Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Says Podcast. My guest today is guitarist, producer, songwriter Neil Giraldo. Neil, when we were setting this up, I heard that you're an early riser. How does that work with being a rock and roller.
Well, let me give you what they give me. You're my philosophy to you, Bob, and I just want to say, you wanted a very few people that can actually pronounce my name properly, So you in Giraldo, you made sure that usually they leave the l out. I don't know why, Gerardo, and I just don't get it. But there's the idea about if you get up really early when it's dark, and you go to sleep when it's dark, you get two nights in every day. See how that works.
Okay, I'm very much a knight person, and that's a good line. So when do you get up and when do you go to bed?
Well, it could be as early as nine thirty, and it could be as late as eleven, and I wake up usually three thirty, almost every day every day.
Okay, one would say that's very little sleep.
It is, but I think on percentages, the percentages of nine thirty are a lot better than the percentages of eleven, except when I'm on the road or something, or if in the studio. So yeah, it's just the thing. I always been that way. I always get up early and as soon as I want. The problem is is I want to be awake, that's the problem. And when I wake up, my mind just goes. I start writing immediately, and it's great. I'm by myself, my dog, I light a candle, the wife don't wake up till about seven
thirty eight. I'm there by myself or four hours.
So you write every day, every day. Tell me about that.
Well, that's not only songwriting, but the words. I have a production company called bel Kiaso Entertainment, work on streaming TV shows, episodes, episodic things, and anything that pops into my head I kind of get carved into right away. I don't pick up an instrument. It's usually just writing scribbling that time. But sometimes they do that as well.
So if you're on the road, what time do you get up?
I kind of do the same thing. Sometimes it's more like around five, but it doesn't matter what times, though, Bob, It's it's really terrible. I mean, if I go to the East coast. I'll still get up at like three point thirty or four. I mean, it's bad. I've been doing it for years forever, you know, kind of who I am.
I'm sort of the reverse. I like the nighttime on the other end, because as you say, it's very few distractions the time as your own. Just before we started, you said, oh, I have to turn off my phone. I'm in this text thread with all these comedians.
Yeah, what is that about. Well, they dive into all kinds of stuff. Not only them, they're journalists and writers, but they're just they're not only is a great information, they're very funny. You know, when I moved to New York and I was twenty one years old, I this is a I'll get to this better. The manager was owned catch a Issing Star and it was a comedy club. So basically it was in the comedy club every night,
every night, every night. So all they become all friends, like Billy Crystal and Lenny Schultz, Gilbert Goffrey, Rodney Dagerfield, all those folks, right, So I was always surrounded, which was great because working in a band and doing everything you need to do to make music and make it all right, you need comedy, you know, because you just need to find it a way out so you can clear your head and come back and be discharged and ready to do what you're supposed to be doing, what
is making music and writing songs.
So who's on this thread?
Well, I can't give you everybody. We had a couple John de Bellis, eve middleman, Uh, Brian Caram who's actually a White House journalist so he's on there, and a bunch of other folks. It's just uh, it's just crazy, it's just fun. Well how many people totally Oh, there's there's not many. They come and go. There's probably six something like that. But they're just they're they're they're brilliant. I mean, it's just funny and and things all the time.
One one comedy John he lives in Nicaragua, so he's in a whole totally other world. So yeah, person of Poup Spring, Sun of California, Spain, all over the place.
And what is usually the topic of conversation.
Oh, it's political, it's political, but uh it could it could swing. Like we were talking about David Johansson today. You know I did see your your your post today. I did read I also read the the responses that the folks do, and I just, you know, I just have to apologize to you because I read everything that you're right, and you're brilliant, You really are. You cover so many basis and so many so much ground on so many different subjects, which is what I really love.
And what I do is I don't usually read them. I did today because I was gonna talk to you. Usually usually I wait for a week or two weeks, and then I read it as a book, as each one's a chapter, and then I read it like and I keep them my store them in a folder because they're great reading and they're great to share to, you know, especially the music things to young people who I talk to all the time, and I think it's brilliant writing.
So anyway, you're talking about David Joe and the reason I don't and I'm not a oh, how do I say this? Right? I'm not oh. I'm not trying to make myself any better than anybody else here at all. So really you got to understand what this comes from. But I generally don't like posting it because I don't want to start with the word I. You know, I want the people to understand who that person is. So I saw when he did Jeff Beck, I's already to do all these people, and a lot of them I
do know and had, you know, relationships with them. But I don't like seeing, well I record to this record for them or I try to leave that. It's really hard for me to post any of that. So it's difficult.
Okay, I completely understand that. But to be a successful musician, you have to network and promote yourself.
I do realize that, and I must say that I'm really bad at it, and I'm not the old guy that says I ain't going to do so. I don't want that, not that at all. If it disturbs my creative time, which isn't the morning i'd rather tip. On the other side, I do have to maybe I'll do better this year. Right. I do post some things and people respond. I try to get back to it's really hard for me, and I'm not I'm not that guy. I'm not that old guy that says I ain't going
to do any of the stuff. It's all bullshit. You know, what's to go back to the telephone dial up or what. I'm not the guy, but I do need to promote that stuff, so so help me, Bob, help me out.
Come on, Okay, let's go back to work. You get to me your work, and your manager is the guy who runs catch a rising star forget his name?
Suddenly Rick Newman. Yeah, and how did that happen? Well, he came. He came a year later. I have to preface what happened before that. I was I'll give you the New York story because that's that's going to have some entrance in the way my kind of life expanded. But when I got to New York, I was there to audition for Dan Hartman and Rick Derringer. And it's because somebody saw me play in Cleveland at a club
and they asked me if I would be interested. I says, yeah, yeah, of course, but let me talk to my bandmates because I don't want to I don't want to do anything behind your back. I want to make sure they're okay with me doing it. Maybe if I get the gig, I won't be able to be in the band. So I went up there and I auditioned for Rick first, and after I got done, I says, well, I got an audition for Dan Hartman next. He goes, no, you don't. I said, what do you mean not doing? He goes, well,
ain't going anywhere? Well, I said, do I got the gig? He goes not yet. I said, okay, So there's a lot of humor in this, and then I'll get to get to rising star. But there's a lot of humor in this. Because I was standing outside the door. I had a white T shirt on, a pair of jeans, a rope belt, a pair of white sneakers slip on sneakers kids, and I saw this guy walk out and I heard him playing, and he was amazing, like an amazing guitar player. He came out, hair beautiful, all poory
in his studs, leather jacket, leather pants, shoes. He goes, hey, how you doing, kid? I go, oh, I'm good. But your name he goes, Rudy Valentino. I went, oh, shit, Rudy Valentino, Neil Geroldo. How I got a chance with this? I thought, I felt like just turning around and walking out of sires, this isn't gonna happen. But I did go in there and and I did get on with
her quite well. So I went home back to Cleveland, and he asked me to come back, and eventually I got I had to go write some new music, so I wrote a couple songs, came back, played it for him. He goes, okay, all right, all right, I think you're okay, And because I played two and that kind of helped the whole thing. But anyway, so you got to progress a year later, and that's when I met Patricia. And Rick Newman was Patricia's manager and then he became my
manager as well. So in the early days, which would have been set in nineteen seventy nine in the month of May, always in Catcher Isaac Star for years and years and years after all the time, and that's where all the comedians were, and they would always do their routines and then they'd come into the bar or where I would be, and then they would say, what do you think about that? Let me do Then they do their routine again, something different to see what I thought.
And they were now super super great, super great people and real nice and I just enjoyed that and it was a lot of laughs, a lot of good times.
Okay, let's go back. You're playing in your band in Ohio. Do you have dreams of making it at the time of going to the coast being a recording person. Are you just doing what you're doing?
I had, I had big dreams, but I thought they were shattered and I thought they were gone. I I was a very sick child. I'll get to that. I'd get to that later, but really really sick. I had terrible health when I was younger, really really bad. But I got to the point where I thought, well, I'm not gonna make it as a as a rock and roll quote guitar player, It's not gonna happen. I could play piano. And some of my you know heroes, we were jazz people. But Paul Eric Gardner, you know, Bill Evans,
all the great winscomb as dou Kellyton, all those folks. Right, So I studied a lot of piano, and I thought, well, I could get married, I can have a couple of kids. I can live in Cleveland and the weekends I'd go play cocktail bars and just play piano. That's probably the end. But then a very successful, very good musician, great musician named Kevin Rally who was in a bad called Michael Stanley Band. He wanted to put a band together and he thought it would be fun. We can, but they
were terrible venues. It was like a lounge band, it was. And then we'd move around, play a different instruments. Okay, So and I thought, well, this is where it's going. I'm going to be that cocktail piano player. So my dreams were shattered. I was playing up there hoping, but and then somebody saw me and said, what are you doing here? You need to be with another top name artist, and I went okay. Then I got the I went up to New York and that's how began.
Do you know where you were playing and who saw you? Yeah?
At he was at the Brown Derby restaurant in Cleveland. I can't remember what city was it. And the guy that saw me, his name was Tracy Coates. You know, Bob, everybody, I think you can count five people. You can count the five people that I won't get metaphysical and getting a different play in here, but five people that changed
your life. Five people. This guy was one of. His name is Tracy Coates, and he owned a PA company and meaning he would do He was from Cleveland, but he did a lot of shows nationally, right, so he always heard about all the different musicians and bands that were looking for players, right, So that's how it was. He saw me, and he was a great guy and he thought I played, thought it was pretty good. I don't know. And that was the guy. He's one of a.
Five, okay, a little slower. So he sees you. Does he come up to you at the end of the gig and say, hey, I'm going to hook you up or you home in the phone rings? How does it actually happen? Do you end up with auditions for Darren jer and Hartman? Yeah?
He's what he did is it was we took a break. You know that you do three sets. We did one set and I just went out to grab a smoke, have a cigarette, you know, And as I'm walking through the crowd, he comes out. He goes, hey, I'm Tracy Coates and man, you can play whenever and would you be interested? I said, really, of course I would be. He goes, well, here's my number, call me and I'll say her. And that's how it happened. He set it
up about a weekly after my band. I must say this is you know, excuse me, it's important you're playing in a band you'd be true to and uh, you know you that's who you're with, and you have to ask them if it's okay, and they all said, yeah, sure, no problem, no problem. The ironic part of this, Bob, this is where the universe steps in the other guitar player bass player because I played bass in their guitar
and keyboards all this stuff. You know, he went up to audition for Derrenger before me, but he never told anybody. Oh so, and and the real weird part about this is he came up there for the final five. Who's in the final five? And he's And I was shocked to see that he was there and go, what are you doing here? He goes, well, you know I've been up here. I went what I never knew, never knew. Right, he's a great guy too, but that was real weird.
Right.
So we were and we were rooming together in a hotel. We only had one one day, one night, and then we'd have to fly home. I'd have to fly home the next day. And so the manager called for Rick and said, when a thing, thank you. You're gonna love this, Bob, because this is a great call. He says, I really want to thank you for your time and your effort. Rick really liked the way you played. Really, I just want to wish you the best, and you know, thank
you for coming up. Bob thinking, I looked, pointed at the guy. Go you got it, dude, right. He goes, can you just come by and say talk to Rick a little bit? He was in the it's on fourteenth Street. I think are close to it, right by Real Sweeney's in Manhattan. So I said, sure, I'll go down. I was really disappointed. Bum dot I walked. I mean, I got in the cab, opened the door, Rick opened me in. He stood there, he goes, shook my hand. He goes, come on in, you're in the band. I went, I'm
in the band. It was. It was profound, it really was.
It was.
And then he hands me an explorer, a guitar, Gibson explorer with a serial number like fifty four, some ridiculous one. And we go back in the brown storm. We're jam and I'm saying, Rick, I got really good ears. I could say that, but my eyes are really bad. You got a lot of lamps around here. I go, dude, man, I shouldn't be holding this guitar. And we just jammed, like for hours, and that's how I got the gig
and went back to the hotel. I says, Rogers just looked at me and goes, you got the gig, right, I go, I did. I'm sorry. You know, I felt bad for him. You know, that's you know, everybody had those hopes and dreams and it just worked out.
So what ended up happening to him and what ended up happening to the rest of the band.
Oh well, the rest of the band, they kind of just split up. He just worked I think origionally in Ohio with different bands and stuff, and Kevin actually became He's a great guy. Kevin had a great voice, great writer, a great keyboard player. He became manager of the Dead Kennedys and a few other bands. Yeah, yeah, so yeah, it was It was interesting. And then the drummer had a real bad health scare during COVID, but he again
went to play with some other bands. I thinks, so they just they just stayed there.
Okay, Ohio, you know right now it has been for years somewhat to press, you know, the steel industry and other things going on. I'm always amazed at Ohio. You drive through, There's this place in the middle of nowhere with all these people. So you're growing up in Ohio. You know Rick Deringer was from Ohio, wasn't he? And you have Joe Walsho's from New Jersey, but he makes it in the Ohio. Yeah. The Michael Stanley band who gets a number of shots that never really breaks through.
So when you were Ohio, is there someone that you pointed to and said, Okay, I want to be like him or did you feel like, man, I'm in the middle of nowhere. Well, it.
Felt like the middle of nowhere one way, and in another way it didn't because it gave all the musicians and people that lived in a blue collar, very tough, tough town, Steel Town a chance to find an escape path. Right And since I was sick, and i'll go into that thing right now, is that you know I was sick from the day I was born for years and years. It wasn't until I was saying, like sixteen fifteen sixteen where I thought I didn't get over and I did.
But then I had a relapse when I was about twenty. But then I eventually got through it. But I'll get to that whatever it is. But I didn't feel I didn't feel small in that town. I really liked. I liked the mentality of a blue of a blue collar work ethic, because the people there really work hard. And when you had to go do gigs, you had to drive through snowstorms, your hands would freeze your knuckles, your cars wouldn't start. You slam your hands in the door.
I mean, all that stuff which gives you a purpose, makes you think about, think about who you are and where are you're gonna go, and it keeps you strong. You don't there's no chance for you to get soft in a town like that. So to me it was a It was a real blessing. So I didn't feel small. And I always believe this, and I believe this from then till till the day I die. Is that if you have a great song or you have talent, you will be found.
You won't.
You won't disappear unless you unless for some reason it's you're not prepared, it's not going to work out for you, which happens sometimes, you know. But if you have a great song, people are going to hear that song. You know, even without the Internet, they'll hear it. You'll be found, you will.
So what term did you grow up in Ohio?
In a town, a little town called Parma outside of Cleveland, but it was very close to the Cleveland tracks. All the Italians Sicilian because of Sicilian. On one side of the three were all the Sicilian. The other side were the Ukrainians. So it was very weird. And that'll go back to my name too, but it was they thought the town of Parma, when they're coming from Bronte Katania, Sicily and they come into America, Parama, let's go live for that. It's gotta be Italian town, right, So a
lot of Sicilians and like I said, Ukrainians. I'll go to this because we're on the subject of Cleveland's. When I was born, I was I had the cord wrapped around my head on my neck multiple multiple times, and when I came out, I was suffocated from I wasn't a blue baby, but I was the next step down, the next step up from that, so I couldn't breathe and they thought they were gonna lose me. My parents. My parents were Anthony Geraldo, my mother, Angelomettia Geraldo, my
sister Priscillamettia Geraldo, Neil Geraldo. How does that happen? Bob, Well, let me tell you how it happens. So here I am. I'm not born, they slap, they do the whole thing. I'm not breathing. They go into a panic back then, so they take me. It takes a while they bring me to be. I finally come in. My parents were so relieved that they didn't lose me and that I didn't die and end up a blue, blue baby, and that's the end. Right. But the doc there's name was
Cornelius Cassidy. So I was supposed to be Nunzio Nunzio or Nunziato Nunziato Geraldo. Right, Instead I became Neil and not Cornelius because of doctor Cassidy. So that's how I got my name, bringing me into this life. So from the minute I was, I came out of the womb, I was, I was, I was, I was all planned out for me to be dealing with, Oh, the the crazy uh oh, the emotional sickness of what that means, you know, suffocating the day you were born, you know is.
So tell me more about this illness and other health problems. Yeah.
So, so I went to school at a very early age because I was born in December. My mother wanted to get me out of the house, right, you gotta go to the house. But I was sick. My stomach was always terrible, always sick. And then I had this emotional thing with this claustrophobia where the walls were always too tight and it was always too hot in those rooms. And then I got to then I group from claustrophobia to agoraphobia, where I had fear of the outside of
the with all people. You know, I was going. I was going, like mentally off the rails. And every time I go to school, elementary school, did the principal, the people there would call my mother and say, you know, you got to come and pick up your son. He's sick again. It was all the time, and I barely
was in school. I went to a Catholic school. I went to a public school first and a Catholic school, and I missed confirmation and things that you normally do in school because I was sick, always sick, and those emotional things took a toll. But what they did do is when I was six years old, my father bought me a guitar because they wanted me to do duets. My sister, who played accordion and so we can do
Italian songs. That was a good idea, except my uncle Timmy on the other side of the family, my grandfather passed away at an early age, so he didn't have a father, and he was sort of the mistake of the family. He became a mentor, so in essence, he kind of lived with our family, and he was only
four years older than me. So and from playing Italian songs with my sister, then all of a sudden, the Yardbirds are coming in and all the other bands, and then he started feeding me with all these other things. So this emotional thing, the idea that I had a guitar in my hands, it just felt really normal and felt right, and it was escape from life because it was really difficult for me to handle the emotional thing.
I mean, I'd walked through the door at school and I immediately felt like I have to throw up, you know, my stomach got oh, I can't be here. This is terrible, and then it was it was.
Awful, Okay, So mostly the problem was emotional mental. Did you ever see a professional and how did you ultimately get over it or do you still wrestle with these issues today? Well?
What I found out today is that I have an abnormality in one part of my boy that there was actually a reason why the physical part. So the mental part was real, but the physical part was real as well, and that nobody you got to understand that Cleveland and Parma is on the west side of Cleveland, Shaker Heights Pepper Pike is on the east side. When I was growing up, I didn't even know what golf was. There was no golf course around where I lived. I didn't
know what that even was. On the east side, they had golf courses and they had doctors, real doctors. It was the rich side of the city. I lived on the foreside. So my parents I go to a doctor. I went to the Italian doctor. We say, eat more garlic, e moore garlic, drink some wine. So I got a little poor wine for dinner. You know, That's all they said. You know, you didn't get it. You couldn't get it fixed.
So the emotional part was really really difficult. But since that physical part was with such a stress on my body, I the two together were a nightmare. It was just I just it was horrible.
So how did you ultimately get over it? Both of these I got over it.
One of the five people, you know, the hand of the five is the trace, quotes this girl. Her name was Tara Bruno, Tera Bruno. You have to be listening to this when it comes out. You need to know this. And she knows it already. Anyway, she was she wanted to She was a friend of mine, and she I think she thought it was more like a girlfriend boyfriend, but I was more. I was thinking it was just like a friend, like a girlfriend. I think it was
like twelve years old or something. And she went to California and she came back and goes, I got to tell you something. Two really great things happen, and you kind of really love him. I says, Okay, what is it? He goes, number one, it's a avocado, Swiss cheese, lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise on rye toast sandwich. I went, what's an avocado? That sounds beautiful? She goes, Oh, it's great. It's great.
I'm gonna make you want. I go fantastic, goes. And another thing that I found was this book called The Yea Ching. And I says, what is that? She goes, it can predict your future, and her and I would lay on these blankets in those Cleveland evenings in the summer, we look up and we see the stars. Well, we threw the coins in the e ching, and I still have that paper somewhere. I have to go find that one day. I know I have it. I stored away
in like momentos things. But we did throw it, and it said that I would get my wish and my dream would come through. But you have to follow these rules and these laws of the spiritual realm of the eachan. That book saved my life. Without that book, without Terra Bruno, I wouldn't be here period. That book did it without it? No way, no way.
You're a very verbal friendly guy, Yet you say you grew up internalized in not going to school that much. Where does all this verbal facility come from?
Because when I wasn't in school, I was reading. I love to read, and I would try to get every book. Library was my friend, every book I could possibly get my hands on and read. And I to this day i'm and I avid read. I read all the time. And it's really kind of the other part that's saved me. But with the eaching, let me just give you an idea where the Eaching lives in my life for a second.
The day that Tracy Coates saw me play at the brown Derby that night driving up and it was in a winter it was like February maybe something like that, really bad, very cold, and I'm pulling up this place and the way those gigs went. You play there for a month, right, you play for three weeks a month and you go to the next place three weeks. So I pull up. I'm just pissed off, angry, right, just like, damn it, Why do I got to do this? This is terrible, sliding all over the road. I have my
sixty three and Paula. I always have to park really far away from the club. I have to walk. I'm dropping the guitar and the case, banging my hands that way right, whining like a little chooch. Right, So I go, I'm gonna do something different. I'm gonna use the eching and I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna get really embraced in what this was going to give me today or what I'm gonna be able to create myself. Let me just focus on it. I pull in a parking lot and I swear to you, this is absolute truth. I
pull into a parking lot. The very first place for parking opens up right in front of the door. I got there, shut the car off, I lit up a cigarette, opened the window, I smoked a cigarette. I went, this is something's gonna happen tonight, something profound is going to change my life. And that was the night that Tracy Coate saw me. And that's how my life changed from that moment.
Let's go back to the family. Were your parents born in America or the Old Country in America?
My grandparents came over.
So how heavy an influence was the Italian background?
Heavy? Heavy, really heavy. I mean, besides all the people on the street that were Sicilian. My next door neighbor was great. His last name was Alardo, and I couldn't pronounce it, and I'd give people nicknames. I called it mister Jim. He would be the guy who would cut tires and staple tires on my soles and my shoes. And I walk in the house and I walked and crooked, and my mother goes, did you see mister Jim again? Did he fix your shoes? I go, he did. They're
working real good right now, thanks mom. You know, so there was a lot of Italian spoken in the house. But you know, my father was really proud to be an Italian American, you know, born in the country, so we really were. They really didn't want to press the speaking of Italian. But the Italian songs were really important, right, just like Catholic church and you know, all the Italian Catholic upbringing stuff very important.
So and what did your parents do for a living?
Father was a carpenter, one of the toughest human beings on earth, but one of the sweetest guys and just the greatest great if he's the fire, he's one of the five. Because this man is I love him so much. He passed away. He was ninety six. In fact, one day he called me, he goes, son of bitch. Son, I don't think I'm ever gonna die. I go, pop, You're gonna die one day. Trust me, it's gonna happen, son a bitch. I don't think so very very tough.
Really really, I can't even begin to tell you how to one story, he's got the snowblow where he bought for fifty bucks or whatever, and he's doing the sidewalks. All sudden it clogs up. He doesn't shut it off. He puts his hand in there, clips off the little piece of his finger. It goes flying with the blood spray following it behind trailing. He goes, goes, he had this little thing he did like this, He goes, son of a bitch, son, go find my finger. And I
went found his finger packed in the snow. He went to the hospital and put it back on. So but that's that's the hardcore part of him. That the heart, the heart of him is. He never had a negative thing to say, my sickness and being home or anything. He would always say, you know, if that guitar makes you feel better, and playing the piano, do it, do it? Son. You know he wanted me to be a carpenter, but he didn't force it on me. Let me give you
an idea too. He was a carpenter, work for other people. He was at a house somewhere. He'd come home with a piano. I go, pap, where'd you get the piano from? Me? Go? Do you want it? I go, sure, I want it was an upright with some broken keys, and I said, sure, I'd like it, and he put it in the basement.
That's how I started playing piano because they gave it to somebody gave it to him because he was so kind and so thoughtful, thoughtful of a man that, you know, I wish I could be, you know, a quarter of the man he was, because he was just the greatest of all.
What about your mother?
My mother was more like a disciplinarian.
You know.
I had this philosophy I think is wrong, where one parent has to be passive the other one has to be assertive. I think that's wrong. But in my house it was that way. My mother was the assertive. My father was passive. Sometimes I walked through the door and my father would say, don't say anything, it's not your fault, but you're gonna probably hear it's your fault. I say, okay, I walked through and there it was right. So so yeah,
she but she was the disciplinarian one. She was the one when I was playing, uh, you know, street football outside in the snow, and she'd come and yell out out of the window, it's time to come in and practice, son. Come on, you got to come in and all the all the boys where all the you know, all my buddies are going man mine, are you coming in to play? You can't play when you know, give me shit about them. Oh man, my hands will be frozen. I have to
play these stupid songs. I for not the Italian songs, but I took lessons for I think a year and a half or two years. It was horrible. The guy farted in the room. He smoked cigarettes and I had to deal with that was horrible. But my mother made sure I played oh man, Joe and uh well Santa Luccia too. But you know, somebody else is like, oh, I'm not this isn't working for me. That part, that part ain't working.
This was guitar lessons or piano listens.
This was guitar.
Yeah, okay, so you were playing the Italian songs. You know, we're contemporaries. You're born in fifty five. What is the rock and roll inspiration? Was it the Beatles or did it come before that? Or was it none of that? And just your uncle in the yard bruders?
Okay, it was It was in ninety It was I think I was five years old. It's five years old and my mother was playing Heartbreak Hotel by Elvis and I was in the other room and I went, what is that? And I ran in I remember to this day, I'm listened. I sat in front of the year old enough to remember this. The Wi Fi, the high Fi sorry, the hip fhissist, the console Hi Fi systems.
Right of course you could.
Sit in the middle and then the two speakers were on the side and it had a two bamp fire and I'm listening to this, and I'm here's what defined me in oh, well, sort of in the music world, right when I heard the sparseness of that song, Heartbreak Hotel, Heartbreak Hotel, and I heard Elvis's voice resonate, the richness
of it, and the reverb and all that spatialness. The guitar had its own part, but it was really defined and often the left and the bass was thumping, and the drums were small, not small, big in sound, but a lot of air, reverb, distinct, huge reverb happening kick it. I deciphered what was going on with that record. At five years old, I says something about this is what
I want to do. I want to which I didn't know what producer, I didn't know what arrange any of that meant, but I didn't know that I wanted to make records that sounded like that. Not only did I want that. When I saw the RCAA dog the nipper go around and RCAA round and round and around, I went that labels really great looking and I loved art. I would have went to art school, but my mother said it was stupid, I shouldn't go, so I didn't go.
I should have went, but I didn't go. But by seeing those labels, that was just as powerful as the music coming out to me. Right, So I knew then that I wanted to play instruments because I wanted to create that sound. I wanted that sound. I wanted that feel. You know that it was. It really was lonesome. It was a person walking to their death. Not in a negative not the darkness of it. But you know how the somberness that the richness of that record to me
just really sunk into me. Really did it hit me?
Okay, So did you watch the Beatles on Ed Sullivan?
I did, I did it. I didn't get that as much. I didn't get it. I I don't.
Know, what is that?
Sixty four? It? Yeah, sixty four. I mean I got that, but it didn't it didn't resonate to me as as much as as you know hearing that office record and things. I I thought it was I thought it was amazing. I just I couldn't understand why they were screaming all the time, you know, they said, you know, I just don't understand all the screaming, you know, the headshaking. I don't know. I just it didn't kind of didn't kind
of settle settle into me, you know. I mean I thought it was cool, but it wasn't.
So tell me about your uncle of the Yardbirds.
Yeah, well, Uncle Tim was he was great. He took me to see to who when I was twelve years old. That that changed my life. That was it, because I was listening to the Stones and the Kinks. You know. He had all those records and he'd you know, we'd have them and we'd play them all the time, and it was it was phenomenal. But he was the guy he was. He'd be the guy who said, you're gonna listen to heart full of Soul and you're gonna play it right. And I'd be playing you a heartful soul.
You know, now, this is great. Go doesn't sound good? I said, what do you mean it doesn't sound good? He goes, it doesn't sound good? Coming out of an app you need like a distortion what is a distortion pillow? Well, you got to get what we got to get you
on and that he was the guy. And then when I saw Pete Townsend play at the Music Carnival and the Who and Daltry with the swing and the mica a all like this and Peete just tearing it up, and then I saw that and I went, that's resonating because it represented to me growing up in a blue collar town like Cleveland. It represented that it wasn't it
wasn't it wasn't the Beatles. To me, it was that that you know you're on stage, you're giving it everything you got, like the Jerry Lee Lewis blood is what I call it. You hit the stage, give it all, give it, give it all there, everything you have, and then when you walk away, you get off the stage, you go back to your other kind of life. So that really did it. And the concert was crazy because they only played three songs, and they destroyed all the
gear because Pete didn't like the sun amps. And then they were walking out and then we went to come back in because they said the concert is still going to go on. They're gonna use the opening band equipment. So we went in there. But that day I get back home and I turned my little tiny epiphone INP but I turned it up to ten and I went, ooh, ooh, this is kind of fun, this is working.
So so when did you first start playing in bands?
When I was eleven eleven something like that, and we were eleven and twelve, and my uncle Tim was the lead singer, so it was being four years older, and we called the band. It was stupid, stupid name. It was called neok and Eel, really dumb, stupid name. But yeah, that was the first band.
Well did you just rehearse to the living room or did you play gigs.
In the basement rehearsing the base We did gigs. We have to sneak me in through the back door, you know, and I'd get there to here as this little kid up there playing and you know, we were doing whatever. You know, yeah, but whatever. We had to play songs. We were just playing them, and yeah, it was weird because we'd be playing a memory, were playing them, going Wow, that guy looks like like I'm playing them. They going, what the hell is he gonna do? It looks like
he's gonna beat the shit out of me. Where am I playing? What am I doing? Are they angry? You know, sneaking me into pars places behind in the backstage and stuff. So so we did that for a while. That didn't last very long, and then I started playing with other bands, other guys in the neighborhood and stuff.
Okay, so you're in high school. To what degree are you playing gigs in a band?
Oh? Yeah, it was because because I was that younger guy was five years old in the first grade. So I don't know add up what that is. I don't know what I was as a freshman or whatever. But I was playing. I was playing out all the time with you know, different bands that we were putting together and stuff. Yeah, all the time. What did you do with the money there was? It really wasn't much. I don't remember eating after the gig. We'd go to eat at like two o'clock in the morning, two thirty in
the morning. That's all I remember. There was no money, you know, I don't know, no money.
We just did it. And what did you use for equipment? Then?
Well, I had my little epaphone app and then this guy down the street was he worked at the steel mills, and it was kind of cool. He had a band too, and the guitar player in that band his name was philm Megalarino, and he had this quiver when you know the vibrato, we called it a quiver, and he played this red guild starfire. I remember really well, and I remember, you know, sitting there that's all around, that eleven twelve year old thing, and I'm watching him. I'm going, man,
he got a great quiver. I gotta get that thing right. But this guy that's where they rehearsed at his house worked in the steel mills, and his uncle worked at his shipping location the dock, and Marshall amplifiers were coming through there. He was able to get him really cheap, really cheap. So I said, Papa, I'll work with you. I'll do whatever it is I have to do. These Marshall apps are like really great, and you know, I think they're only like, I know, three hundred, three hundred dollars.
That's that's a lot of money. I said, I know, but I'll pay a bag pop. So I got a Marshall Marshall amp so I had there, I go, I had this, I had a stack when I was like thirteen or something or fight, I don't know, fourteen, something like that.
Okay, let's jump forward. M Rick says, you've got the gig. What did that look like? Did you go back to Ohio and wait for the call to go on the road or stay in New York?
Yeah, I went. I went back to Ohio. I went back to Ohio, he says, get your you know, things in order, affairs in order. So I got back there and I just I thought it was kind of funny because all the girls I thought were real cute, they didn't have time to talk to me. We're all of a sudden ready to talk to me now, which I thought that was. That was kind of cool, you know, yeah, yeah, you know, cause man, they weren't paying attention to me.
I was that weird, weird kid in school, you know that, you know, no loaner guy, nobody would talk to you know, it's kind of weird, you know. I didn't feel like I really connected with most people there, and there I am walking around. But yeah, then I got my things together and I had one guitar and SG gipson SG. I went up and then I Rick says, Okay, here's all the songs we're gonna do. But you need another guitar. You can't be playing that. I need you. You need
to play BC Rich. That's what I play. He goes, but you can have anything you want, but not what I have. Then he hooked me up with BC Rich and that's how I started playing the BC Rich Eagles through that. Now that the peculiar thing, you know, because life is this is a comedy, right, it really is, you meaning me? You join Rick Darringer, Okay, and you end up recording a record with Rick and it's called Guitars and Women. Now, then my life goes forward, you know.
But a record Guitars and Women is kind of ironic in a way, right. So, and the other part was I didn't play much guitar and I played most mostly piano. If you if you want to hear some of the stuff I did. There's a song called Everything, another song called Hopeless Romantic. Now. I was playing a lot of piano back then, a lot of guitar too, But I respected Rick. He was such a great player. If he didn't want me to play guitar on it's okay, I'll play piano, but i'll play on the record.
Okay, you go back to Ohio to get your affairs together. Then do you go to New York to rehearse? Where do you live? When do you go on the road?
I go to live at my favorite place, the hotel I was in when I got the call, the Wellington Hotel and what is it fifty eighth or fifty seventh and seventh, And that was my home. And there was a guy named Pops there by the way. I am writing a book. I've been writing one for about ten years. Hopefully I get it finished at one point there. But Pops was great. Pops would go and he'd get me some beer and pizza if I wanted, and he told me stories of all the old actors and actresses that
came through the place. He was a phenomenal, phenomenal guy, was a great guy. And I remember I always wanted a room by the e and the Wellington, you know, and it just with the neon light. It was just super super cool. So I lived there and and we just rehearsed for a little while and then off off in a row we went. And the way we went.
Okay, any anxiety, any imposter syndrome?
Yeah, Well, the first show. When I did the first show, I got back after and Rick goes, what did you do? Go? I go, Rick, I'm really sorry. I was so nervous. Right, I went from playing two hundred and fifty people to whatever five thousand I mean then went Eventually we did stadiums and did everything. And I said, I'm really sorry. I was just so nervous. I said, I'll tell you what. I'll make you a deal. It will never happen again, never ever happen again. And I told myself and I practiced.
I focused, I got strong, got the eaching book out, got it together. But that was I remember his face. I picked you because I felt you were the best one, and I was like, oh boy, I really screwed this up. So never did again.
Okay, you're a young man on the road. Are you partaking in the fruits of the road.
What are you talking about, Bob?
Those fruits?
What is that hanging fruits you're talking about? Well, back back to the thing where nobody paid attention. There was a lot of attention you paid at that time. But I but I was really I was really focused. I was focused on making a career and really really making sure I do this right, And I didn't. I didn't partake into drugs, you know, I didn't do any of that. You know. I drinking some stuff, but but nothing, nothing excessive at all. I practiced a lot, played a lot.
But yeah, it was all over the place.
So how long did it last with Rick?
I think it was about a year and a half. I think, yeah, we got done and uh we were doing the record guitars and women, and there was eventually there'll be tense songs, right, So I played on maybe I think eight of them, I'm not sure eight and then there was two more to go, and and Rick says, you know, I don't really need you on the last two. And you know I was. I was kind of depressed a little. I said, you know, I could still do any I can still do something. I could play some
rhythm guitar if you want. I mean, I'll eve an engineer. If you want anything you want me to do, I'll do for you. And he says, no, I don't. I don't think so. And as a manager, you had two managers. One guy was named Teddy slatis. Well, Teddy Slatist said to me, he goes, how about a free trip feet a free ticket back to Cleveland. I went, mmm, mmm, interesting, a free ticket. He was always a smart ass, always a wise ass. Right, So I'm at the place. Here's
back to the eaching. I'm at this. We recorded in Woodstock, by the way, which was good fun doing that, and Kenny here and said, and myself and the crew were all living in one part, and Rick and the rest and mind and the drummer. We're in another part. And they have they had the house, and we had this little avery there. It was all totally cool. Anyway, So here's where the e ching comes back in. So you know, he says, well, Teddy says, okay, your free tickets ready,
you know, leave tomorrow. Okay, I'll leave tomorrow. Well, thank you. So there I have I drink tea. I don't try coffee. I drink green tea, and a lot of it. So I'm sitting there a green tea and I'm thinking, oh geez, what am I going to do next. I'm reading my eaching book this thing, getting ready to go in the car to go from Woodstock to LaGuardia, which you know is one of the worst airports in the world, was even bad back then. I get in the car and I got my suitcase in there. I'm ready to go in,
ready to close the door. The guy in the in the studio the kitchen says, you know, somebody's on the phone. They need to talk to you. It's really important. I go, yeah, and that's really too important right now, I'm going back to Cleveland. Is any fun? He goes, No, I think you really need to take this call. Some guy from a record company, he said, needs to talk to you. And I says, oh, come on, he goes, He goes, I think it's real. I said, all right, So I
went inside and picked up the phone. The guy's talking. I'm thinking, okay, it was just like a little Louis busting my balls over there in Cleveland, giving me, you know, trying to be a jerk or whatever. And guy says, go, no, no, this is I'm serious. I want you to meet this singer who wants to put a band together and doesn't have a band and really looking for that partner. And I said, well, all right, it's interesting. I had some
other gigs, some other bands that were interested. I had two other bands that were in the play that I could to join or work with and stuff. So I wasn't like I had no gig, but I wanted to be with Rick. I wanted to finish a record. So I'm talking to guy goes. He goes, listen, I Mike Chapman, who produced. If I wasn't so romantic, i'd shoot you by Rick Darringer the record before the one you did
just now. Saw you on the road with Rick and thought you would be a great person to be with this other person that I want you to meet, because you you know song structure, you write songs, you multi versed in other instruments. You're You're not a show like a showbo guy. You know you want to play song. That's because I really want That's all I wanted to do. I was not that type of player that just can virtuoso. I was never that guy. I just want to write
songs and play play instruments. So I'm talking. He goes, Okay, all you got to do is meet this person in sir, Can you do it today? I says yeah. Can I get a free ticket to Cleveland? I had one, but it could be no good anymore. Can I get a free ticket? He goes, no problem. I says, okay, what about if something goes good and I stay. He goes, I'll take care of you. I said, okay, fair enough. Now I had a girlfriend at the time too, so this this she was living in Connecticut, but whatever, that
wasn't going so good. So anyway, I go down. But before I go down, I mentioned I says, well, who's this guy? Maybe I heard of him. He says, no, it's not a guy. It's a girl. And I went a girl. He says, yeah, go is she good looking? I mean, is my Sicilian thinking? Is she good look? And he goes, yeah she is, but she's married. I go, oh, okay, well fair enough, and I was just playing way they
having fun with you? You know? So what I did is I drove down in the in the sedan to s I R got in there and met this person it's Patricia, and sat down at the piano, started playing some stuff and said what are you thinking about? What is it you want to do? And then explained it all, did it all, and picked up a guitar and made some racket and we talked about stuff and it became a partnership. And in fact, the guy's name is Jeff Aldrich who called me from the record company who's a tremendous guy.
A great day and our guy really nice guy. So he picks up Patricia and I'm sitting at a couch. He picks up Patricia. He goes like, does it drops her in my laby? And she and he says, here's your guy to her, here's your guy. And I went like, that's a little awkward here. You know, that's a little awkwards. First day, what's calling out here? So that's how that's how that kind of began.
Okay, you're in Woodstock, you have the free ticket back to Cleveland. Forget the Derringer record and the other two tracks. Was this going back to Cleveland or you talked about some other opportunities. Was this the end of the road for you or just an interlude before you got the call to work with pat Oh? This was it was like a fifty to fifty. I had some opportunities. They weren't They weren't great.
There were a couple of bands I thought they're okay because it was only meant to be in the meantime, you know what I was tall Rick's I want you to come back. I want you to come back. Well, be careful of what you let go. You know, people have good memories. I mean, I mean, I will. I don't want to be a prick about anything. And I wasn't because I love Rick, He's a great guy. But I didn't like that way that was handle. I thought
it was. It wasn't cool. I mean, if they would have said, uh, you know, you know, we look forward to you coming back. Rick wants to finish the record. Okay, good, thank you very much. Maybe I'll get a gig to me time. Well I could have, it's not a problem, but it wouldn't be a great gig. I'll and be where I was. What reck right, So so that's that's kind of what happened. So it was like a fifty to fifty go back to Cleveland, you know, kick around there for a while, make the foot, few calls, see
what's up. But I got the call before I left, right.
So did Rick ever call you to come back?
Yes?
And what did you tell him?
I said, I'm sorry, I can't. I said I can't. I I'm an integral part of it. Another situation. And we're partners. I partnered up with somebody. You may not know it, but we were partners. And I remember playing the record the first record in a heated night for Johnny Winter, and I remember even talking to him and he said, oh man, yeah you got, this is your thing?
You got?
I said, okay, thanks, Johnny. I have a great picture you usould see one time. It's because Rick Deringer's wife was named Liz, and she was more than one Liz. She was Liz Liz, I called her. But I was like her boy toy. She would take me around because I was twenty just turned twenty two, and she would take me around to all these places like Studio fifty four and all these different clubs, Maxes and all these things,
and she would parade me around. And she was a huge social lighte and she thought it was funny because I had this rope belt and a pair of jeans and white T shirt. Everybody else was dressed up and there I am walking around like a goofball you go out of Cleveland like Jethrow or something. I felt like him, you know. And so I was going around and doing all that stuff.
Okay, so old Rich introduces you to Pat. You work out what's the next step.
Next step is well, next step, here's your guy boom in my lap, And I says Okay, now what goes? Well, go back to Cleveland. But then you only got two days come back because you guys got to put a band together, You got to get going, and you need to go through all kinds of stuff. So I says, They says, where you want to stay? Do you want to stay at the may Mayflower, the Mayflower Hotel? I says, no, I'm want to stay at Wellington. They say the Wellington.
I said, yeah, I like the Wellington. Are you sure? I go? Yeah, I want to stay at the Wellington. It was my home away from home. I liked it. They would add a good vibe to it. So I left, go back to Cleveland. Like I said, That's when all the girls that didn't have time for me pay attention all of a sudden, where you know, they kind of knew where I was. So I stayed there for just a couple week maybe, and then I came up and started to work.
Okay, how long from that initial meeting before you go in the studio.
Well, that would be probably May of nineteen seventy nine. We didn't go in the studio until I think it was August, July or August maybe the beginning of May is when we started Mart April, i'd have to look at it.
That's pretty soon. So what happened in those intervening months?
Oh yeah, Well, first of all, we had to put a band together, so I had to audition players, people, and then at the whole time Patricia and I were working together, I told her the first time we talked and played, I says, you know, you got a really beautiful voice. Beautiful voice. I'd hate to be the guy
to wreck that voice. I says, you understand that the way you're going to sing next is not what you've ever done before, because we're going to find a breaking point in your voice where that high stuff is not going to be falsetto. It's going to be real. It's going to be your real voice. You ain't gonna go to falsetto. What is that? What's that going to happen? I go, I'll show you. We're going to raise these keys and these courses you're going to have to really
belt out. They're going to have to get in that range to support what's going to be underneath it. Right, So her and I worked a lot on that. So we had because to understand, Patricia, is that not that there's anything wrong with being the rock chick, but that's not what she was. She was a highly educated, intelligent person that came from a middle class family in Long Island, and she went to school. She she was you know, she studied singing, She she did all the oppera. She
just she she knew all those things. She wasn't kicking around clubs for a couple of years. That wasn't her. But what she wanted to get into was a different world. And I was that. I was representing that world that I knew the most. So we worked hard on that. And then uh, and then I found I found different musicians. Got another guitar player because they had a good looking haircut. He looked good. I don't care about it, did anything else.
He looked good, and I thought that was great. The bass player would play with her in a lounge band prior. And then I brought my drummer from Darrow that worked with Reck and that was Byron Grobacker. I brought him in for the two. Oh no, I didn't bring him in yet. I'm sorry, sorry saying no, no, no. This was for the record. Then I got a drummer and then we rehearsed in New York and then we came to California to make the record.
Okay, a lot of times when people are relatively green, they don't really want the band. They want to use studio musicians, right, So whose idea was it to make it a band?
Well, because in the beginning, what Patricius tried to do was work with studio musicians and a producer to do what she wanted to do. But nobody was listening. They had her wanting to sound like again, there's nothing wrong with this, having her sound like Linda Ronstad on this song, having sound like this on this song, but not totally
missing a point. And even after she did these demos of five songs or whatever she did with this studio musician, she record company guy says, listen, don't don't get your hope up. You know this, you know, and then they shoved it. They says, no, this isn't this isn't where it needs to be. That's where Mike Chapman came in. So Mike who referred me because he thought and he was supposed to produce only four songs of the record the first record, So Mike's idea was because he was
busy doing Commander Chapman. He wasn't Commander Chapman yet, it came later, but he was, you know, the Knack and everybody. So he was pretty hot. So he didn't have the time for us, you know. And the best thing that he did was have his engineer, Pete Coleman work and him and I together were a great team. We were we had the greatest time, and we aligned beautiful. Right. So so yeah, so Mike was on board, and we were just going to come to LA and make the record.
Okay, you come to LA, do you know, as Mike told you what songs you want to record, you get there and he goes hear the songs.
Yeah, he told us the songs. He goes four songs, I think a couple of them were he wrote, were probably from Exile or one of the other bands he worked with. But and then subsequently what happened was the record company would release a couple of those songs that failed. So and meanwhile, all the other tracks that Pete and I did had substance, you know, they were Heartbreaker, we Lived for Love. There were all these other songs like Clone,
sleeps Alone, these these other things. So right then Mike was getting a little angry because the record companies released songs and his aren't working.
And then.
And of course we Lived for Love became the second signal a single, the one that I wrote, and Heartbreaker was first. But even that they it didn't catch on right away because they said there was too much guitar on it. But that was where disco. We were right on that board. Are we gonna redefine rock music at that point and break away from disco? And that's where the guitar focus of Heartbreaking movement forward. So does that answer your question?
Yeah, okay, you know it's a long time ago. Do you remember which four songs were Chapman, Yes, okay, which one?
It was? In the heat of the night right if you think you know how to love me?
Right?
He brought in I Need a Lover from Johnny Mellicamp Cougar. Oh, and then what was the other one? I'm trying to think of it, ken me what or what it was, but.
It looks like I know, you don't the sweet cover.
Oh, there you go, No you don't, there you go. That's it.
Yeah, okay. So in terms of recording, you and Peter Coleman did Heartbreaker and the rest of the you know, we live for Love, et cetera.
Yep, Yeah, Pete and I did. It was great. We had We had the best time. You know. It was great because I loved engineering, and even when I did the Derringer record with Todd Rudgren producing the guitars at women thing, I was always around, you know, the studio. Even prior to joining Rick, I was in the studio in Cleveland too, in other bands. We were doing original music and things like that. So I really loved the engineering part. And it goes back to Heartbreak, Hotel here
in those tones and all that other stuff going on. Right. But yeah, so Pete and I were great. I mean we take turns in different machines of twenty four track or the two inch or the half inch and just everything and everything. It was just beautiful.
Okay, how did you feel at the time, because really the breakthrough was the cover of I Need a Lover and at that point he was still Johnny Couger. It was one of those early albums. It had no traction. Did you want to do that? Did you care? Did you think it was going to be good? I?
Well, I I mean I I I understand the the campiness of a girl singing I need a lover because only guys were singing kind of stuff, and then for a girl to do it. I got it. I I thought it. I thought it was pushing, just like a couple of records that follow certain songs were pushing towards the the uh, this is an important thing to tell you too. It was pushing more towards the focus of you know, we can sell this by making it the girl talk about this, and we can sell it this way.
We can do this right. So the part for me is my sister kind of cursed me when I was younger. She said I'd be surrounded by women my whole life, and she was right right. But I never looked at Patricia as as the female chick singer. Never. I looked at her as a bandmatee and a partner. Right. So so when it was it all felt like this, the the like the like a Linda ron st Er, just the female the focus of this. Never I never looked at that that way. And I I must say I did.
I did do something like that with the True Love record. I did cost to be the boss. I you know, I had you know her do that, which would be a reversal of the sex reversal right instead of bb kings. You know, it's a girl singing I'm the cost to be the boss, right, So I was I was just like that. I suppose I was like Mike in that point. So I can't you know, we all make we all do stupid and good stuff. Okay, okay, tell me get out of that. The first album I Love, We Will, We Live for Love?
You wrote it? Tell me how you wrote it?
I wrote it. I was with my girlfriend at the time and we were living in Los Angeles and we needed another song for the record, two songs, and I went, okay, let me, let me scratch something together. And I started writing it there and I was just coming together, and I'm thinking, how do you write a story about something that could apply for what the project you're doing? Like, how do you how do you make this song we Live for Love? Why would you do a song called we Live for Love?
Well?
So I had a good first line, and then I just kept calling on it, right, and and then you know, we have a running joke that Pittrish always says it wasn't written about her, and it was written about somebody else. And I always say no, I wrote it about you, So I did it as a reversal. So I got off to leave that up in the air.
Okay. So at the time, you know, Chrysalish has some American success with Blondie, but it's not the equivalent to Warner Brothers or Columbia. And it looks like the record has a slow percolation. And then you start to hear the Melancamp cover and you start to hear it on all these stations in LA. What was the experience on your side of the fence.
Well, I didn't really hear I Need a Lover. Mostly I heard when Heartbreaker hit it. That's the first time I heard a record song from that record come out. And when I heard that, I just went ooh, now that's moving. Some are that sounds really in a compression all working and stuff? You know.
Well, I guess what I'm saying is the record is finished? How long until it comes out? And what do you do? Do you go on the road and at what point do you say this is work and we have something here.
Well, and what happened as they were releasing those songs. I think they even tried. If you think you know how to love me, you know, put it out there lit no radio traction, and they did I need a lover too, and that didn't really get traction in the beginning. It was just kind of floating around. It was heartbreaking that took it so but to answer the question, we went and I can't remember when our first gig was. We got there and I was using these new amps.
I got these little Marshall combos and they all blew up. I think we maybe made it through the set. I can't remember if we made it all through or not, but I know that there was not a lot of people there. I don't know, maybe thirty forty fifty, I can't remember, but I do know that the next night there was a few more and next night and it
happened really quick, really really quick. It just seemed to kind of escalate really fast, and we got it to the point where we couldn't leave the stage and we'd do the set over twice because we didn't have enough songs, right we do, Richie Vallence, come on, let's go some other covers that I throw out through out there that people seem to like. So we yeah, just started really escalating and then we were asked to play open for a different couple bands of any money. We opened for
him once in New York. I think it was at the Central Park thing or something. Eddie's mother came up and she goes, Eddie, you should be opening for them, and then you know, crazy, he's you know, he's like Rodney Danger. Yeah, thanks, I'm sure, okay, yeah, all right, so and then yeah, and then we had another guy we opened for, David Werner, and he was from Pittsburgh.
He was one of the bands too that that wanted me to come along early on and he said, you know, I don't think you guys should be playing some of those songs if you're opening up for me. I says, well, guess what, David, We're not going to open up for you no more. You're gone. We're moving on.
So between the first and second Bennett Tuck albums, how much did you work?
Live? Oh? A lot, a lot. We went to Europe right away. Actually I almost wish we went to Europe first and it came Europe to America. That's always a really good move. Yeah, we worked a lot, like a lot, and we had to go right from the road into the next record, which was Crimes and Passion, And the reason we had to change the producer at that time was because Mike well, I think it was so pissed off that we had more success with the other songs
and not his songs. And the story was that he didn't get along with the record company, Terry Els, and they had an argument in a fight or whatever. Maybe they did, maybe that's the truth of it. It just didn't feel to me like that's what it was. It felt like sour grape sort of, you know, So they wanted a different producer. We met with Keith also. I said, yeah, well this this is okay. I was really just one.
I really want to do it Pete, him and I together like we did the first time, you know, that I'd be credited and we would do you know, do it like a partnership. But that didn't happen, so we went. But it was a good idea in retrospect, because it was it was taking the band like a live band and going into the studio making a record. That's why
it's sounds different. But I missed the air of of of the MCA Whitney where we did the Heat of the Night, the way Pete's sounds, his tones where there's a lot of air in it, and also during crimes
of passion. I always like to do record maybe the song or songs that have the strongest has the most strength behind them in something that you're gonna be able to play the record company that you know, if you do two songs first, the three songs they have the record company come in, come in and get them charged up right, and get those out of the way. And one of them was housed for children and and that was one of the I think was the first song
that Patricia was going to sing for the record. And I remember Keith gave me the keys to his poor She goes, if you want to just go cruise around, you know, I'll just do the vocal here with Patricia, and when you come back, you can do over dumps, we can do the other stuff. I go, okay. So I took the keys and I came back Patria. Patricia was in the studio crying on the floor, and I go, Pete, I mean, Keith, where's Patricia? She goes. He says, she's
in there. She's in the studio. I go, what's the matter? He goes, Things are going so good? Oh, yet what happened, So I went on, I talked to her. So I had to go in and start rebuilding a different mix for her in her headphones to be able to sing, and and all of a sudden she started singing the way she was normally she normally sang. She felt more comfortable with me in there from heat to night and
working with Pete and I never left. And that's that's why the producer chair kind of and the credited part of it began was during that. For that reason, I never left. Then. I was there for everything.
Okay, you know, Keith is no longer with us, but he had some great success with Leetwood Mac and others. You worked with a lot of producers. What's your take on Keith. Did he add anything? Yeah?
I thought he was great. What he added was letting, letting the artists just just do it. He would record it to make sure it was recorded properly. He used this Dolby, which which not a lot of people used Dolby on rock records. But there was a compression part of it that that I kind of liked. It made it kind of solid. It lost some of the top and air and some of the openness of it, but it had another sound to it, and I kind of
like that. I thought Keith was was great and we got along really really well in the beginning, but then there is the temptation and then all of a sudden, the double creeps in, and you know, there was some issues with drugs and things like that, and I could I saw a decline during that record. I saw it sort of fade out. He was having trouble personally, and and then I just felt as I really needed to step in and kind of say what was going on because he wasn't himself. It's like I've known him in
the beginning. Uh, you know, cutting the tracks that we did so.
Okay on that album is really pats gigantic breakthrough hit Me with your Best Shot. How did that come into the mix?
Uh? That song was also floating around when I was with Darrenger, and I kind of had it and and I I brought it in. Keith said he brought it in, and I did a demo of it in New York in a studio with Patricia before we before we went to LA to do the Crimes of Passion record, and I brought the demo with me and of us doing it, I says, this, this is probably a hit. You know, it's it's it has all those things, and a record company loved it. So that's that's how we did that.
I mean, I brought it a demo of art, we did a version of it.
Okay, when it was done, did you say, man, this is a hit, this is going to go all the way, or you just say, hey, this is another good track. It'll get some radioaction.
No, I knew it was a hit.
Yeah.
It had all that stuff, you know. Yeah, it's you know, it's it's a cliche line. It's easy for people to sing, it's a pop song. It had everything there, you know. I kind of like the guitar solo too. I don't I'm not a I don't really pay attention to any of that stuff. But it did. It did fire through the like normally when a guitar solo solo would come in, if it's just wheedling and just a bunch of stuff
that doesn't have any meaning to it. Not that there's anything wrong with that either, sometimes just the intensity of that. But I wanted it to be melodic. I wanted to fire it off and keep people's attention because nobody really wants to hear to me. I don't know, when they're listening to a song sing along, they don't really want to hear guitar solos, right unless unless there's something memorable about it, and what mel I some sort or whatever.
And I thought as a record that completed everything at the very end of the song, what I used to put on the end of all of them, every one on Crimes and Passion, it was called it E nine to eleven chord, And no matter what song it was, I'd always played a SA so all the outtakes, if you heard outtekes of the record, they'd have that little chord on the end of it and hit me add that to the sad.
So how did you end up recording You Better Run by the Rascals?
Yeah, that was for the Roady Soundcheck soundtrack the film, and that's where we worked with Keith first. And that warned great. That was almost a test, a testing point. They said, well we'll do that first. That was the first song we recorded, and we were all in a studio for that, so I was in there. We did the vocal. Everything nobody ever left out of that and that was just done for the Roady soundtrack.
I think who picked the track.
Actually Patricia used to use it in some of those gigs that she was doing before, but more, you know, more like a tame version, like a little organ part had it and more it wasn't as like maybe guitar driven that kind of thing.
And what's the story on Treat Me Right?
I think Treat Me Right just came in as a collection of songs that people thought the record company thought would be good. Normally, if if we didn't write the songs, they would be given to me. And what I always did always is I would I would really rip them apart and it would never sound like any demo that was given I did. I did that all the time. I wanted to. I wanted to make it for Patricia and make it different, and I just I just I just hear it different. That's another thing that which I
do and I love. When I was learning guitar and keepers well guitar, especially from the pioneers, I would learn the parts, but I wouldn't concentrate on the parts. I would try to find parts that I would play and embellish the parts. So I was always looking as a sidebar to kind of change the arrangement or parts in
all those songs. So by taking a song if we didn't write it, I would try to really mess it up and try a lot of different ways to do it and come up with something different, interesting, you know.
Okay, on the second album there's a cover of Wuthering Heights. Kate Bush is an icon. Now that was on our first album, had like no traction in America. How'd you end up recording that song?
We were on tour in the beginning of nineteen eighty. We were in this little petit cap what is it called the Petite I can't remember the name. It was this little cafe in France, in Paris, and we were having lunch and I love Kate Bush. I was aware of that, and I heard out in the landing. I'm thinking, ooh, we should do that. I love Kate Bush. We should do that song. So at that point that's when we
did it. After hearing it in the cafe, I said, Patricia, than it is, this could be a really good song for us.
Okay from the outside, I mean I had the first album and was certainly aware, but hit me with your best shot, blows pat bennettar into the upper leagues as big as anybody else. What does it look like from your perspective, Yeah.
It was the same thing. It was right around the time, and it would be after MTV, I mean after the beginning of MTV, which would be You Better Run, So you Better Run was out there before hit me was I'm pretty sure. So yeah, that blew up. That blew up, it did. It blew up big. The part I liked is it pulled attention to some of the other hells for children's songs like that. Those are my favorite because they're I don't know, I just I just like them.
And you wrote them. Okay. Meanwhile, as you referenced earlier, Pat is married. Her married name is Bennett tar where's her husband doing all this?
Well, he was there. He was there in the beginning of I remember. I remember when I went to meet her. She was like, it was like insane, because this is part of the metaphysical stuff, the universe, which never seems to get it wrong. As I'm walking through the door, I see her and I'm walking towards her, and the
whole room disappeared. There was like for her too. There's no one else made any difference in the room, just her and I'm just walking up and I remember just talking to her and all of a sudden she turns around. She goes, well, this is my home husband. And I said, oh, well, nice to meet you. I mean, sure, nice.
And he was.
Around and I didn't know any I didn't know anything. I didn't know their relationship. But it wasn't like that wasn't what I was there for. I'm professional, I'm not going to do that there. Whatever the relationship is, Yeah, that's sure. I'm there to be a partner, work together and make great records and have a great career. That was it.
So how did it end with him and begin with you or vice versa.
Yeah, well, I didn't realize that there was a friction in the relationship relationship, but I remember, uh, there was friction in my relationship.
And this was the same woman from Connecticut.
Yes, yes, yes, And it was just the timing it was. It wasn't right for it wasn't right for her and I. You know, but I remember, I mean, here, you it's like the water cooler syndrome. You know, you're you're you're in the band together. Here and I are partners. The rest of the guys were going to tell them what we want to do. But we are the partners, so here we go. You know what what she wanted? What you know what the plan was is, you know, you
know Keith and what do you call it? Sorry, Jimmy, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, you know, and Keith and Mick and you know that whole sender, guitar singer, right, this is the whole pattern. Right. So we're getting We're getting closer and closer. We're together all the time, so things are starting to have a little bit. So I says, I think we need to have a meeting. I need to tell you something important. So she thought I was going to tell her that I was leaving the band.
That was just going to be gone. This was after the record was done. By the way, we weren't we weren't together. This was we just musicians out a relationship. So I had this conversation. She thought I was leaving the band, and I remember I was doing these little figures that I were sitting there and I'm having a cup of tea or something, and I tell her, my girlfriend, it's not working out. She did something that wasn't appropriate,
and I'm leaving her you know. And then she subsequently said things aren't working out with me either, and I said, well, you want to go out or something and nuts, and that's that's what happened. That's how it happened.
And I think his name was Dennis. How did he take it?
Yeah, I don't think he took it well. My girlfriend at the time didn't take it well. But we had a record. We had an after record party in Los Angeles. Were heated in that record and my girlfriend was there and her husband, Dennis was there, but they were sitting next to each other, so it was well, and the Patricia was more towards me and we both kind of just looked at her for a second and went, maybe
that's an omen you know. And that never happened. They they never got together, but they were having so much fun talking. I'm thinking, well, I guess I think something else is gonna happen. But this this was before any ideas were going on. This is when we're still in La So and from the very first show we did live we were a couple. That was it.
Okay, how does MTV change the UH Act from being inside the act? Yeah?
Well, that thing it blew up everything. I mean, it was. It was. It was from walking out your front door and getting in the car and going to CVS or something to go buy some toothpaste. So you can't get out your front door because a bunch of people there. Oh my god. Right. I was like, oh shit, this what just happened? And then it never stopped. So it got it. We just got out of control.
Yeah, so the next album you also work with Keith O. You get a co producer credit. If there were issues on the previous album, why'd you work with them on that album?
Because of the success of it. You know, the record companies, you know, they're not going to make a move and I fight it. I wanted Pete to come back, him and I, but I wasn't gonna fight a battle with that. I just said, okay, we'll do it. And that was that was. That was a disaster. So that was that was lining up to be the end with with working with Keith for sure. Yeah, that was. Yeah. It really had some trouble times and I feel bad for him.
You know, you know, his his his wife's sister lived across from where we lived, and you know, he'd call me in the middle and I could you do me a favorite. Could you just walk over there? I can't find my wife, and I mean it really personal issues. It was awful. I hated to see that happen to him. But but I was growing too, We were all growing. I didn't want I didn't want to make the same
record again. I I needed to make different I wanted something different to happen, more genres of different space, different things.
Okay, you're not front person. However, there's gigantic success. To what degree do you feel pressure to equal it?
Oh? Yeah, there was always pressure, but it didn't It didn't affect me at all. Pressure pressure is living in Cleveland and not knowing what your future holds and how how you have to live through neurosis and sickness and all the other things. None of that stuff. I wasn't afraid of any of that. Part of the thing, Bob, is that with everything I did, I want to challenge myself because I got over some really nasty sickness and emotional chaos that I was going to challenge everything myself.
The audience didn't matter what. I wasn't afraid for one second.
So you had complete confidence. You never second guess yourself, You were never up the middle of the night, saying, shit, maybe we're going in the wrong direction.
Nope, not once did. I did later on. I think it was around this seventh record or something. Yeah, I did. I did later, but not in the beginning. Not then. No, I was coming in and I would say, this is I want to try this. Everybody on board, We're going to do this. Let's do this.
Okay, how did you end up recording Fire and Ice?
Fire and Ice was a song that Tom Kelly was writing, and uh, and uh, he just had it, he just had it. We brought it in when wow, this this course explodes here, this is this will be really good for Patricia and and we just went in and did it. I think I was on precious time. Uh yeah, that record right, the second third one?
And then how about the Raiders cover?
Uh that was just Look. Here's the thing too, this was we we really didn't have enough time between records, you know, the the management this was a poor decision on their part. Our legal team too, was it was wasn't a good thing. When we had the huge success with Crimes of Passion, we had a if we didn't make a record every nine months, we'd go into suspension. Now, if you make to have that kind of success the Crimes of Passion had, you can waive all that stuff.
You can make a difference, you can change all kinds of things. Well, they never changed that. They get more money, He got more money, but that was just an advance. So it was a really bad, bad business management decision. So we'd get done with the road and they say, well, guess what. You got to go back in the studio in about two weeks. So we didn't have time to sit there and write songs. We were writing songs on the road. There was too much chaos, right, so we
didn't have the time to do it, you know. And they were just looking for covers, you know. And Patricia found it and said let's do that. I said, okay, sure you want to do it, we'll do it.
It was, you know whatever, Okay, who's the manager?
Rick Newman, right, so he was still the manager. Now somewhere along this line you get involved with Rick Springfield and Jesse's girl. How the hell does that happen?
Yeah, well, that happens because I let's see, it was I think it was after Crimes of Passion. Crimes of Passion was done, and then I was offered a job to produce John Waite's for a solo record, So I produced Ignition for John Waite and and then that was starting to do really well. And then Keith and I were getting along at that time, and he says, you know, I really want you to do let's do this together. That was the idea. We're going to produce it together.
You and I were going to do this thing. And and then I heard the song from Rick and I'm thinking, wow, Rick, he wrote it, this is a great song. This is going to be a great pop song, going to be great. And it was very stiff, and it didn't have the
middle eight section and it needed help. But the song itself was very, very strong, and like Rick likes to explain it, when he was doing ad Do Do Do is very stiff, right, It was more like a like you know, and then my natural thing is to swing it more dumb bob boom boom boom, just kind of grab that kind of feel and beat. So then we went in the studio and I do what I would do most of the time if it's a live track we're cutting it on, you do guitar and drums and vocals,
and then you do overdubbed the bass. I don't want the bass in there because I really want to work inside the drummer because I played drums and I like the rhythm to really kind of link together so I can hear that really defined in the vocal. And so we just went in and did that. We did I've done everything for you. That was another song that was I think floating around that Sammy Hagar did and kind of introduced that to Rick too.
So did you know because Rick Springfield was at the nader of his career, no one cared about Rick Springfield. Did you have any idea that was going to be the gigantic track it was?
Truthfully, yeah, I thought it was a smash. When we had it done, I went, this is this is a number one song, and then it became number one. So so, Bob, here's the deal. I have a number one song. I just got done producer John Waite's record. Ozzie's asking me to produce his record. I'm getting all these other offers. Crimes of Passion is exploding. I feel like, Oh, I can do anything, do anything. Now, look out, I'm coming at you.
Okay. This is the music business and a lot of the songs were not written by either you or Pat correct Were you seeing the money and were you seeing the amount of money you should have seen?
No, no, but but it certainly was enough that it was okay. So it really wasn't about that part, you know. I always felt, like I said in earlier in our conversation today, is that if you do a great song, it's going to be heard. If if I take somebody else's song that they wrote and I completely dismantled the hell out of it and make it into something that's great, it's gonna make but it's gonna do what it has to do. And I'm not worried about the money. I don't care about it. I want it to be a hit.
Listen loves a Battlefee was turned down by the record company. They hate it and said, what's it? What's your problem? Mike Chapman, who wrote it, said in Holly and I said, what the hell you do it? We hate it. Peter Coleman, who I did it with Pete and he says, I don't think. I don't get that. What were you thinking about? I go, Pete, I know this is a hit like this, I know it's a hit. I guarantee this song's a hit. And then Pete. The great story is Pete goes home.
He's not a drinker. He goes home and he drinks half a bottle of Kognak. He puts it on and he listens to it. He goes son of a Bitchniel's right came in the next day. He says, I'm behind you one hundred percent. Get it now.
Okay. They didn't like it because radically different from the demo, or they just didn't like it.
Oh, radically different, a different, completely different song. You know, the demo was very melancholy, and you know, didn't have the didn't have any of those things that were going on that would give it the kick the charge, right, you know, it's not starting up, you know, you know. And I put the talking on because I thought it'd be funny, like the Supremes put whistling on. I thought
that was kind of fun. Took a little light hearted thing, made it more like a Bo Diddley beat, got a different groove, sped it up considerably, changed the whole dynamic of the song. But I felt that was the right thing to do. And the real funny part is that when it be and Mike hated it, so when it became a hit, people were calling him and saying, could you write another one like Battlefield? I know somebody that did, and I'll tell you who that was. You know, the
saw Boys of some of course. Okay, how similar is that? The Love is a Battlefield?
Pretty similar?
Oh? Interesting? Interesting? Well, listen, you could say what you want about Don Haley. He's a very talented guy. He's got a little reputation sometimes not being a nice guy whatever, But I'll tell you what that guy is an honest guy. He's honest and he's a great talent. Right. He ran into me at MCA Whitney Studios. He said, how did you do Battlefield? I said, you want to know? He goes, yeah, I want to steal it. I said, you do. I go Here's how I did it. I did it on
a LYNDR. I did this. I did it on this beat. I wanted a bowdilly beat. I wanted to have this. This is what I did. So I explained it to him and he went out and he did it.
Cool.
But somebody else that was part of it doesn't say the same story.
So okay, well, you know, I both know personally and you know it's pretty out there who's involved. But when it is a hit, do you feel proud or rip doll?
I proud? From from from Don Henley's point of view, I feel proud. Yeah, I don't. I don't feel ripped. I just you know, in music, you you you know, it's it's important to be truth people. People can smell when it's not the truth, right, it's important. And and I just think if you if you're gonna, if you're gonna go on social media or something like that, just tell the truth, you know, find you know, you don't have to, you don't have to make up something. You know,
it's it's just it's just odd to me. You think somebody would kind of make sense. You know. I heard this record, you know, I really liked it. Doesn't buy you bother anybody. Just tell the truth on it, right. But I did see a little I have to say that because I saw a little YouTube thing I'm talking with, like, I wonder how you got that idea?
So okay, moving on Shadows of the Night, Yeah, m hmm, Shadows of the Night.
It's a story there, great chorus, had a great chorus, and knew that was right.
The verse.
The verse lyrics were not good, so we rewrote those. That's the one where there should be credit established for that, but there wasn't. Didn't have an intro was killing me because I the intro I had was horrible. It's like d D D D D D D D ball boom. It's horrible. It was bothering me. I knew I had a hit, but I didn't know how to start it. And you know that if you if you're gonna have a hit record, that intro better defined. You better know
what that is within the first eight bars. So I battlefield boomed bah bah boom, bah bah bah boom, ba boom. You know the song we belong baa b b b b buh. You know the song right shuttles at the night. So Pete's in the other room. I'm getting a cup of tea. I hear through the hall of him balancing the vocals of the horus. As I hear that, I go, that's it. So I go running from the kitchen and I go, Pete, stop, stop that right there. That's our intro. He said, what are you talking about? He says, Let's
take that. Let's put it on a quarter inch machine. Let's fly it in the beginning that is our intro, and that's how we got the intro, the a cappella part. He was balancing the vocals there and I wanted to put that on the front of front of the record, and that's, to me, was a part that really made that song hit because you want to have a great beginning, and that's starting. What all those vocals was. It just sounds so beautiful. Her voice sounds tremendous on it.
So you're working with Peter Coleman again. Is the magic still there? Yes?
Absolutely, we could have went him and I could have went on to be a producer of partnership with so many people. We would have had such a great career together like that. But Pete's is such a great guy, such a great great and he's you know, he he's happy to just go to the studio, same studio every day. An engineer, he's a brilliant engineer. He doesn't have the pressure of anything. He could just go in into it and that was what he loved the most. So then
he moved to Nashville and he's a great engineer. Jason Aldine, I think he does his records and it just goes the same studio, comes in at ten o'clock in the morning, leaves it six or whenever he does it, and yeah, it was still there.
And what about we Belong? How do you end up recording that we belong?
It came as an acoustic demo with just acoustic guitar and vocal, and Patricia heard it and she goes, I think I think this could be a hit. We can make a hit with this. I go, I don't know. I know, I'm not getting it. I'm not hearing it yet. I got I got the I get it, I get the course, I get it, but I'm not I don't know yet. I don't know yet. And then and she said, I know you could do it. You could come up.
And then, you know, thanks to Pete in my love of everything he does and his use of of rhythm, sequence, rhythm, whether it's Bob O'Reilly or you know, any of that stuff, I'm thinking maybe I should have like a fast repeating thing, you know, that up something that would change. So I had this super prime time unit was a delay unit, and I played one chord on it. Oh, Charlie, I
think he was a keyboard player. I played this one chord and I took these knobs and I start switching the delays up to create this kind of hypnotic delay part. And that gave me the idea of Okay, now I can develop this into something different and and that's and that's how that's from that point I went, okay, now I can develop this song properly.
So okay. Ultimately, Pat's hits dry up, as they do for everybody. But what was the experience for you and Pat?
In what regard.
Did you feel that the record company let you down? Do you feel that the records were good enough and not promoted? Do you feel that somehow you weren't nailing it anymore? Did an executive leave? You know, people usually have a story.
Yeah, we kind of got We kind of got over it. You know. It wasn't the record company's fault, nobody's fault. All it was us that we got it was too long doing the same thing, and I, you know, really I tried to mix it up as best I could, different genres and everything else. And it wasn't until the True Love record. I've been trying to do a swing blues, jump blues record for years. So we were in a port of renegotiating the record deal, and I says, why
do we do it like a jump blues record. I heard this great record by the Room full of Blues with Big Joe TURNERU, I said me, if we can capture that kind of sound and the roof flow are great because they played the horse way behind the beat and John Rossy phenomenal drummer, really fattens that thing up. It's a great feel, and that's what we wanted to change it. We weren't interested in just keep doing pop songs as hits, and we wanted to do others, something,
something different. And I was producing so many other people at the time. I was all over the place, Steve Forbert, jeez, I can't even think of you know, the del Lords, two albums for the Delords, Beth Hart. I mean, I was all over the place, and that was at least feeding me and Patrician didn't Carris and she wasn't sure she could be able to do a swing. Recognizays, yeah, you can listen to Big may Bell. You can be Big may Bell on this. You got it right. So
that changed it. So from that point moving forward, we were okay.
So you're producing records, jamaking records with Pat pat stops having hits. What happens with your production career.
I'm trying to think of what was going on at that time. I think I was still producing people. I was writing, writing a lot. And the thing about writing is you write and if you collect it, which I always did, whether it was at that machine, it has said, whatever those parts, if they're good and they have life, they'll live forever. Right. They're melodies right there, there are words, you know whatever. You have, not full songs, but you have those parts. So I was doing a lot of that.
But I got to think of the time I did some film composing. Patrisia was kind of worn out, you know, you know, the same routine over and over again, trying to be part of that machine. And you know, we didn't really we really didn't want to continue. Basically, she didn't want to continue with that. So I'd produce other people, like I said, film scoring and work on other things.
Well how'd you get the film scoring gigs?
Just from a couple of different directors, you know, they said, you know, hey, you should be doing film scores. I said, okay, yeah, sure, I'll do that. In fact, I got one coming up now this director Jeff Kramer, who's a great director. So that's going to be happening sometime later this after later this year.
So do you like film scoring?
I do? I do. I I like the usage of different instruments. I like the palette. I like to create for like a film score. I like to create the so called band, whether you'll be an upright bass player, you know, a trumpet player, small kit drums, maybe just acoustic guitars, electric or violin or quartet, all different things like that. I want to mix it up a little bit and try to get the emotion whichever the film
is explaining or talking to me to do. So yeah, I do like that, and I love I love writing. So writing writing moves everything forward to me.
At some point it goes from being Pat Bennittar to Pat bennetts Ar and Neil Giraldo. How does that happen?
That happens because Patricia, it's not it's not something she was guilty about, but she she felt so much of the career that we did really was a partnership. You know, you have you have so many bands out there that that whatever they are, you know, there's usually one person in the band or two people in a band does everything and controls there, you know, their dynamic controls, not control wrong word musically makes it all kind of flow. And she knows, uh what I put into it and
what I did. But see, early on, for me, I followed the Truman thing. You know, you be amazed at what you can accomplish if you don't care about who gets a credit. And I didn't care. I was just happy to do the work that I did. And Patricia didn't like how I was treated by the record company because at times they weren't very kind, uh, you know to me and things. And but it was okay. I mean, if you're winning, it's like if you're on a football team or baseball whatever it is. If you're winning, that
changes everything. That's all you care about. Right, So she just wanted to be partnering with that we could do more things with it. It just it just kind of explain what it was from the very beginning. And actually her thing too was she never really wanted to be the girl, like just the girl singer, like every what the record companies were doing. You know, there were no girls in bands. There were a few, but not a lot, right,
And when that happened. If you didn't have a girl in a band, you couldn't get signed, you couldn't get a record deal. That's when you saw all the influx of all these girl driven bands that happened. Right, So that's all was so I change it and says, okay, sure, whatever you want.
So how was it raising kids as a musician?
It was great. I mean, you know, we'd watch the Laker games and when the kids were younger, and I'd have a dat machine run and I'd be writing songs in the background and you would be hearing check her and talk about how they make plays. You know, somebody scoring and you know the kids are laughing and I'm writing songs. Yeah, it was easy. I mean we took them on every tour, every single one, all the time.
Well what if they were in.
School and then we did that and they would we were a tutor.
Doctor, And what are they up to today?
My youngest Hannah is a tremendous songwriter. My god, she's tremendous, a great actress as well. She's It's the blessing and the curse to this is I love children. I want to have children badly. I thought on Sunday's Italian Day. You know, you're gonna break bread, gonna have the family, They're gonna eat for like five hours long. It's gonna be great. Great kids come over, Hinda walks through the door, Papa, can we go in the studio? It's like, oh, man,
can we just sit around and relax today. So but it's great. And my oldest daughter is really talented as well. She's the one that has the three babies, three grand babies that we have, which she's really talented too, with art and a lot of different things, planning, she does these. She's just she's a she's got a phenomenal eye. So yeah, it's great.
So how much do you and Pat work now I'm talking about on the road.
On the road a couple well, let's say maybe a couple month and a half or something in the summer. Maybe there's a month in the fall, month in the spring. That's the for me personally, it's the only time I can let my brain rest a little bit and I could be sort of a teenager while I'm out there. You know, I can just play instruments and not have to create anything, and just you know, I you know, I don't know where songs care. I don't know how this even works, and nobody really does and nobody can
really tell it. But I'll tell you this though. It's an obsessive compulsive disorder because it never leaves, so totally every minute of my life is writing something, right. I mean, you're a great writer, Bob. I mean the way you write it. You cover so many things, and when I read it, it's like this guy is like writing these amazing things. Forget the subject matter. It's brilliant writing, right. So you can't stop either. You know, when I wake up, I want to be wake Why do I want to
be awake? Because I want to start writing and it's a sickness, so I have. I'm about ready to do something profound in a career because I've waited a long time. I may be doing a solo record with of course all original songs, but different guest stars, a different singers and different people on it. That's all about the songs, of production and you know the music.
So needless to say, the landscape has changed dramatically in forty years. There were fewer records. Record companies were powerful. If you have an established name, you got a shot. Now you can be a legendary act from the seventies maybe eighties. You can put your heart and soul into a record and it falls flat, irrelevant of the quality. You know, how is that relative to your incentive to do it?
I don't care. I don't care at all. Honestly, I don't care, because just because it falls flat doesn't mean it stays flat. Alls it takes is one ear, one listened somewhere that kind of goes, wait a minute, this could be something. Listen the history of the things that I've done. Here's I have a fought be about this too. If you listen to a record the first time you hear the record, if you love it as a listener,
that's a problem. I want somebody to listen to it and go, hm, I don't know if I'm getting this. Second listen maybe, and by the fifth listen, you're going I can live with this now, you know. I love this. And that's It's like I said in the very beginning we're talking, is that it doesn't matter where you're at. If you have a great song, it will be heard. It'll work. And here's the thing that I don't think
you know. The the thing the rock and roll or rock that word or whatever you want to do with that. I don't think there's a way to rejuvenate that. Bring back phil Oaks. Try to try to mix genres, try to have something that has meaning and mix things up. Don't be afraid, right, I mean, if you're not brave, you have nothing to lose. I mean, you know, huh, you know, I just I think it's I have hope, you know, yeah, I gotta I gotta stop for a second.
You mentioned phil Oaks. Correct, why phil Oaks?
Because you know the that genre, you know, the the protest music. I mean that that was that was rocking its own self. Like why can't you open up, you know, like where his head was at, find out what that is? Speak that language. Mix it with Howland Wolf across a cross cross gender that not grot wrong words, all right, I mean that word across like mix up things so different that you have to question, what are you listening to? Do you know what I'm saying?
I know exactly what?
Yeah, I mean, uh great, you know dre Oh my god, that's rock news. If you look at rock as being the thing that you know defines a generation, you know, the stuff he did was phenomenal, But why don't you take uh, you know, like blues Junior kimbroke that vibe that really like scary. Oh, I don't know what the word scary blues Mississippi blues thing and put it with phil Oaks. You know, phil Oaks wrote beautiful songs with power Changes is a beautiful melody, one of the most
prettiest melodies ever written. I mean, and this his mind was, it was pure, he was real, you know, So, uh, is there something there? I think? Don't be afraid? I mean, I think, I.
Think.
Uh, I personally, I don't have fear of failure in that I don't. I don't have fear of releasing something and somebody goes, who cares it gets thirty views? I don't care because if I know it's good, it's all matters to me. I'm not and I don't think i'll be. I'm not the renaissance man, and I'm not gonna change the way people listen to music of the way sounds
are going to be completely different. That's not gonna happen, but it's going to be interesting and you may be a little shocked what it sounds like.
So you're gonna make this solo album. I Am I Am okay human. Pat also wrote a children's book. How did that come to be?
Correct? Yeah, they got a hold of us about writing a grandparents book. It was the love the I love Caa, I love Rob Light and everybody up there. They've been really good for us and really nice people and creative people. And we have grand babies and we love them to death, right, so why not write a book about grand babies? Just have fun, you know, just something something that people can look at. You know. The the image of a grandparent used to be that old. You know your grandparents, do you?
You remember then your grandparents see you do? Right? So that's not the way it is now, you know. And here's the other thing I talk about too. Nobody ever thought about what's going to happen to all these rock and roll musicians with their health going forward? What's going to happen? You know, you got Pete Trampton with his terrible thing, you Phil Collins, you got serious issues with
their health. So for me, I'm looking for Kobe Bryant to be my example a person that had in order to be a musician in this age group in the sixties, seventies and eighties. You have to think of yourself like Kobe Bryant, as an athlete because you can't do those things you did when you were younger. You have to change your diet, you have to exercise. You got all these things that are and you have to be sound mind. That helps everything you're writing your life.
Okay, you and Pat were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. That has to feel good. But do you think Pat gets the recognition and attention she deserves. Let me use sort of an equivalent thing. Yeah, Stevie Nick she has very much has a persona, but as a solo act, Pat has more hits and Stevie's been embraced by younger generations. You know, what do you think about this Pat's place in the firmament and whether there's you know, runway to get younger generations on board. Yeah.
I think what we see usually is we have a young collection of people that come to see us all the time, and it's evident in our lives. Maybe not in the public sector or whatever you're looking at there, but in real life. And the parents that bring the kids who are like nine years old, thirteen, they're they're in it. They're there, and and there's boys, young boys that are musicians that are learning the stuff that I've done. And there's a lot of that. But for Patricia, she's
a defiant person. She's a tough person who worked really really hard. So and she don't give a fuck. I gotta tell you. Her attitude is like, I don't give a fuck. She don't care. She's defiant. I love it. I love that. I love that she's like that. She don't care. So she don't care about that either. She don't think about this person getting this person. I think the only thing about that rock Call thing was I think it takes that long, really like it has to
take that long. Well, then you got to look at who's who's running it. Now, you know, Greg Harris a great guy. These are great people. John Sykes go and guess guess what, John Sykes. She said, drive me around in his station wagon. And I was Rick Darenter to to radio stations. He was the guy when I saw him. He go, Okay, do you remember in nineteen seventy eight I was driving you and Ric Roundry. I says, sure I do, John, Yes, I do. You did good?
Okay? At the Rock and Roll induction ceremony. You did most of the talking and Pat was relatively silent. Is that your relationship is that Pat? Uh?
Nah? Well, no, I do not really, I don't know. That's a tough question to ask, a tough question to answer. I mean, on certain subjects, I definitely are I'm the one that's gonna do the talking about other things like if we go out with friends or like that she does all the time. Can I just listen? I can't get a word in. She just talks.
But she was.
She she wanted my voice to be heard too, you know. She I support a lot of things. I support support children, I support schools, music education, I support a lot of different things. A lot of people don't know because I've been so quiet. To your point early on in our conversation today, social media, you should be out there. You should be doing that stuff. I don't do it. I should do more. I definitely should do more, without a doubt. So it was I don't know, I don't know why.
Just she just she was happy just to kind of be there. And she said, go ahead and spider talk, do whatever you want, you know.
So okay, as I said earlier, you're a very verbal, friendly, nice guy. Great hang. But you talk about growing up with a gooraphobia and other mental maladies. Yeah, we're seeing me now telling your story. But do you ever get depressed? You ever have moods?
Sure, I get I get it, but I don't have anything like I had before, not at all, nothing like that. Nothing. Yeah. I sometimes I'm afraid of moods because I don't really get that angry bob. You know. But if I get angry about something, I have a little bit fear because if somebody, somebody harms somebody emotionally, somebody else, I go into Anthony gerald on my fatherland and I will put my head, my fist or concrete if I have to, I'll protect my own, no question. Or if somebody's bullying.
I hate bullying. I hate faceless cowards. I hate all that stuff. Don't like it. You know that don't get me? So maybe I maybe I choose to be silent in that way because I don't want to deal with the ugliness. You know, I'll write about it. You'll see it in the New Star songs that I'm writing. Is there's something there, you'll hear it.
Okay, But you portray your life. There's a lot of solitary time. You wake up at three point thirty in the morning, you never get into dark spaces.
I do, I do, but I let. Luckily, I'm able to channel that into writing. I mean, because it's the only way you can let the endorphins take care of depression. You know what it's like when you write something great. I know you you're writing something. You go, damn, that's a good line. Damn I wrote that. That was really good. I know you're doing that.
Bob.
Well, the funny are you?
The funny thing is I can see that people say, oh, nobody knows what a hit is et One of my favorite stories. That's hanging with Al Cooper and he's telling me the story of how he got a call from Ronnie van zandt we have a new record. We do song we want to record. The first album had just come out. He says, come into the studio. They're in Florida, he's in Atlanta, says, come to the studio on Monday, we'll cut it. The record did not come out for
a year. It was you know, Sweet Home Alabama. And I said, Al, did you know it was a hit? And he said it was sweet Home Alabama. The people who do something great. You know when you do something great, And that's why I love you talked earlier. You hit me with your best shot of it. You know it, and you bet you try to hit an eleven and you can't hit an eleven on a regular basis. Anybody tells you they can is full of shit. You're never gonna do something shitty, but something that little bit extra.
You're searching for it. You know when you do it, and then you're depressed after its over. I listen, by the way, I love Al Cooper. He's a great guy. I love that guy. He's done great, great stuff. But you know, like I said, you know, it's just being trueful. I mean, that's all it is. Here's the thing, too, I love the what is it Warren Buffett thing? What he says he says, if if what he uses as a deal, I don't care if it's a deal any
this is any subject. But if he says it's like, yeah, that's a really good deal, he says, don't do it. That's a great deal. Don't do it.
Oh hell yeah, do it. And so it's the same with a hit. You just know it when I heard When Doves Cry the first time, I went, that's a smash. That's a fantastic song. Different hit, you know, And the things that we've done that were big hits, I knew they were. You can't kid yourself. I know that. You know if somebody like the record companies, So what do you think of this? If you say, yeah, excuse me, I think it's pretty good. That's not a hit. That's not you got to say, oh hell yeah, oh hell yeah.
That's why Bob that oh hell yeah song will always get hurt. It will always get hurt. Alls it takes is the right thing, and then it multiplies and multiplies. It's like sickness. It's like a disease. It just keeps going in a positive way.
Well, now you're inspiring me.
Well hell yeah, I mean I don't have to inspire you. You're a I'm telling you.
You know.
I love Colin Coward, you know, the sports guy, right because he talks about sports, but then he goes off and talks about other things because sports is real life. Like there's a real life going on right there. And like Bill Cower, similar sort of name, Bill Cowher. I love it. I ran into coach Cower, and I says, you know what, I really loved that. She said, if a player makes a mistake, he pulls them aside and goes.
You owe me. The player does good, he comes back, he goes worry even right, So you know these things are all true. I'm telling you that the reason you love to write is you're getting in the doorphin rush because you got a lot of shit wrong with you. I read this stuff. You know, Ah you got you went to the dentist, you went to ah, you got all these things. I've seen you laughing. They can't hear you on the podcast.
Say, you know, the funny thing is you're one hundred percent right, and you know these types of things. I talk to my psychiatrist. I know a lot of business people and we're friends. But the people I really could relate to the artists. It's just something different. I could go on and on, but that's about me in any event, Neil, Hell, yeah, it was great talking to you. Great talking to you too.
Anytime you need you need any ps psychiatric help, call me. I'll help you through it. As well as I say, you're inspiring me. And I wasn't in the greatest mood earlier. Well, anytime you need to you need to talk, just call me. I'll be happy to talk to you off the record, whatever you want. Man I love what you do of thin song. That's been amazing. Thank you until next time. This is Bob left set H