and he was the one that I mean, he's done everything. He's done roping and herding and every kind of discipline on

a horse. And he would always ask people, well, how come you don't get a horse, And I said, you know, well, I live in San Francisco. Okay, there's not a lot of horses around here. And and then he he uh. He got into polo in Scottsdale, and he was, Okay, now I found something that really is fun and really great. And and by that time I had moved to l A and there's you know, he says, you gotta try this. You gotta get back on the horse and try this. You're gonna love it. And so I said, okay, I did.

And I went to the California Polo Club and they said, uh, I said, I want to learn. It's an arena club. It's arena is like arena football. It's a smaller version of outdoor polo. And they said, okay. First lessons free and uh and I said okay, and I just immediately I loved it. I loved to be back on a horse again. And so I've been playing for twenty years. Okay, So how extensive is the polo scene in southern California. Well,

it's not. I mean, there's there's the Santa Barbara Polo Club, which is pretty high end, and we have an arena club here in in in l A. And there's also the Will Rogers Polo Club in l A. And then in California, there's one in San Diego, there's one in uh, Orange County, there's one on San Louis Obispo. There's one in Temecula. Yeah, there's a bunch of them. There's a bunch of clubs all around this and they and in the winter in out in the desert in Indio. That's

big time polo. They have people come from all over the USA to play polo out there. How good a polo player are you and how often do you play? I play usually? Well, right now, my horses are out at pasture. You have to let them rest. And actually next Monday I'm going up to get them and bring them back to the club and then I'll play through the spring and summer. I'm a one or a two. They they handicap you from minus to to ten being best.

And so I started as a minus two and I got better and they raised me to minus one and then zero and then one and then too. And so i'm, you know, I'm I'm just a recreational player. I'm you know, I ah. I really try to protect myself and protect my horses and never never get to, you know, to ultra competitive, you know, where I'm going to hurt myself or or or injuring one of my horses. So how

often do you play? I play? Uh, usually I play Saturday and Sunday morning, and then sometimes I play Thursday night under the lights, So two to three times a week. And how many people in arena polo as opposed to regular polo. Regular polo is four on the four, four on four. Arena polo is three on three. And how dangerous is it? Really? Has certainly seen a number of polo matches and it looks dangerous for those who are

not horse savvic. Yeah, it's dangerous. And you know, my wife keeps My wife is really you know, if she really worries about me, and I mean people die. You know, if you're riding down the field full blast on a horse and it stumbles and you hit the deck, you could break your neck really easily and die. But in arena polo you don't ever really it's only a hundred yards by fifty yards, so you don't really get to full speed in that shorter distance and it's not as dangerous.

But people fall off and they you know, they break their leg and break their elbow and break their wrist. And I've I've had a couple of injuries, but nothing serious, you know, just I like cracked a rib once, but you know, nothing, nothing too serious. And we play with girls, right, and so it's a co ed sport and nobody wants to slam the girls into the wall. It's our club is very recreational. Nobody is trying to you know, win money or trophies or anything like that. It's just fun.

We just have fun. What's the key to being a great polo player? Number One? You can't think about writing. You have to be a good writer. You can't think about following off the horse and you have to uh, you know, it's just hand to eye, you know, I played baseball my whole life, and and a ball a polo balls about the size of the softball. It's about that big around arena ball, and you know, you have a mallet and you hit the ball, and you know there's a lot of rules and you just have to

you have to. You have to be aware, be aware of the horse and the arena and all the other people, and it's just and then be able to hit the ball. You know, I never had a problem hitting the ball, so and once I learned to ride again, you know, it's it's easy, it's fun. So you're saying, an arena ball as opposed to four or four is a different size ball. The arena ball is about the size of

the softball. It's like a soccer ball inflated leather and in an outdoor ball is about the size of the baseball. And it's solid plastic, really hard, solid plastic. So yeah, at the ArenaBall, you can use the wall to bounce it off the wall. It's it's more it's it's it bounces. You know. Historically polo is seen as expensive. Is it expensive? Well, it depends on what level of polo you play. If you're if you're going to India or for your going.

I mean, polo is a big time in Florida. And if you travel to Florida and if you have you know, if you have really expensive horses, it can be really expensive. But but then again it can be recently inexpensive. You know, my horses. I think the most expensive horse I I had, I bought ever bought, was like five thousand dollars. And but people pay a hundred thousand dollars for a polo horse.

It's just all depends on how high a level you want to play and how much does it cost to keep a horse for a year for a well, the board at my club is seven and fifty dollars a month per horse, and that includes feed and lodging, and that also includes a groom to tack up your horse and to wash your horse and basically exercise your horse. They exercise six days a week to stay you know, they they're athletic and so it's not that expensive. Our club, we have a great club, California Polo Club is a

great club and it's not that expensive to play. People can start and you know, you can take a lesson for like hundred bucks. You can take a lesson and and learn to play. And then of course then you have to get a horse, and you have to get a saddle, and you have to get a bridle, and you have to pay the board, and you have you know, it adds up. So since you know this so so much about horses, what is going on with all the horses dying and horse racing, especially in southern California. I know,

I know it's terrible. Well, no one really knows. I've read a lot about it. Uh, and some people say it's a bad track. Uh you know, Uh sometimes they use artificial uh instead of just a dirt track. It's it's some kind of artificial composite. And people say that's bad. But uh, the ones in Santa Anita where the horses, so many horses died, Uh, they don't know. I mean,

horse racing is a bad sport. You know. People spend millions of dollars on race horses and then when they don't win, they tell their trainer, you know, I spent a million dollars on this horse. It needs to win. Do whatever the hell you have to do to get it to win. So what do they do? They give them drugs, they give them. It's that simple. It's they they load these horses up with ugs and sometimes and you know, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes they bleed.

Sometimes they push them too hard. The other thing I don't like about horse racing is they start them when they're two years old. That's too young for a horse to start racing full speed. They're not grown yet, their bones are not fully formed. Uh. In polo, you know in Argentina, which is polo is the national sport in Argentina, they don't even start training a horse untill they're five or six years old. So two years old or three years old is just too young to force a horse

to run as fast as it could go. And that's what happens. You know, they all kinds of things happen, and you know they it's it's about money. That's what it's about, Bob. It's about money. And they don't want to say that, Oh no, it's it's you know, because it's money and it's all about money. And they don't want to close down Santa Anita because they're making a ton of money. And you know, the people who are the people want to race and they want to win money,

and that's you know, it's that's what it's about. So you also said you play tennis. Are you a good athlete in general and doing a million things or these are just your two sports? No, I I I've always been athletic, and of course being the lead singer of the Tubes was all always pretty athletic. When I'm doing ten or fifteen costume changes in the show, you know. Uh,

but uh, I played. My dad started little league in Scottsdale, Arizona, back in gosh, she was nineteen fifty six, And uh, I started playing baseball from the time I was eight years old and played baseball all, you know, all the way through school through high school and then and then even even continued playing fast pitch softball until you know, until about two thousand three or two thousand four, and then fat men's fast pitch softball kind of disappeared and

it became a women's sport, and that's when I switched to polo. But I've always been athletic. I've always had some kind of sport. And my wife is a unbelievable tennis player. She's played her whole life through high school and college and and uh, she is a great player, and she's she convinced me to start taking polo lessons, you know, at seventy years old. And uh, because basically she would love me to stop playing polo and start playing tennis instead. Okay, so she convinced you to play

take tennis lesson, Yes, yes she did. Okay, because you said, I want to make clearify, let's go back to the very beginning. I always thought your name was completely made up. Way Bill is your real last name? Yeah, oh yeah, that's my real last name. And he give us any history of that because I always think of shipping in way bill. Do you know where it comes from? Yeah? Yeah, A way bill is the list of stuff they've they're hauling in the back of the truck. Yeah. And uh,

well it's my father's father. His name was Jail. Came from England and uh. Names that end in two l's are usually an English name. And uh, that was their name back in England that they it wasn't changed. That was you know, before they had the term way bill. There was way bills. There was the history of the family of way Bills. They were from, uh, Brighton, bright Bristol or Brighton. I think Brighton, England is where my family came from okay, and why fee for the uh

lesson knowledgeable? Ah, that's um well was shortened from Fiji and one. Back in the old days when we were all living in San Francisco, living together in a two bedroom condemned house on Noriega Street. The the the bass player, UH thought that I looked like the King of Fiji, which I could never understand. The King of Fiji was a black band with an Afro about that day, and they started calling me Fiji and I. You know, you can't pick your own nicknames, that's for sure. Back in

our area, they had nicknames them. So I was Fiji and I was Fiji up until the time. Uh. The our our bass player Rick Anderson, still calls me feed because we feed fee j fej uh. And when we made our first record in ninet for n M Records, UH, they wanted us to put They said, okay, well, what's your name and and and I thought feed. I didn't want to say. I shortened it then from Fieg. I took the j off from feedg to fee and I thought the fee for the way bill, Oh yeah, it's

kind of like terry cloth or you know, probably very good. Okay, you mentioned your wife. How long you've been married. I have been married, well, on and off for thirty years. Thirty years to the same woman, to the same woman. What's the on and off part. Well, we got married and then and we got We met in nine at a Mayan temple in Guatemala on a solar eclipse January July eleven, we met and we were on separate vacations.

She was on a occation with some English school teacher from Santa Monica and I was on a vacation with my best friend. And we we were Mayan iss we were we went there to look at Mayan temples and we were put both into Mayan history. And we met at the Mayan ruin of Tikal on July eleven, and uh, the guy that she was with recognized me, and you know, came walking out of the jungle and said, hey, you're

fee Waybill from the tubes. And I just went and then I immediately fell in love with his girlfriend, and and so we spent the day together and then they at the end of the day, we're going back to Belize where we were staying, and they're going back to Santa Monica. And I said, you know, I didn't know. I was desperate to try to reach this person, and you know, so it's funny, I asked. The guy said he had a video camera, one of those giant video

cameras that the whole day was taken video. And so at the end of the day, I said, Randy, you know, could I get a copy of the video? Which was a ruse, and he goes, oh, sure it called me when we get back to Santa Monica and I said okay, and so I did, and then I said, yeah, I need a copy of the video. Yeah. I said, oh, what a what about Liz? What about that girl you were with? Liz? He goes, oh, nothing, Na, nothing, would

give me, no information at all. And so I went and got the video and I said, we asked again. He goes, na, Na, She's no, it's not happening, and uh so I kind of gave up on that. And then eight that was July. Eight months later, in February of two, I'm working out at the Santa Monica Athletic Club and she walks in the door of the club and she was she wasn't even a member, she was the guest of a member. And I saw her and she saw me and I just kind of went, oh

my god, I can't believe it. And then we started dating and live and then we got married in We got married in ninety seven, got divorced in two thousand one, went separate ways uh and and then we got back together in two thousand eight, like six seven years later, we got back together. And then we got married a second time on the anniversary of the day we met, which was July eleven, uh nineteen. What set en we got married a second time? Okay? A couple of questions.

Have you been married before? No? Okay? Have any children? No? Okay? What happened in those seven odd years when we're separated? Why did you get divorced? And why did you get back together? And when you divorced just on paper see each other or were you really separate in those eras? No, we didn't. We you know, I was living in a little house in Sherman Oaks. You know, we just you warn n to the truth. I was back then when marijuana was not legal. I was growing pot in the

backyard and with smoke pottle day long. And finally she says, God, I can't handle it. You're just smoke poddle day long. And then we got divorced, and then you know, I went out, no, and we didn't see each other for seven six seven years. I you know, the tubes reformed. I went back on the road. She uh uh went to work and and became a commercial real estate agent and then invested in commercial property and and took over

her dad's business. Of so she went to work and I went to work, and and then, uh, it's funny, you know my dad, uh, my dad, besides being a writing instructor, my dad was a chief engineer of one of the very first resort hotels in Scottsdale, called the Valley ho And so he knew how he knew everything. My dad knew plumbing and electrical and carpentry, and he could do anything. And he taught my brother and I

to do that. He he taught us everything. He taught us plumbing, he taught us electrical, he taught us carpentry. So I can fix anything pretty much. And Elizabeth was was reading this business and getting screwed by various vendors, by the plumber, by the electrician. But she didn't know, you know, if they were in a good or she didn't know if they were charging her too much. She just you know, that wasn't something that she really understood.

And so one day she called, she goes, you know, I don't know if this is a good plumber or not, you know all about plumbing. Can you help me with this? Can you can you check this guy out and find out if he's just you know, overcharging me or you know, And I said, okay, And so, uh so I did it. So I helped her out, and I you know, I got her a new plumber, and I got her a new new electrician and a new eric. You know, I pretty much fired everybody she had and got somebody better.

And you know, we started working together and on commercial property, and uh and then that kind of rekindled the romance. And uh, but I had never you know, I wrote a I used to I used to live in a little house in Venice, and I would like I would sit up all night and I get hammered and smoke pot or or drink and write poetry for her to her and and then I send a texture poetry and I finally put a book together, a poetry book, and

but it was all too and it worked. It kind of she kind of went, God, you still Anyway, we got back together because of the poetry book, and uh, and then you know, we started living together and and uh we got married again. So and we still were together. I'm sitting in She's an artist. She loves art, and she's very besides being a great tennis player, she's a wonderful artist. And so we turned our garage into an arts studio. So we've got this. You know, the cars

are parked on the street, but we have this. That's where I'm sitting now. We have this gorgeous studio downstairs that used to be the garage and now we have a little kitchen and a little bathroom. And she comes down here and just is in heaven and has a great big wall. I'm looking at this gigantic wall where she's working on a piece that's got she's it's got to be ten ft by eight by ten or something giant. And so you know, so I'm just happy as a clam and so lucky, you know. And so you're about

to play some live dates. What's the thinking about playing those live dates? Why with the tombs she's been her with my solo I was about to play. In fact, it was the first gig was supposed to be tomorrow. I did the solo album My fee Way Bill Rides Again and which I said to you, by the way, and and I put together with my best friend Richard Marks. I put Richard. Richard wrote the songs and produced it

with me. And he's the guy's beyond brilliant and has been my best friend for gosh since we met in in the studio with David Foster back in and we've written songs all these years. And so we made this record and uh, and I've never done a solo show ever. And he said, why let's do a solo show is that you can use my band. I'll help you. We can put it together and you can use my band and do let's do some gigs. We've never done it.

And so we were supposed to have done gigs this weekend, a gig in Phoenix in the Troubadour in l A and then a gig in Orange County at the Coach House, and uh, but that you know, we had it all set up and then O Macron happened and then the whole thing, you know, collapsed, and people are afraid to go out still, and you know, so so we've postponed it, We've post spooned the gigs till the end of the summer.

But then we've got tubes gigs we've got We're playing in March, uh in Chicago and Minneapolis and Omaha, and then we've got gigs coming up throughout the year. And uh, you know why am I doing it? Why? Because that's what I do and I live for the stage. And I mean it's I mean, you saw me. You you went to that David Bowie gig right in at Water Village. Yeah, I I absolutely did. I've seen you and I saw in the Rosy and seventy five. I totally get it.

But let's let's go a couple of different angles. Hey, Usually the life of a rock star who is not commercially mega successful is very challenging financially, How have you made it through all these decades? I guess I've just watched my money, watched my life. I've invested. I've invested in our commercial properties, you know, thanks to Elizabeth uh helping me, and so I've invested in that. And uh, you know, I'm not extravagant. I don't drive a Lamborghini

SUV and you know I just uh. Uh, I just created life for myself that that I could I could deal with, that I could afford, you know, And and uh it's been challenging. It has been challenging, you know, but uh, uptil the point of the pandemic, you know, we were we the Tube signed with the management company. Just like in the beginning of for for years and years we had no manager and I was the manager

and I did everything, and but we signed with Jonathan Wolfson. Uh. And Jonathan also manages Hall of Notes and Lover Boy and the Tubes and and well once again, a friend of Elizabeth's thanks to her, got us an introduction with him, and he came to see us out at the Canyon Club in Agora Hills and he took us on and it's kind of changed everything. We we worked a ton in two thou nine. We made a lot of money, and uh, Jonathan has really really helped us and really

kind of changed everything for us. And uh and then of course the pandemic hits, so it's been challenging to deal with that and you know, make it through that.

But uh, you know, uh, it's it's amazing and I never thought this would happen, but people, people just our songs have endured and people come and people come back to see us again and again and again, and it's it's uh, like I said, I never would have thought that, but uh and I think also that you know, we're very visual, unlike most bands, and we constantly change our show, and like right now we're doing this complete we're doing the completion Backward Principle album and we're kind of visually

recreating it with the business suits and the whole kind of sarcasm and corporate uh parody that created the record. And and then you know, next year we'll change it completely and we'll do a completely different show and there'll be different costume changes and well, you know, and it's just every time you come to see the tubes, it's different. And we're doing a visual uh visual you know, portrayal of of what a record or a song or whatever.

And uh, I don't know, it's just we've we were so lucky to have endured this many years and to be this healthy and you know, everybody in the band is really healthy and that everybody really wants to play, and so it's just been it's just been wonderful. You know, A couple of decades back. Bill Spooner, who was one of the creative forces in the band, separates from the band. What happened there. I don't know how to couch this,

but drugs, drugs happened. That's pretty definitive explanation. Let's also talk about the era in terms of the Tubes and also your songwriting with Richard Marks and with Toto. Do you have a royalty stream or is that stuff pretty much in the weird view mirror if there ever was no, no, I do. I still that I do, and that also helps. I never sold my publishing or my writer's royalties, so I do have a publishing stream. And also, the strangest it may seem, after forty years, we actually recouped with

Universal because you know, Universal owns everything. They bought a a M and they bought Capital where all of our product originated. And so we get royalty checks hard as it maybe to believe from Universal twice a year. So yeah, we do have a royalty stream. I mean, it's not massive. It's not like Richard Marx's royalty stream, where you know he sold forty million records and and owns it all. You know, every record was a license so, uh, it's not like that, but uh, it's really it really helps,

you know. And and I'm the you know, I've I do. I pretty much do everything. I'm the publisher, administrator, I'm the you know, I'm I kind of. I do the merch. I booked the tour, I booked the hotels, I booked the cars, I booked the air. Uh. And lately Elizabeth, Elizabeth has taken over some of the uh, some of the work with me. And she helps with the merch and helps with the v I P beaten greet and she's kind of become my my mentor and road manager,

personal assistant, and and nurse. She's the she's the sexy nurse in the show. Now, So that's all a plus, okay, And do you charge the other guys for doing all that work? No? Okay, let's go back to the beginning. So, yeah, you grew up in the fifties and early sixties, short haircuts, raw, rod, cetera. The Beatles come along. Were you into music where you transformed? Did you want to be into what happened then? And I've done I've done this interview. The Beatles. Just Beatles

changed my life. The Beatles made me want to be a rock and roll singer. And it changed everything when the Beatles came out. Uh uh I was. I was a freshman in high school and uh when the Beatles came out, that's all I could think about. And I actually I you know, I wanted to be a baseball player, and you know, and it all, it all became. I went to this high school, Scottsdale High and back then

we had an unbelievable theatrical department. We had a whole building that was dedicated to theater arts, and we had a shop, and we had a giant auditorium. We had a three thousand seat auditorium where we could do plays. I did, like from the time way just to be clear, you mean three thousand seats right, yeah? I thought you said no, no, no, three thousand seed auditorium. And we would do plays, you know, I did. I did plays

all the way through high school. I did Sound of Music and the Music Man and Little I played Little Abner as a ninety pound weekly and we did dramatic. We did Syranodo Bergerac and we did student We did I just did plays and we and I was in this. We had a vocal group what's called the Scotts Still Singers, And it was a group of about forty people, you know, uh, soprano,

alto tenor bass, about ten of each. And we would perform I mean we would go to like state competitions of choral competitions and we would perform like Baroque to Bach and handles Messiah and all these really complicated pieces, uh and uh. And so I spent all that time singing these classical type stuff, wanting to be a rock singer, and listening to the Beatles all day long and letting my hair grow. We used to have a rule if your hair touched the collar of your shirt, you got expelled.

And I mean back then, you know you had you couldn't wear jeans. Believe me, I remember you had to wear a colored shirt. You know you couldn't. And you know, I think, you know, I was gonna say my I think I I got it. And and you know today I still I still have the voice I had when I was a kid. I can sing all these songs still, and I love it. And but I think, uh, my mother was a singer before my mother. I was born in Omaha, Nebraska, and my mother lived in Omaha and

my mother's family. My mother's mother immigrated from Sicily. She couldn't speak English. I'm half Sicilian and half English and uh and my mother and back then, you know, if you were Italian, it was kind of second class citizen. You know. It's like you know, uh if it's funny. I just read the uh, the Caaplan book on Sinatra. Uh, the two books he wrote, The Voice and the Chairman, and when he was young. That's the way they treated Italians.

They were they were second class citizens. If you were an Italian, you were either a mob guy or you know, you were so anyway, she but she was a singer and before she got married, she used to sing with big bands that came through town and they would they would she was like the one they hired to sing, you know, begin the beginning and the standards that the big bands would play. Tommy Dorsey, She's played with Tommy Dorsey and uh, so I think I kind of got

that gene. And we my house was when I was a kid, we sang all the time before the Beatles. We all you know, she my mom loved Broadway musicals and we would always get uh Broadway soundtrack albums, And we had a great big record player, one of those giant SEV cabinet record player things, and we would sing all day long. And we're always singing. She was singing, I was singing. My brother really wasn't much of a singer, but I really just you know, dove in and uh,

West Side Story. When West Side Story came out, I flipped out and I learned all of the songs on West Side Story. And actually, I have have you seen the movie, the new movie lately? I have not seen the new movie. I have not seen it either. I don't know how Stephen Sondheim is gonna work. You know that some of the lyrics in When You're a Jet are not exactly politically correct anymore. Yeah. Uh, And the

Scuttal singers were famous. We used to win the state competitions for choral groups and so every you know, everybody knew about the singers and they had like special jackets with with with you know, of emblems, and you know, it was it was a big deal in scotch Dale.

It was a small town. And uh, I mean there was when I moved to scutt Deal, there was still hitching posts in front of the grocery store and you could ride your horse to town and hitch it up in front of the grocery store and get your groceries for your family, put him in your saddle bag, ride back home. Uh. But anyway, so when I was before my freshman year of high school, uh, they held auditions for you know, there was the Scots Chiel Singer was

like a varsity group. It was mostly all juniors and seniors, but there was a freshman version of it that you know, you could get in the freshman version and then after a couple of years move up to the to the singers. And so I wanted, you know, you had to audition for for the for the the two directors, the freshman director was his name was Deb's Valentine. And the the senior director was Joe Esley. His name was Joe Estley.

And they got Joe sli changed my life too. And uh, so I auditioned and I signed up and I sang Maria from West Side Story Acapella and they were and so Joe Esley was so impressed that he said, look, Deb's this, I want this guy. So I was the first guy ever to be put straight into the senior to the varsity Scottsdale Singers and didn't have to go through the freshman route and in the freshman group, so

I went straight to the singers as a freshman. And you know, after a year or two, he started giving me the solos, the arias in and handles Messiah and various things, and he would just it's funny. He would just you know, he would constantly go to, you know, no, do this, do this, do this. He was always you know, trying to help or and you know, I was an idiot. I was a fucking idiot. So I you know, I would say, you're you know, you're on my case and I would oh. I used to always think he's on

he's why is he on me? On me? On me all the time. And so one day I went into his office and I said, you know, Mr Esley, why why are you it's always me? Why are you always on me? And he goes, you know, and he sat me down in his desk and he goes, you have got something special. You know, you've you've got a great voice, and you've got something special. And he was also the director of all the plays too, and he says, you and I'm not gonna let you just slough it off.

I'm not gonna let you ignore it. You've got it. You've got to to develop, you've got to do You've got to do this. You can't. I just let it slide. And so I kind of went, oh wow, really? And so, I mean, he was the one that cast me as Little Abner as a ninety powder weekly, and I'm like, Mr Asley, am I you know, Little Abner is a big stud. You know, he's a big muscle bound guy. I said, do I wear a big muscle suit or You're gonna make me a big muscle suit to wear?

And he said, no, you just have to think big, I said. He says, when Peppi Yokum jumps off the roof into your arms, you better be thinking big. Okay, Okay, So you graduate from high school, you go to college, and you drop out. Why do you drop out? Oh? God? I started being an anthropology major. I still love anthropology. I love I love the whole genre. And then I switched to oceanography, right, I mean in Arizona, and I'm obsessed with the ocean and I want to go to

Script's Institute. I want to transfer this. Well, you know that's not gonna happen. And you know, we Arizona. Uh we did. My family didn't have a lot of money. My both my mom and dad worked and I was a latch key kid. Me and my brother, and uh we went to Arizona. I went to Arizona State because if you were a resident, you know, the tuition was minimal. And uh and uh so and also I decided, well, I'm going to be a serious actor. Now, no more of this musical comedy stuff. I'm gonna do Ibocident and

check Off and Macbeth. And so I went straight to the drama department and and I started doing those kinds of plays. And then finally I went I I finished my freshman year, and then kind of halfway through my sophomore year, I flipped out and I just went, this is boring. Oh my god, you know, god, I don't

want to do this. And uh and you know, I had a group of friends that we used and we were all into music and we used to go one of the one of the guys in the group had this trailer He lived in a trailer way outside of town on Baseline Road, and so we would all go out there, you know, five or six of us would go out to his trailer. His name was Terry, Terry molloy, and and we would play music and and smoke pot Okay, we play music and smoke pot all all night long.

And uh you know, and I had moved This is when I was. I had moved out of out of I mean, I moved out of my parents house the day I turned eighteen. And I had a job, and I got an apartment in Tempee near the college. And I had a job. And I worked at this pottery store, which is kind of ironic because my my wife is now totally into pottery and we have a we have a wheel, and we have a kiln and she's making

stuff all day long. So but I worked in this pottery store and I used to pack cactus, little baby cactuses in boxes to send to like Minnesota, where it would instantly die because there's you know, it's too cold for cactus. That's why they're not growing in Minnesota, is it. And uh so, so Terry found out, you know, and and we were all kind of of the same, you know, tune in, turn on, drop out, it was kind of and we took a LSD. You know, it was the world of kind of Timothy Leary world, Ah, and he

found out about this town in northern Arizona. There's a town called Jerome on the very it's it's on the side of a mountain called Mingus Mountain, and it's in the Verde Valley. It's about midway in the middle of the state of Arizona. And there used to be a gigantic copper mine there run by a company called Felps Dodge Mining. And they they they dug all. I mean, the whole town was full of tunnels and caves where

copper mines where they would mind the copper. And so they eventually they sucked out all the copper in the mountain and they said, okay, well that's were done. And they left and they left, and they had a whole lot of people working for them, these miners and the minders all had little shacks on the side in the town of Jerome. And Jerome was pretty much a ghost town. It was abandoned. There was nobody there left. And once the mind left and all the minders left, it was

a major ghost town. There was nothing. There was like one bar, there was no gas station, there was one there wasn't a hotel, there was nothing. There was just a few people really, you know, seniors, seniors that had lived there the whole life, and they didn't leave. So Terry says, you know, we can, we can move to this ghost town. And there's all these miners shacks and nobody gives us, they don't care. So you could just have one. You can just squat in one. You can

just homestead one. We used to stay homestead and we went, oh really okay, So like eight of us moved to Jerome. We just we said that's it and I quit school. My parents freaked out, I mean completely freaked out, and we moved to this little town and I had my own minors shock. Everybody got their own minors shack. And there's no this was you know, there's no indoor plumbing. Okay, so we had an outhouse. There was h The electricity had all been turned off, so there was no electricity either.

So you had like like hurricane lamps for for light. And we all just we had we had nothing. I had no money. I remember I had eight cents in my jeans and I had eight cents in there for a long long time. And we used to go from various people would have would have dinners, you know. They would they would say, okay, well dinners at my house tonight, and we'd all go there. And my dad used to bring me a twenty five pound bag of brown rice from Phoenix, and so I when I got a bag

of brown rice, I'd have dinners. Okay, well we have a big dinner of brown rice. And I I mean, gosh, I lived there for probably this was January of n and I lived there for about four or five months, maybe with absolutely nothing, no money, no nothing, and just you know, we're a bunch of hippies were surviving and we loved We had a great time. You know. People would come up from the city and they would bring drugs,

you know. Okay, so how do you make it from the booties to being a roadie for what it becomes the tubes. Well, I'm gonna tell you. I finally got sick of having no money. So, uh, I heard about this rancher who was looking for cowboys. He's looking to hire a couple of cowboys. He needed help. His name was Dave Perkins, and so I went to Dave Perkins and he was, Uh, there's a town in Arizona called Perkinsville, Uh.

His father was this patriarch of Perkinsville. And his father drove a herd of hundred longhorn cows from Texas all the way to Arizona. You know, when he was a kid. And he had five sons, and he owned all this property. He was the big deal. And each of the five sons had a ranch. He gave each of them their own cattle ranch. So Dave was the youngest son and he had his own cattle ranch. And the other guys

were pretty much rednecked cowboys, you know they were. They were, shall we say, a conservative group and except for Dave. And Dave was a little forward thinking. And you know, he had some kids, and he divorced his wife, and then he had a lady living with him and helping him run his ranch. And so I came up to him, and I had long hair, and you know, not Fiji hair, but uh, I said, Dave, you know I grew up on a horse. I can ride. I can help you, because he needs somebody to go out. He had two

hundred and fifty thousand acres of forest service least land. Okay, he did known it. He leased it from the Forest Service. And on this and the Forest Service based on how much feed there was, and there was no feed because of the desert. They would tell you how many cows as you could run on this land, and so the

number was one hundred and fifty. He could have a hundred and fifty mother cows on this two hundred and fifty thousand acres, And twice a year you had to go out and round up these hundred fifty cows and bring him back and breed them to the bulls so that they would make babies to make you know, Hamburger out of And so that was the way it worked. And so every twice a year you got to go out and round up the cows and bring in the bringing the babies and bringing brand. And I was a cowboy.

I was a cowboy, just like in the movies. And I always wanted to be a cowboy. You know, when I was a kid, all I did was watch westerns. And you know, I watched all those westerns and all those big stars started as you know, Steve McQueen wanted dead or alive or they all cowboys, John Wayne and every Clint and now I mean they all. I wanted to be a cowboy, and so I got to be a cowboy, and so I would ride out on my horse.

He gave me a horse, and I'd ride out. And it wasn't as hard as it sounds to find cows because there was no water, so the cows would always be near the water. And so you'd go to wherever the river was and you'd round up cows because they would be there drinking water, So round them up and bring them back to the ranch. And then you'd separate out the boys from the girls. And then the boys were, you know, castrated. This is fascinating, But how do we

get from here to rock and roll? Oh? Sorry? Well, when I was a kid, before I left, I used to go watch bands in Phoenix. I mean, you know Alice. Alice started in Phoenix Cooper and he had a band called the Ear Wings and I used to go watch them, and Roger Steen and Prairie Prince and a guy David had a trio in Phoenix called the Red, White and Blues Band and they used to play at a little

club called the v I P in downtown Phoenix. And I used to go to this club all the time to listen to music, live music, and they were great. They were a great band, and they you know, they did all this original material. And Roger used to play Jimmy Hendricks songs because he loved Hendricks. And so I would go see them, and I became friends with them, and I was, you know, kind of just a hanger on her, and I, you know, I was looking for

some way, you know, to get into music somehow. And so, uh, when I moved to the mountains, when I moved to the Verde Valley, uh, uh, you know, I everyone, you know, I go back to town to get whatever, get asked my parents for money or something, and I would say, you know, this is so great up here. And and they every once in a while they would drive their

truck up there. Uh. They had a big they had a milk truck that was converted into their equipment truck, and they would they had a generator and they would drive up to the mountains and set their gear up out in the desert and just play to the cactus right. And uh. The guy that I worked with, his name was Michael Walker. He met a girl and they wanted to get married, and they wanted a band for the

wedding at the at the Perkins Place. And I asked Roger, I said, you want to You know, these guys have like a two hundred bucks or something and they need a band to play for the wedding and and so you want to come up and do it? And they said yes. So they came up and they played at Michael Walker's wedding. Okay, and when they did they what happened us When Prairie Prince graduated from high school, he was an artist. He's still an artist. He's he's the

one that does all of our album covers and everything. Uh. Prairie got a scholarship to the San Francisco Art Institute to begin school in the fall of nineteen and Uh. Up until that point, they had no roadie that the band, they didn't have anybody. And so when they came up to play for the wedding, they said, hey, do you want to do you want to be? Actually, actually the bass player asked me if I wanted to be in the band and play logs African logs, and I said logs.

He goes, yeah, you know, we'll get these big logs that are like hollow down and you can play him it's kind of a I went, but also, we need you to drive the truck to San Francisco. Uh went, oh, I see, okay. And I by that time, by that time, after being on the ranch for about a year and a half being a cowboy, I made fifty dollars a

month plus room and board to be the cowboy. And I said, I kind of got I kind of said, well, you know, I kind of done this whole cowboy thing, okay, And so I said, okay, So I drove the truck in the in the summer of sixty nine, I drove the truck to San Francisco and uh. And that's how it all started. That's how I became a roady to

the band. And you know, we got a little house and in the Sunset District and we would do little gigs here and there, and I was the road he and I. I had no idea at all about any kind of electronic knowledge. I had no knowledge. I knew too put the O N switch in the O N position. And that was the extent of my knowledge. And so how do you end up in the band? Well, I'll tell you. They had a manager. Okay. We had a guy named John Spear who was the manager. And he

was also there like high school friend. He had no idea, but he was a hustler and he was you know he uh uh. He got us a gig to play at this nine seventy Expo seventy in Osaka, Japan. Okay. It was an ex exposition World Exposition in Osaka. And he got us a gig to play at the San Francisco Pavilion. Okay, like five sets of a day and the and the wet. It's funny because at the time we had changed the name Rogers band was called the White Blues Band, right the trio, and they had they

for some reason, I don't know why. Actually they had changed the name to Arizona, okay. And John got them to hire us at the San Francisco Pavilion. But the guy goes, you know, you really can't. It's not gonna work for a band to be called Arizona representing San Francisco.

And so he goes, how about They went, well, how about if you just take the A off the end, you could be Arizon Okay, great, okay, So we went wheat and and he also got us the transportation there back and back then there was a shipping company called the American President Lines. It was a it was a It wasn't like a princess cruisers or celebrity cruises. It was a company that actually just it was a a ship that transported you to Japan. It was a big passenger liner, right, And he got us a gig to

play on the ship for our passage. You could go for free. All you have to do is play to two concerts on the ship and then and so that was actually the first time I actually performed in front of an audience. I became the opening act for the for Arizon, and I had my because I used to play guitar and I used to sit out there in the desert and play Roy Orbison songs to the cactus and just sing like Bob Dylan songs and folk songs. And so I knew a couple of songs, and they said,

will you be the opening act? You can play your folks songs, And so I would play Roy Orbison song or a Bob Dylan song and play a couple of songs and I'd be the opening act. Well, what happened on the trip on the way over there, we got caught smoking pot in our in our state room, and they kicked us off the ship. In Hawaii, and so then we had to wait for the next one to come. There was they had about five or six. They had the President Wilson and the President Roosevelt, and they got

all these ships named after presidents. And so we got on the second one and we made it to Japan and then uh we did that. We played for six weeks at this at Explo seventy at the San Francisco Pavilion, and you know, we we you know, it was great. God, I never it was wonderful and uh, you know, we met Japanese girls and we had such a great time.

And on the way back, same thing. We got caught smoking pot in the ship and so they didn't kick us off the ship, but they stuck us in the steerage compartment where there was all these bunk beds, you know, with Filipinos smoking cigars, which was pretty hurting. And but then David the bass player, he there's there's like a preacher on board. This is I mean, you couldn't you have to write a book coming this is ridiculous. He

gets caught having sex with the preacher's daughter. Okay, I know this is I mean, I'm being honest, this is true, and so they kicked us off the boat again in Hawaii, and so uh and we met some hippies in Hawaii and we went and stayed at their place and you know, smoke pot all day long. And so then we got the next boat back to the next President line back to San Francisco. So when we got back, they were so mad at this guy David, that they kicked him out of the band. Okay, they kicked him out of

the band. And so then there's just Roger and Prairie and and I used to sing his he was the lead singer of the band, David, And so they still we still practice in our garage in the house on Oreega and I would go down and sing his parts, and you know, we just screw around playing singing. And they tried to find another bass player, and we put an ad in they hate Ashbury Free Press bass player wanted and we they auditioned all these guys and and they didn't like it. They were none of them were

good enough to be in the band. And so another band, Bill Spooner's band, based on our recommendation, they had a band called the Beans okay, and the and Bill moved his band from Arizona to San Francisco also, and they they were a four piece band, the Beans. They had a drummer, keyboard, bass, guitar and uh and the and they had a manager named Lauren, and Lauren and John

were good friends. And after a while they kind of gave up trying to find the bass player, and John talked Lauren into letting Roger and Prairie joined Bill's band, so there would be two drummers, two guitar players, and and and I talked my I actually talked myself into being the background singer. And Roger said, yeah, you know, he's a pretty good singer. He's been singing in the garage with us, and and you know, nobody was getting paid, so it really didn't mean anything. And uh, there was

not like another mouth to pay. So I became the background singer for the Bill's band, the Beans, and we were the Beans, and I didn't we didn't have many gigs, but you know, we we got a few gigs here and there. And I was the background singer and I'd sing background vocals and uh, I sang too loud. That's what they kept saying, Dude, you're the background singer. Okay, you sing too loud. You're just supposed to blend in.

You're not blending your tooth. And then finally, instead of kicking me out of the band, they said, well, why don't you sing the lead? Why don't you sing this? And then you know, we used to we we did a few cover songs and and I said, you know, I used to. I used to do this. Uh, when I was in in elementary school at Loloma, at Scot's the Loloma Elementary School, they would have an assembly where you would do, uh, you would do you'd perform, you know, you could do some kind of act and if you

you know, it was a competition. It was like, you know, the Battle of the Bands, only only there weren't any bands. And I I one time, uh, I my bit was uh. I would dress up like a soldier and I would sing this song. I actually lip sing this song called please Mr Custer. Remember that song? Actually I don't please Mr Custer. I don't want to go and and in the song, the guy gets shot by the Indians and he goes and the arrow would come sorry and he would die. And I would take up a baggie, a

ziplock baggie and put stage blood in it. And when the art in the song came for the guy to get killed and the arrow, the arrow sound was on the record, I would slap the baggie and blood would come. I wear a white shirt and the blood was squirt out and I would fall and I would die. And so I said, you know, I have this I could I could do this cowboy. I have this funny cowboy bit I could do. And that's kind of kind of we kind of started with the theatrics with that kind

of thing. And I said, and so I would dress up like a cowboy and I where I'd made these furrey those hop along Cassidy furrey shaps I made out of carpet, and I would put wear a white cowboy shirt and put the baggy underneath my shirt with blood in it. And we used to do this song by

Marty Robbins called El Paso. Remember He'll Passo out in the West Texas town of the l Passo and anyway, in the same in the song, the guy gets shot and he would get shot and then I slapped the bud and the blood would go all over and I would die, and oh my god. They thought that was just the greatest thing, and so that's how it started. And then we started doing, okay, well let's do this

kind of bit, and let's do it. I used to do Carmen Miranda and we would sing Brazil and I would, you know, Carmen Miranda had a big head dress of fruit, and so I would make all the heros with a fake and I would wear platforms and I would put real fruit on my head and then I would like eat the grapes as I was singing, and we sang Brazil,

Brazil and in Portuguese. I would sing it in Portuguese, all Brazil, Brazilio and uh and do carben rent And so we started developing these characters and and uh and then Quelude and then you know, it's just and then what the rest is history? I guess. So, how do you get a record deal with A and M? We did. We started with the traditional method of sending cassettes out, you know, sending a little cassette out to everybody. We sent cassettes out there all the couple nothing. We got nothing.

And uh. At that point, we we had met this guy named Kenny Ortega, and Kenny Ortega was uh. At that point, he was just a he was a dancer and he he had just come back from a regional tour of Jesus Christ Superstar, and he was like a dancer and he wanted to become a choreographer. And he saw us playing in a little club in San Francisco and and trying to do this theatrical stuff, and he came to us and he said, you know, uh, I can I can refine this. I can I can do this.

I can do this. I can help you guys. So he said okay, and so we brought him on and I think it was Kenney's idea. Actually, he said, let's do a Let's do a video of of the of of you doing your theatrics and doing k lude and doing all these and send the video out. So that's how we got signed. We sent A and M a video tape of us performing live and doing lude. And this guy at A and M. His name was Kip Cohen. He was A and our guy, and he thought it

was great. He went, oh my god, these guys are so fucking weird and you know, and and they're good, they can play, and they've got this other whole theatrical thing going. So they signed us, and uh, and and was so great. And back when they it was at the Charlie Chaplin Studios on Libreya and uh, and it's in Herb and Jerry, I mean Herb used just I mean yeah, Herb used to sit around and it was kind of like a little enclave. It was like the parking lot was in the middle and all the buildings

around the outside. It was like at a big square and uh and Jerry's office and they had the on one side was the recording studio. They had a recording studio and we'd go there and and Herb was just Herb had his own office and he just sat there and played his horn all day long. So it's just her played his horn. And we were you know, if we went to do like do an interview or do or record in their studio or paint we painted flying records on the side of the wall and you know,

just to get get a little extra money. And it was great, it was and it was so great. So how does the name get changed from the Beans to the Tubes? Good story there? Another band from New Jersey came out with the record on I can't remember what label was on, but they were called Beans, just Beans, no, the uh just beads. Uh, and they came out with an album, and I mean I remember calling the record we had the album, went oh my god, there's somebody

and another band called the Beans. What you know? And I even called the record company. I said, dude, we're the Beans. We're in San Francisco, We're the Beans. You can't beat the Beans anyway. Yeah, well, tough ship. We published you know that. You're dad. Sorry. So we had to pick a new name, and uh we we we went, we sat down and went, look, we got to change

the name. Okay, So every every your assignment is to uh come up with ten names and we're gonna put them all in a hat and then we're gonna pick out a name and that's going to be it. And everybody and everybody put in came up the gas Men. The another was another Larry and Mary. I mean, there was all kinds of weird names. And uh, Mike Cotton the since actually he wasn't even in the band at

the time. He wasn't. He was a synthesizer player and uh he had this gear, but he really didn't know how to use it at that point, and uh, but he was a friend and he was from Arizona and he was living with us and helping, and so he put in, uh, tubes, rods and bulbs, tubes, rods and bulbs, and which which are different kinds of cells of the eyeball. Okay, and he thought, this is perfectly. We're a visual so why not, you know, have a name that refers to

some kind of visual reference. And but what happened was we we decided to let our dog pick the name. We had a prairie had a dog named Sandwich. It was like a ridge back mixed. It's a great dog. Sandwich was a great dog. And they put mayonnaise on the slip of paper that said tubes, rods and bulbs, and Sandwich went right for the mayonnaise and picked out tubes,

rods and balls, and we went, okay, tubes, rods and bulbs. Boy, but it's it's a kind of a tongue twister, you know, tubes, rods and bulbs, and they're gonna end up shortening it to like TRB or something. So he said, let's just make it the tubes. You know, the tubes, and it's you know, the boob tube and you know cathode ray tube, laser tubes, fallopian tubes. We tried. We were at one point we're going to, well, let's make it the like a real reference, a TV reference because we're visual, and

we'll make it the boob tubes, and nah, boobs. That's not gonna work. You can't just say boobs in your band. So we just shortened the tubes. Okay, how do you end up working with Al Cooper on the first album? It was a record company's choice. Al was just, you know, l was you know, I really didn't understand, you know why, but they thought we were kind of bluesy and he was a blues guy and I don't I don't know, but you know, he was. He was. He was a

piece of work. I'll tell you. Al was great. And uh uh uh he actually and we had and we we went through all the songs and we finally picked the songs that we were going to be on the record. Al wanted to, you know, when we had this one song, white Books on Dope, and Al said, you know, there's

a long there was a long instrumental part. And we also had this other song called Mala Gania salar Rosa, which is a you know, a Mexican song and we kind of actually we there was a band at in Japan at the Mexican Pavilion, and they were incredible mariachi band and they played we got that song, but we recorded them playing Mala Gania salar Rosa and we made our own version of it. And actually that came from Japan. But Alt wanted to stick that in the middle of

White Punks. He said, as we fade down and before we come back up, we'll go right to malan and stick it in the no al. No, we can't, so we didn't. Anyway, we didn't do that. And but we were at the we were at Sunset Sound back when it was on Third Street, and and when we were doing White Punks on Dope, we wanted, you know, we wanted a big uh. We wanted a big group to

sing the big chorus White Punks on Dope. And so we went down there was another band UH playing down the hall and and we didn't know who they were, and we just said, can you guys come and help us, and can you all sing this big chorus with us and white so Dope? Yeah, sure? Coming out. What turns out it was the Eagles, and but they wouldn't let us put their name on the record, and they said, oh, we can't do that because that's you know, that's okay. So the album comes out or is the band happy

with the album? I wasn't happy. I mean I I loved you know, I was so thrilled to be to make it, actually make our first record. I mean, I was overjoyed. I was so thrilled and as was everyone we you know, it was really a lot of fun and uh, but we had created this song what do you Want from Life? And they the record company said, well this, I think this is the first single, what

do you Want from Life? And uh, uh, you know, and it has the the kind of the the end part when you know, if you're an American citizen, you're entitled to He didn't get in his shape goal of microwave eleven, don't watch the cood diet to jam, I'll personally illustrate in the privacy, on on and on and on and on. How about a new car? You know, Winnibego heard of winnebegos word giving him away and that was from cal Worthington, And uh, cal Worthington used to

be in Arizona. Before California, and we had all these references to well they cut the first what the first thing they did was cut all that out and edited the song without that. They went, oh, well if we I said, but that's the that's what makes it so hilarious and unique. And you know they want, yeah, but you're gonna you'll be you'll be earmarked as a novelty band if you leave this in soh So they cut it out and it's you know, it didn't really do

anything as a as a first single. Okay, so you make the record without, which I believe is your best work and certainly classic some of VAL's best work. The next record has don't Touch Me there, but it's done with Ken Scott. But what what was the band's view on the final product there? Kin Scott probably didn't say ten words the whole time we made that record, you know, and we made it at at Studio A on the lot at A and M, and uh, you know, we we'd go out and and play and we'd come back

in and okay, how was it Kennon. Ken would just sit there and to kind of go wasn't perfect and that's it and nothing else, and you know he was I guess a brilliant engineer, you know, and you know, Okay, well let's go back out and do it again. And but Don't Touch Me There actually charted. That was our first our first charted single, uh and uh, which actually was not written by us. It was written by Jane Jane Dornacker, who was one of the two bets, and a guy named Ron Nagel. And uh, you know, we

were thrilled. I mean, we gotta we were. We made the top forty, you know, so uh and that was that song was a great visually, really great. We we used to uh, we'd go into a town and we uh, we'd get somebody to loan us there Harley Davidson, Harley

Davidson motorcycle because we we used to do this. It was like a you know, the bad boy Marlon Brando from the Wild One and the Girl and we do the song on a motorcycle and I would ride the thing onto the stage, you know, and rev it up and get smoked, you know, really loud, and and then we would sing don't touch Me there and uh and uh. And the funny thing was with I mean, the bit with the song was the there was her knee, you know, and I would be trying to touch her knee and no, no, no,

no to as a preparoity. And so you know we used to every time we you know, and for a while, I mean for a while, we uh uh we had a we had Well, eventually they wouldn't let us bring a combustible Indian engine machine into the gig, into the venue. You couldn't bring a motorcycle on stage, you know, to

fire hazard. So we would we kind of built this fake motorcycle out of a frame and tin cans and ship and we would have Mike on his our synthesizer fake the noise of a of a of an engine and uh so that was you know, okay, And how did re Styles end up in the band doing that duet with you? Well, really was a prairieous girlfriend, okay. And she was gorgeous, and you know she was not shy, okay, she was willing to you know, show her breasts and and just she kind of started as a you know, uh,

she started as just one of the dancers. You know, we had five dancers. We had Leland and the Snakes. We had Leland, this this this troop of of uh of four girls that we found in a little club on Polk Street in San Francisco, and we would they were the dancers, and so Kenny would choreograph them and they would and then we would do kind of special stuff.

She would do bondage with me and she would do she would play various parts like the other girls did, and and then we kind of realized, you know, she's a pretty good singer, and so we started having she kind of worked her way into being a featured vocalist

with us. So how does Mingo Lewis end up in the band Mingo Lewis, Well, he was a drummer friend of Prairies, you know in San Francisco, and uh, you know, he started, you know, he said, oh just let me, you know, let me sit in with you guys, and and he would bring his congas and he was just incredible. I mean, I'm sure he still is. Uh. And he would play his congas and said, oh god dude, and uh oh. We always loved the idea of two drummers when we first when we first joined Bill's band, we

had two drummers. There was Bill had a drummer named Bob McIntosh and and Prairie and Bob would play together, and Bob was like the really solid, you know, really solid guy, and Prairie was the flourish, you know, ad lib kind of guy. And they really were great together. And Bob unfortunately died of cancer in before we ever got a deal, in I think seventy two. He got limph node cancer and it just killed him and it was really sad. And so we always kind of liked

the idea of two drummers. And then so when Mingo started, you know, we said, Okay, that's great, let's go back to two drummers. And then we did a couple of tours with him, and uh, he wrote that song god Bird Change on the third album, and and we you know, we carried two drummers, and he was I was incredible. He's a great, great player. But you made him a

full member of the band. Okay, the next album, you end up doing a cover of Captain beef Hearts, My Head is My Only House and Less It Rains from Clear Spot, his most commercial work at that point, most successible. How did you end up doing that? How did you end up meeting beef Heart? We were huge beef Heart fans, I mean that he was in it. I mean, we loved beef Heart. We you know, we had seen him quite a number of times in San Francisco his band play,

and you know Zappa too. We were big Zappa fans. We loved Frank Zappa and saw Mothers of inventioned quite a few times. And uh, you know, we were just we We found out that beef Art lived out in Lancaster, and we ahold of him. You know, we had seen him a number of times, and we got ahold of him and we asked he also played his his horn on Cathy's Clone on that album, and uh, and we told him, yeah, we're gonna do We're gonna do one

of your songs. My head is my only house and h and we got him into the studio and uh and let him just I mean, we just said, here's the song. Just go just freak out, you know. And uh, he was such a cool guy. I mean, and how strange, how strange was he in real life? He wasn't that strange. I don't, I don't, you know, he wasn't that strange. He was a pretty normal guy. I mean, he wasn't into drugs or anything like that, or alcohol and We had a fine recording session with him. It was not

a problem. And he was great on his soprano sas you know on that song Gosh, I think he did it and just one or two takes, you know, he was so good. And at that point, uh, I don't know if he was still performing with his band at that point, but we used to see remember the drummer drumbo or would would would do a solo with just his hands. He'd break, he'd throw his sticks down and just start playing this kid with his hands. And and then and Zorn Rollo would you know, had a a

toaster he had turned into a hat. And oh god, they I mean they were theatrical. I mean we loved that. We loved the theater. Anybody theatrical. I mean Alice. I mean we've played with Alice many many times and I were you know, I've I've I've done his charity's he's he's a good guy, Alice Is. He has a great charity foundation in Arizona, the Solid Rock Foundation. And we've done his Christmas show, and we've in his golf tournament

in April, and we've toured with him. And I think eighteen that we went to the UK with him and opened for him in big in Wembley. We played Wembley Arena and all these big thirty thousand theaters with him and have played a lot of gigs with him over the years. You know, Shef is Sheep is a good guy. His manager, Chef Gordon, is a good guy. And uh so, I mean we were always kind of drawn to those kinds of people, those kind of theat you know, the Genesis in the early days that would do a visual

type of performance or the plasmatics. Remember Wendy O Williams. I saw him at the Whiskey, right. Really, I knew Wendy and I always used to kid her because she she I said, Wendy, you stole my chainsaw bit, right, you know, I was my bit. And I gotta ask you because I remember, you know, seeing you at the Rocks before the album came out. Yeah, and you had a printed list of the songs and one of them was rock and Roll Hospital. I believe it was the

name of the song. You ran through the audience with this chainsaw and then said, oh, we're to have to operate. Whatever happened to that song, well, it never got recorded, It never got recorded. Rock and Roll Hospital never got recorded where I would come out as the doctor and and you know the with the chainsaw stabbing through a table with the and it was a guitar. It was a pregnant guitar, and then I would pull out the little baby guitar and ah, I and I and I

don't know, I don't know. We we every was in a while. We think about, well, I mean, we've brought it back two or three times over the years and done it just you know, as a as a show piece. But it never never got recorded. It never got recorded. So how did you end up working with Todd? Like you knows as you probably it was Prairie, Prairie New Todd, and Prairie still plays with Todd. He just went out with him last year. We have to we have to book way ahead of time in order to get to

book Prairie so that Todd doesn't scoop him up. Uh uh, But Todd, we I don't know how. I guess I'm sure I guess it was through Prairie that we met him. Uh. But that out with the first album we did with him, Remote Control, was I think, I mean it was, you know,

I always I don't. Uh. You know the phrase can't beat the demo right where you make this great demo and you take it into the studio and then you can't you know, you try this, and you try that, and you try and you try fifteen different ways of of making it better and then and then none of them work, and then you end up going back to the demo again. And I've always thought that. Uh. The thing I love about Remote Control is uh, uh we

had no time to second guess ourselves. You know, we had a we you know, every year we used to uh we used to make a record in December January February because the tour would always like started April or March or April, and we would tour all year long in the United States or go to Europe or go wherever. But we tour constantly from like April to the end of the year. Uh So we had a short window

of time two create a new record. And we did this like over and over and you know whatever, twelve times, and so we had a we had only a month I think the month of January in that year that that we did Remote Control, which was I think seventy nine, and uh, we didn't have any you know, and you know, after the first two or three albums, you kind of run out of songs, you know that you've created all those years before you got the record deal, right, So

we didn't have any songs, really, and I had I had, uh, Uh, I'd read this book. I'm a veracious, voracious reader, and I had read this book by Jersey Kosinski. And I read all of his books. The Painted Bird was a great book. And uh one of his books was called Being There, Okay, And so I had read this book all Being There about the about the rich kid who was put in a you know, a boarding school or or daycare and never got to do anything. It was all he did was watch TV and he had no

real experience of life. It was all virtual experience. And so I had this idea, and I approached Todd with I said, you know this. We grew up in Arizona, the band, and we watched TV all day long because you know, it was a hundred and fifty in this summer, it was a hundred twenty degrees outside, so you were you know a lot of time was spent watching TV. And that's why I you know, watching all those Westerns Cereals series on TV. And it's kind of where I kind of got the idea that I wanted to be

a cowboy so bad. And I said, let's let's you. I figured this book is obscure. Nobody has ever heard of this book. And I'm gonna I'm gonna take this idea and turn it into remote control with Todd. And you know about the idea of the kid who just has no real experience. It's all virtual experience. He doesn't know anything. He doesn't know about love, he doesn't know about feeling, he doesn't know about anything. It's all TV.

And so, uh we had we had some musical material and uh so Todd said, he goes, Okay, this is what we're gonna do. We're gonna we're gonna show up the studio every day and then in the morning, we're gonna write the lyrics to a song, and then we're gonna take a lunch break, and then we're gonna come back and then we're gonna figure out the music and record the song in the afternoon, and then we're gonna put on the vocals at night, and by the end of the day we'll have a whole song. And so

that's what we did. We would go in and we'd all sit down together, all of us, seven of us with Todd, and say, okay, what's the what do you what's the first thing you do? Well, turn me on? Turn it you turn it on? Right, Okay, first song is going to be called turned me On. And so we'd sit there and we'd all brainstorm turned me on, turned me onto. And then in the afternoon we go do the music and then we put the vocals on. Then the next day we command and tell you now

what okay, uh, TV is King, We love TV. Okay, TV is Kate. That's the next song. So and we did that for the whole record. And but like I said, we didn't have any time to go back and second guess ourselves and go, oh no, well this could be a little bit better. And though if we do a little you know, echo on this or delay on this or that, are just no. Just go with your gut, go with your instinct, go with your first impression and

do it. And then you can't change it because you don't have the time or the money because the tour is coming up and the record's got to be released. So that it all works That's why I kind of love that album. And uh, you know you're going in the wrong direction commercially with A and M. Right then

you get dropped, right, ultimately picked up by Capital. You know what was going through the heads of the band when you're having you know, less and less commercial success and then you're dropped And how do you get a deal with Capital? You know? Give us the background on that. Okay, our live performance just I mean it was always art for art's sake. I mean, you know we're gonna go out and do a show that it's going to blow your mind. We're gonna spend money. We don't care if

we're in debt. We don't care. It's all about the show. It's about the art. And we really were worried about you know, every every time we did a record for A and M, they would give us an advance. You know, back then it was peanut money. It was like a hundred grand or something, and we never recouped. We never made enough sold enough records to pay off the advance to make it. But we didn't care because we had

a show that blew people's minds. I mean, we created a leg a visually, a visual performance legacy that's pretty much unmatched by anyone, I think. But so you know, we would go out on the road and we would I mean one whole one time for the completion backward principle. I mean, we built a set that was all around. So you can't pack round stuff in a truck very efficiently, you know, so you have to get an another chart.

Oh we don't care. Fuck it, we don't care. It's so what So, I mean a couple of times, you know, we ran out of money out on the road and the manager had to call up A and M and go, hey, look they're out of you know, they're promoting your record. They're on the road, they're out of money. We need to send us some money. So they would send the money and add it to the tab, you know. And so finally that got to be, you know, as you say, that got to be. You know, we ended up leaving

ANM just massively in the red. And we you know, we gave him publishing, we gave him everything. We could just keep doing the show. It was about the show. And uh so when we went to I mean and then and then so they dropped us, and so then we uh looked every high and low for another company. And we met this guy at uh Capitol who who uh was? His name was Bobby Columbi. He was an A and R guy, okay, but he was a drummer. He used to be in Blood, Sweat and Tears, right

and still owns the name right. Bobby loved Prairie Prince. He just thought, oh my god, this guy is so so. Bobby Columbia as an an our guy at at Capitol, convinced them to give us a deal. He gave. They gave us a three record deal, but each record was based on the performance of the record before it. They said, if the first record does nothing, you're not going to

get another record the second ring, you know. So anyway, and and Bobby had this guy David Foster, okay, and David Foster, and he thought, oh god, you know well, I mean, the only thing we knew about David Foster was he just did Boogie Wonderland. Okay, that was the record before us Earth Wind and Fire, Boogie Wonderland. He had a number one song after the Love Has Gone Okay, And we were very skeptical. Okay, we went on and Bobby was saying, when you guys gotta get on the radio.

You gotta sell records. You've got it. In order to get a second record here, you've got to make a name. You've got to do something commercially. Oh god, we're just going on, man. And then so David Foster came up to San Francisco and uh to meet with us and you know, to kind of check out our songs and stuff. And and I mean, I mean, the guys, guys unbelievable. Okay. He is a brilliant posician, a brilliant arranger. I mean, he came up and we said, okay. He goes, okay,

we'll play me some songs. I said, okay, well okay, So we played him this song Amnesia, and he goes, well, okay, and then he sat down on the piano and he kind of, you know that, he goes, what if you kind of did a modulation here and kind of a big kind of put in this kind of oo part and kind of and we were just oh, you know he, I mean, he just floored us. He floored us with his brilliance and we just went, wow, man, this guy, this guy, this is amazing, you know. And and like

like he said, what about ballads? You know, you have any ballads. He went, well, you know, we did a ballot on the last record, and you know, it wasn't a single. And because you know, the company's looking for a ballad, they're looking for a ballad to be the first single, because ballads are happening, you know, it's everybody

has got a big rock ballad coming out. Journey R e O. I mean, all these bands were having huge success with ballots, and we just kind of went, well, you know, but Vince, our keyboard player, Vince well Nick, uh he said, well, you know, I have this kind of progression I've been working on, and so he started playing, Uh, I don't want to wait anymore for David, and David

went wow. And then you know, David sits down and go again and then and then you put a modulation and then the big finish and then the chorus out and the you know, payoff, and and he said, man, this is it, this will this will work. And I had written the lyrics to it. Uh, he goes, let me hear the lyrics. I wrote game the lyrics because man, this is this is what they're looking for, this is what Capital is looking for a ballad like this. And so we just kind of went this, Okay, you know,

this guy is incredible. Okay, let's we're good with this. Okay, let's do it. We're good with this. And uh at the time, we had a manager. His name was Ricky Farr, and Ricky Farr was a Welshman who had a big Sounded Lights company. Uh and he used to do the the the Sounding Lights touring for big you know, Rod Stewart and Stevie Wonder and just you know, he was a big time company and he had never managed the band before. And he was the one that first took

us to England. He goes, you guys, with your kind of sarcasm and your parody, they're gonna love you in the UK. So he took us right away. That the first thing he did was take us to England and uh and that was a really smart move. I mean, we are huge in England and are in the UK, and so uh, you know, we just we we we we went for it right away. We went for David

Foster and uh and we did that. We did, you know, I actually uh uh we we you know, we got towards the end of the recording of the record and when we still had weird songs. We still had, you know,

Mr Hate and Attack of the fifty foot Woman. And you know it wasn't like you know, it wasn't like it was all so commercial, and so you know, we wanted to maintain our weirdness and uh and we got to the end of the project and he goes, well, you know, we we I know they want to release a ballad, but uh uh they all they want that. We need a rock song. We need an A O R kind of rock song. And we played you know, he goes, I don't hear it. I don't. I don't

you haven't played it. You don't have that. And so he was the one that said, you know, I have a friend, this this studio musician guy who's in a band called Toto. His name is Steve Luca Fur. And he goes, how about if we meet you and I and Steve meet and we try to come up with

a rock song. And so we did, and we met early one morning out in the valley here and and Steve came up with talked to you later in about ten seconds, and I mean, the guy is brilliant, and and so you know, we we we recorded talked to you later and uh, and he's it's okay. I mean that's what we got it, you know. And I think you know that I told you before we were doing Completion Backward Principle. I think Completion Backward Principle was our

greatest record. Uh. I mean I love the first album, but we've been doing Completion Backward live, uh, the whole album, like top to bottom, starting well, talk to you later, and right on through the whole album, and it's really gotten a great response. And I love those songs. I love Amnesia and I love Mr Hayde. I completely go mental. I mean I I could be a X murderer if

with the straight I love it. I love that. I mean, I love the I love you know, I do these characters and I lose myself, you know, I just completely lose myself in the character and in the and I sometimes I get a little out of control. But uh, you know it's so great to be able to do that, to have the venue, to be able to do that. You know. So you make that record, you have a certain amount of success, then you team up together and you even have more success. So tell me about outside inside.

You know, we had we had great success, as you say, and we get ready to do the next record, and and Faz says, you know, let's let's try it again with you and Luke and I, let's try it again.

And so we got together and we wrote She's Beauty in about ten minutes, and I mean, once again, Luke's just you know, crazy, crazy good and uh uh we had a great time recording that record, and and and you know we would it would have been even a bigger selling record if it hadn't been for this guy named Val Garay who was the manager of Martha Davis.

And I had known Martha for a long time, and we wanted to do we wanted to do a duet on the record, and and so we we picked this song mony Monkey Time, Curtis Mayfield song, and Martha came in and we did a duet on Monkey Time, and uh it was I mean, Fause just said, Okay, this is great. This is gonna be the second single after She's a Beauty. And but then when we get ready, you know, She's a Beauty is a big hit, goes

to number two. H h yeah, that's you know, I mean, I so wanted to number one record, but I mean it was so good for us and so great and and uh and you know it's still people go crazy when we played that song, and so we're ready to follow it up with the second song, second single, Monkey Time. And her manager, the manager of the Motels, this guy says, no, you can't release this. Uh, this is We've got a Motel's record coming out in about six months, and this

is gonna hurt. It's gonna hurt that it's gonna hurt the sales of this record. And everybody flipped out. Okay, I mean at this time, at this point we had uh. We were with the management company Fitzgerald Hartley and they also managed Total and Mark and Larry. You know, we went to the record company. No, no, no, this is only going to help you. This is gonna help your Motels record. No now and Motels were also on Capitol uh, and he and jumped at it. He went to the

record company and said, you can't put this out. I refused to let you. I'm gonna jumped it. I'm gonna sue you, I'm gonna uh and I everyone was just flabbergasted. We couldn't understand it. And and he did it, and we couldn't release it. We had to go. You know. We fought it for you know, I don't know a long time, and finally we realized, now they're not going to do it. You've gotta if you want to do it, you have to rerecorded. You have to peel out her

vocal and re recorded. And so we went back in the studio and we replaced her vocal with h one of our one of our dances at the time, Michelle Gray her name is who ends who is now Todd's wife, and and she did a wonderful job. It sounded great. But it was six months later. The whole month everything was gone, momentum gone, you know, and so it never happened. It never it never charted, and you know, the momentum

of the record. That was it. The record was done. Okay, So after all that success with Foster, how do you decide to then work with Todd Agan, which ultimately kills the band. I was hoping you wouldn't ask that, But I don't know how to see this, but I think it was for the best. As I look back in retrospect, I think it was time for me to move on. But of course I didn't know that then, did I? Uh,

And everybody flipped out. What happened was David came. You know, David was booked to the third album, and uh, David came and sat down with the band and he goes, Okay, look, we had great success with talk to You Later, even more success with She's a Beauty. So what I want to do is I want to right four songs with Fee and Luke and I like we did on talk

to You Later and She's a beauty. And so that way I've got I've got a first, second, and third and fourth single and you know, one of you know, a couple of them bound to work, and it's gonna be you know, it's gonna be huge. It's gonna be a big, massive record. And uh. And on the B side, you guys can do whatever you want. You can produce it, you can write it, you can do any songs you want. You can. I don't care. You can do whatever you want, and I will let you do whatever you want. And

all I want is side. That was what he proposed to the band, and everyone everyone said and so and the band said, you know, I don't we don't want to do that. No, we're a band. You can't tell us what to do. We're a band. And I was the only one going, man, guys, you gotta just you know, don't don't, don't let your pride fault, you know, kill us here. It's it's okay, you know, it'll be okay.

And now they wouldn't do it. I don't know. In retrospect, I understand, you know, it's they their pride was hurt. They felt, you know, we're a band, you can't tell us what to do. Uh And and also they were, you know, they were I think a little miffed that the two hits that we had we had were written by me and Steve and David and uh. So they said, no, we're not going to do it. And the management said, don't do this. The record company said don't do this.

I said, don't do this, the agency said don't do everyone said don't do this. And they went, no, we're doing that's what we're doing. And so they got Todd back on the phone and they said, you know, and they made and I I I was devastated. I have to say. I went to l A and I said, I don't know what I'm gonna do. And I made

a record. I made I made my first solo record, uh with David Foster, because he was there sitting there available, and I talked the record company into letting me use him for a solo album, and they said okay, and then the band went ahead without me in San Francisco and made a record with Todd and and I came back and you know, I got my record done, and I came back to San Francisco and they went, well, you know, our records almost done, and you know, you can We've got a couple of songs that you can

sing if you want. And you know, up until that point, I had pretty much sung every record, every song on the record, and so I was pretty much crushed. And I sang a couple of you know, I brought them one song, uh that I didn't use on my solo record, piece by piece, and we recorded that and then I sang I did another song that I wrote about Marlo Brando Stella I've written. I loved Marlon Brando, He's the best I've I've written a whole bunch of songs over

the years about Marlin and Brando. I could have been somebody about the you know, on the waterfront, and I wrote Stella from street Car named Desire, and uh so, anyway, I ended up doing just three songs on the record, and it didn't do well. As you know, it didn't do well. And I at and we without and did the tour, and the tour didn't do well, and everything kind of crumbled around us. The management said, well, you know, we're gonna have to release you guys, because this is

a huge mistake. And then you know, the record company pretty much released us the day the tour began. So you know, the tour starts at April one, and on on March one, they release us. And so we go out and we have all this national tour book. We've got no record company support, no A and R guys, no promotion, no record play, no radio play, I mean nothing, we got nothing. So it didn't go well. And so I got back. We got back and uh I just went,

you know, we we the management had left us. I mean, I was so discouraged and so uh and I thought, you know, well, I guess this is this is this is this could be great. I've gotta I've gotta, I've got to start my own life. You know, I had been you know, we had been a seven man band for at that point, we had been a seven man band for about fifteen years, and we did everything together. We split everything evenly. We were a bunch of hippies. Okay,

we're a bunch of hippies. And whatever it was, everybody decided together. We did it all together. It was all together. And I just thought, you know, it's time to grow up. It's time to be a man and grow up and and take responsibility for yourself. And so I said, okay, guys, you know, I'm gonna leave the band. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna I'm gonna leave town. Pretty much. I had to leave town, and so I did. So I just packed up and I got my car and I drove

to l A. And I had a girl. I had a girlfriend at a time at the time that I was living that was living in l A. And her her parents owned some apartment buildings in l A. So they gave me an apartment, you know, really cheap, because I didn't have any money, and you know, we spend everything on the show, and I didn't have much money, and so they gave me a cheap apartment. And I moved here, and and I, you know, I I just

I just you know that. And you know what happened was I started writing songs with Richard Marks, and I thought, you know, and I just had blind faith. I just said, well, you know, I gotta I've gotta make my own life. You know, I've been I've been a part of a group for so long, and I've got a stand up for myself and I've got to you know, I've got to get my ship together. And I and you know, I had known Richard and and I think at the time we had maybe written a couple of songs together.

I think we wrote had written that Vixen hit. You know, I've been living on the edge of a Broken Heart, and we had a big hit with that. And so I said, I said, let's write. He said, I want to be. This was before he had a record deal, before he had just at the at that point, he was just a songwriter and had written songs for a lot of other people, Kidney Rogers and and uh a lot of people, and so he said, I want to be I want to be an artist. I want to perform.

So he got a deal at Manhattan subsidiary of Capital, and he said, let's write some songs from my record, and I said, okay, great, so we did so I

think we wrote. I wrote four songs for him on his first record, and you know, he's he is a big hit for record sold three million elbows, I think, and uh and uh, and then we you know, the next record, and I wrote more songs with him on the next record and the next record and the next record, and and I just, you know, I thought to myself, you know, this is this is this is the right thing to do, you know, I I I you know that the way things happened wasn't great, but it was

good for me because I stood up and and you know, I was a man. I stood up and said, Okay, I'm good. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna lead my own path, you know, lead my own way. So how did you meet Roger Richard Marks? I met him. He wrote a song for in in eighty three. He wrote a song for Lionel Ritchie and he came to l A to see him recorded. He got at eighteen years old. He placed the song when Lionel the Guy's brilliant Okay. His dad was a jingle writer in Chicago. He wrote the

double Mint Gum jing Built. He wrote my dog's better than your dog, my kennel ration. He wrote all these singles, so Richard, and he was the keyboard He was a jazz keyboard player. Dick his name was Dick Marks. He was an incredible guy, really great, and he taught Richard,

you know, music theory and keyboards and writing stuff. I mean. Anyway, Richard came UH to l A and he wanted to meet David Foster, and he knew about him, and he asked Lionel, and David's goes, yeah, he's doing the tubes down the street at Lion's Share uh and and Lionel set it up where he could Richard could come to the studio and just watch and and he did. He showed him one day when we were in the studio recording,

and you know, he's just sitting back there. And at the end of the session he goes, he had no he knew of me, and he said, Hi, I'm Richard Marks. He introduced himself and he said, you know, I think your lyrics are really interesting. Would you write a song with me? I said, I don't know who. He goes, I'm just a kid from Chicago, and I said, well, okay, okay, no problem, Let's write a song. And so I did.

We wrote a song. We wrote a song called who Loves Your Baby, which was the tagline from ko Jack and which is I put on my first solo record, who Loves Your Baby. And you know, we just kind of clicked. We just we couldn't be more different. Okay, we couldn't be are different people. Uh you know, he but it's just something. I'm the godfather to his sons.

He has got three beautiful sons who are very very talented musicians, and uh, you know, I've just like I said, for like thirty thirty eight forty years, we've been best friends. And we still right together all the time. And I know his son's very well. And uh he lives out here.

He lived in Chicago for years and years and then he divorced his wife and moved recently moved to l A And uh so we see each other a lot, and you know, and over the years we've been we've been working on this record on the my my solo record of the fee Wave, the Rights Again record. We started making this record gosh in two thousand thirteen, for like seven years ago, we started making it. The main the first song I used to go every summer when he lived in Chicago. I used to go to Chicago

every summer. And his parents had a cabin in Manaqua, Wisconsin, way up in northern Wisconsin. And we would go with the boys on a boys trip to Wisconsin. And we drive up there and spend a week at the cabin and go fishing, and we go first BacT riding, and we go go kart you know, just have a great time. And so that summer the boys were getting older, and the summer of two thousand thirteen, I went up there and I said, well, look and we've done another boys trips.

We went whitewater rafting and with in Wyoming and we do all some all some kind of a boy's trip and we went. I went up to the summer and the boy said, you know, we'd want ago. We want to hang like hang out with our girlfriends and go to the movies. We don't want to do a boys trip.

I came all the way from Okay, and so Richard said, and he had a studio at his house, and he said, well, let's go write a song and let's do and then he said, let's do a solo record for you yes, about time he had he hadn't done one since and which he helped me with also, And so we went to the studio and we wrote, Uh, we wrote four songs Fake the four songs on the record, Faker we wrote. Faker was the first song we wrote. And and uh, and then you know, I got busy, He got busy.

I went on the road. He went on the road, and you know, it just years and years kept going by, and we we never got, you know, back around to it until until the summer of two thousand nineteen. He just he had he was here in California and he goes, let's do it. It's been too long. It's been five years since we started. Let's go back and finish it. So we did. So we went back to the studio and we finished the record. And I'm really proud of it. And uh, like I said, at the beginning, we were,

you know, he goes, let's do some gigs. Okay, I'll, I'll, I'll give you my band, okay, and we'll do gigs. And we had it all planned for the for May of because I you know, I've got the whole month off, I'm not touring, and well, and we'll do some gigs, and of course COVID killed it in and then and then as we thought the whole pandemic was was fading away, we planned, we booked more dates for January of this year, and and then the whole thing got killed again. So

how did you get back together with the Tubes? I left the band in like eighty seven something like that and moved to l A and pretty much had no contact with them. They went on for a while. It's funny. They they called up the guy the bass player they had fired, you know, years ago, and and said, you know, we lost our lead singer. You want to come back in the band. So he came back, and they went out for a while as the Tubes without me, and

had this guy as the lead singer. But he he had been in Hawaii smoking pot for twenty five years and he had no voice. He couldn't sing it. He couldn't sing, he couldn't hit the high notes, he couldn't sing She's a beauty. And so they did not go well, and you know, and finally they gave up and they said, Okay, that's it, We're done. And then they hadn't worked for a while, and uh, and then I told you we were.

We were popular in Europe. Uh. We had done some big during the heyday in like in like Uh we went there first time in seven and then we went back in se you know we we So anyway, a promoter from Germany, his name was Henning Turgel contacted the band and said, ah, you guys haven't been here for a while. You know, we hadn't been there since three This was He said, I am going to offer you a six show tour of Western Europe and the UK. Uh, but only if fees in the band. That's the deal.

M And so they called me up and they said, we have this offer, you know. And and I, you know, I was very skeptical and uh, I said, well you know what what what is? You know, what's happening with the band? He went, well, you know, Uh, Bill was not in the band anymore because, like I said, drugs and Mike the synthesizer. He he left the band when I left. He moved to New York City and he's

done very well as a graphic designer. And UH and the keyboard player Vince audition for The Grateful Dead in UH when there other keyboard player died and he got the gig. So Vince is in The Grateful Dead, Mike's gone bills battling addiction, and they've got another keyboard player. So there are a four man band with a different keyboard player. And they said, this is the story, and nobody's nobody's everyone's grown up. You know, we're not doing

drugs anymore. You know, I thought them for years, I was the only guy that didn't do drugs. I was the only guy. And it was really difficult, you know, to go into a city and and all they thought about who's the coke dealer, you know, and and they said, no, we're all we've all grown up. We're not doing it. We're all straight. I said, really, yeah, And okay, I said, okay,

So we did it. So I I went back to the band and we did this sixty show tour in in in the spring of and and I had so much fun that I just I said, okay, well, let's keep doing this. And so here we are, gosh, thirty years later, almost in almost fifty years from the beginning.

So Fee, thanks so much for doing us. You know, I loved hearing about the polo, and certainly I'm a huge tubes fan, some of the bottom lines, some of the rocksy even when one time, Hollywood Bolivard when the first album came out, I was working in a sporting goods store and you did an in store it Peaches Records and came dressed up totally is kulud. Oh God, I remember that I stopped there in my lunch break. So it's a great honor to do this with you, so thanks so much for doing that. Thank you for

having me. You know, I read your letter and I just, you know, I think so. I think you're so great and it's really a privilege and an honor. A few year podcast. Thank you so much for having Until next time, This is Bob left Sense