Pat Simmons

And then I thought, you know, it's probably never gonna happen, and I was doing let's see, I I was, I was. This is a little convoluted here, but I was on a at a motorcycle event. It was something called the Cannonball Uh antique motorcycle and Earns run and my wife and I have done it quite a few times, and it's a motorcycle ride across country on antique motorcycles. I've been into old bikes forever and so we were on

our old bikes. I had my nineteen fourteen Hourly to Speed and she was on her nineteen twin and we had made it. Oh gosh, kind of a cross country. I think my bike had blown up by that time, but she was still riding her bike. And we we had scheduled to do an interview with a guy from the Huffington Post and his name is Crips Chris Epting, and he wanted to do an article about the ride and about our participation, and it came through, you know, the the band's publicist at the time, and so he

showed up. We were sometime somewhere down out in the Palm Desert, somewhere. We had made it that far, and uh so, Chris showed up and he took some pictures and started talking with us, and we did this interview and it came out in the Huffington Post and it was just a really nice little article about the ride and my wife and I ended up being more about my wife than me. So uh So, then we played in San Diego, probably I don't know, a week later.

I went right back on the road from this ride, ridden across country and then boom, I'm back on tour with the band and we're in San Diego playing and Chris lives down there. He said, you know, I'd like to come to the show. And so came to the show and after sometime during the course of events, while he was there, it around in our my hotel room. My wife and I were both there, and he said, you know, do you guys have a biography about the band?

Anybody ever write a book about the band? I said no, and told him the same thing I said to you that it was always something on my bucket list, but I had never done any goes. Well, you know, I just got done writing a book with John Oates kind of about his life and you know, his take on his participation in Hall of Oates. And he said, you know, I you know, if you're into it, I could help you get started on something. So I said, well, you know, maybe we could talk to the rest of the band,

and so we went in. I had a little meeting with myself and Tommy and John McPhee was there as well, and started talking about it, and Chris said, I could you know, I could help you. I could either you could do interviews with me and I could uh, you know, right stuff and it would sort of be He said, I think it would be most interesting to have it from your you guys joint vantage point, you know, Tommy and I you you started the band and you're still doing it, so it would be you know, you'd have

a really great overview. So um, that was how it came about. And in the end, you know, I would say Tommy and I probably wrote more than Chris in the end. He would write, he wrote things, and he's a great writer, and but sometimes he'd send me something back and I think that's not the way I would tell that story. And then I would just sit down at my computer and I would retype, you know, the whole thing kind of more a little bit more from

my perspective or more in my own voice. And but it was really Chris's prompting that that helped us to put it together, helped us to you know, dust off the cob webs and remember events. It was funny, you know, we as we did it. Uh. We we wrote things and I would think, well, that's good, there's a story. And then i'd I'd read it and I'd go, oh, I forgot about this or I forgot about that, and go, Christal, I have time to put this in. And you go, sure, you know you want to write it or you want

me to interview in. We'll put it together and I go, well, let me try it, and so I would sit down and write and it became a It was a lot of work because it took us literally years to do it, but it was fun at the same time to to remember things and and it was from from my perspective anyway, it was something that I originally wanted to do myself. So being having that opportunity to actually sit down with my own in my own voice and with my computer to write it myself, I enjoyed that aspect of it.

So so that was it. And uh, you know, um, you've got to thank Chris for you know, prodding us to get the project going, because really, I don't I don't know if it would have ever gotten off the ground if it hadn't been for him. Now, the two points in the book that stuck out for me were the transition from Tom to Michael McDonald. There was a lot more detail than we've ever seen in the press, and a number of negative comments about Skunk Baxter at the end of his tenure. How did you feel about

writing that stuff? Was that something well, I'm just writing the truth, or you were fearful that Skunk would not like it? What was going through your mind all of that. Absolutely. Um, I h that was a very difficult time and a difficult um you know, with with Tommy leaving the band, that was a horrible time for me personally. UM. Thanks to Jeff for really uh standing by me and and

you know I got a hand it to him. I think he was really strong at that point in at that transition as it as it turned out, you know, it just kind of went to went to hell in terms of his relationship with with the band. You know, in the end, kind of sad I was. I didn't know exactly how to present that in the end. I just kind of wrote it up the way it happened. You know. That was probably the only real kind of negative moment for me with anybody in the band in

terms of kind of a rough road to maneuver. But you know, I felt like that was that was the way it went, and that was the way I wrote it. Now, subsequent to the band breaking up in the early eighties, and there were a couple of charity gigs. Have you seen Skunk? Do you have any relationship with Skunk? I have seen him, Yeah, sure, UM, not not a lot. Ideologically,

we don't. We don't mesh. You know, Um, I don't know how far to get into politics because it really is political and you know what I mean, well, I won't say political ideological, but but these days, you know, ideological and political are kind of the same thing. So um yeah, I just I don't I don't buy the right wing, you know, sort of militaristic, ah intolerant if you will, attitude about that part of our of our country. Let's go back to the motorcycle. So how did you

get into motorcycles? Let's see, Well, you know, kind of I had friends in high school that that row, and they were always encouraging me to get into bikes. And I my first, you know, probably serious girlfriend's brother, um road with He had an old gosh, it was in nineteen forty forty one Knucklehead Harley that he wrote that was his everyday transportation. Really, I don't even think he had a car at that point. And I loved that bike.

I just admired the bike so much. And I had I had ridden, um you know, Hondas and stuff, and um not nothing I ever owned. It always belonged to my friends, and I rode and then one day this buddy of mine, Bill said, you know, I have a B S A four. He went, Victor, it's up in northern California at the guy's house and I loaned it to him to ride. And uh, I can't remember. We had probably talked about it at one point, he said,

but that bike's up in northern California. He said, I gave it to him to ride, and he's not riding it. So you know, if if you want to ride that bike, all you gotta do is go up and get it and you can ride it. So I said, oh, let's go. So we jumped in. I had a little MGB hatchback and we jumped in that car and we drove up to Crescent City, which is way up in northern California, right on the Oregon border. And uh. We got to the guy's place late at night and he said, you know,

where's the bike. He said, Oh, it's in over and my dad's business. It's in the garage. His dad had some kind of a of a business, screen door business or something. He goes over there and we can go get it in the morning. So so we stayed the night. We got up in the morning, we went over there and we walked and go where's the bike and he points over in the corner. He goes, it's over there, and we look at a bunch of cardboard boxes and

the bike was completely disassembled. So there's the engine here, the frames laying there and stuff is you know, not completely the engine had not been disassembled. Luckily, it was still in one piece. So anyway, we we Uh. My buddy says, well, we're taking the bike and he goes, yeah, well, I tried to fix it. He goes, I was gonna I'm fixing it. He goes, if you're fixing it, why did you tear it all to apart? And he goes, oh, you know, we just thought that's what we needed to do.

And he goes, I shook our heads. So put it in the back of my hatchback and I, you know, I tied the back. It couldn't even fit it in there, really, so it's hanging out the back. And we drove back up north and we got to San Jose and there was still it was in those days, it was late sixties, there was still a B. S. A dealership in San Jose. So we stopped either and I picked up a manual, a repair manual, took it home, laid it all out

and started putting it together. I had my manual there and I started putting the bike together, and then my girlfriend's uh brother came over and he kind of gave me a few pointers. All I really had for tools was like a couple of screwdrivers and a pair of pliers in a crescent ranch. That was kind of the extent of my tool collection. But believe it or not, you can do a lot with with that. And so

I started putting the bike together. I put it all together, put it back together, and I couldn't get it started. It wouldn't start. And then so I'm looking through, well, it could be this, it could be that, and uh so I I just started take went down to the b s A shop. I said, give me a give me this or that and different parts, and started replacing parts in the bike. And every time I would replace a part, I try to start it and try to

start it. And then finally it started and it wasn't you know, it was running really rough, but I dialed it in and had a little uh you know, British carburetor on it. I forget what they call those carburetors, but anyway, and just started, you know, tweaking on it, and dialed it in, got that bike running, and I rode the bike for the next couple of years. That was not my main motor transportation, but at times it was because my car would break down and then I

have nothing but that that motorcycle. So um and it was a single cylinder bike with it had was supposed to have a compression release because they are super high compression, and the compression release was broken. So when you started, it would kick back, and sometimes it would kick back and just about send you over the handlebars, you know, it kicked back so hard. And anyway, I learned a lot about, you know, mechanics on motorcycles. I already understood

a certain amount of mechanics. I had worked in gas stations and stuff. But uh so I really cut my teeth on that bike. And then years later I got in, you know, I went out and bought a Harley. When I finally made some money with the band, I went about Harley Davidson. But but that old B S A was a great, great old bike. It was fun. You could you could it did a lot, you know. It was a good street bike. You could take it in

the dirt. It was just a lot of fun. It was a neat bike, and I had another one until recently I just sold it. But anyway, that's kind of my beginning. That's how I got into bikes. You worked in gas stations and you rebuilt this motorcycle. Were you also a tinker with your musical equipment a little bit? Uh?

You know, Uh, I didn't really, I I was. I started playing guitar when I was eight years old, so you know, I had to learn about the ins and outs of replacing strings and tuning and and you know, parts of the guitar. I never really built or rebuilt guitars. Um. You know, I just my guitars were all always stock

instruments pretty much. Um. If I had anything you know, crazy I want to do, I would send it to a you know, an expert, you know, somebody that had a guitar shop or something, you know where they worked on instruments. But yeah, you know, in terms of you know, really tinkering, I don't think I ever really. I mean, I've taken guitar guitars completely apart and put them back together again, uh you know, but they were always with the same parts that that came out of them pretty much.

So how many motor cycles you own now, I don't know. Quite a few I've got, I've got, you know, a garage I keep mad. I don't know, probably thirty or forty, about forty forty, probably closer to forty. Okay. I don't know anybody who's ever owned a motorcycle who hasn't dumped frequently, not even their fault. Fault is a driver in a car, whatever, what has been your experience. There's only two types of bikers, the ones that have been down and the ones that

are going down. You know, it's uh, it's something that kind of comes with the territory and and really you have to I don't think everybody has to take a spill on a bike, but often, you know, you you push the envelope and that's where the problem is starting.

It's usually often you're not going that fast. Um, you know, most people dump a bike in the gravel and they may be only going a couple of miles an hour, but bikes get really squirrely in the gravel, and if you hit the brake, especially the front break, you're probably gonna go down on the bike on the street. That's often when you you're you know, maybe you're you're out on a wet road, or you're you're somewhere where somebody has been parked or dropped some oil and you happen

to go through that that spot. Um Probably most often it's when people are going too fast on a bike and they you know, coming into a corner. That's often a place where people lose it on motorcycles. I've really learned a lot about safety equipment, wearing the right clothes. I didn't used to wear a helmet in the old day. After friends of mine had some horrible accidents and were wearing helmets, I decided, I'm going to go, you know

with with the helmet, and I'm glad. I had one spill and I was wearing a helmet, and I don't think I actually hit my head, but I was really happy I was wearing a helmet and and and wearing all the equipment that I needed. I had the leather pants on, and I know, skidded on the road, and you know, I actually my toe in my boot, which is a steel toe boot, wore all the way through the leather to the steel toe and scraped. So you know, we're having the right equipment is really important on a bike.

I have gloves on as well, you know, so I didn't sustain any injuries. I kind of squashed squashed my toe in my boot and my toe hurt for a while. And but the bike was fairly well scraped up and you know bent bent components and so on. So you know, there's safety is an issue, and the proper clothing can really make a big difference. And how you you know

what happens to you in that instance. So what motivated you to play the guitar at AG Well, let's see, I had taken piano lessons when I was a little kid, uh, and I you know, I just loved music, Um, I had. I've listened to music all my life, you know, since I was a small child, and so I've always been inspired by by music in general, all kinds of music, uh,

specifically rock music in the fifties. You know, I probably had a similar kind of experience that that Tom had, and that I had a you know, an older friend. I think it was his brother that probably turned him onto some of the the coolest music. But I we I had a friend of the family that had come to stay at our house he was in the middle.

He was just going into the army and he came stayed to our house a little bit, and then he left his entire record collection of forty five and it was just all the best songs from the area, you know, the Everly Brothers, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Bobby Darren, the Coasters, Connie Francis, too too many to even remember. But so um, I list sat there and listen to those records for

every day, for hours. I would just sit and listen, you know, until I was exhausted, you know, from listening, and uh, across the street one you know, I met the kid across the street and I around the same time. Everything kind of clicked at once I went over to his house. I had met him, you know, playing outdoors. We just moved into the neighborhood and went over to

his house and walked. He took me into his bedroom and sitting there in the corner was a guitar and it was, you know, an arch top harmony guitar, but kind of a upper upper end harmony. It was a nice guitar for the times. And I just I froze, you know when I saw the guitar, because I had never I've never seen a guitar in up in person, you know. I've seen him on television and of course new people played guitars here him on records, but I had never seen one. And there it was in the corner.

I'm just like, it was magical, you know this, wow, there it is. We had a piano and that that was pretty magical too, But guitar, there's something about it. They're just called to me. And so I said, you know, can I touch it? Yeah, go ahead to pick it up, you know, strum it if you want to. So I took it overset on his bed and he put the guitar in my hands and and I just, you know, I strummed it. And he goes, you want me to

teach you a chord? And I go yeah. So he taught me a g chord and that was the beginning. And I was there every day at his house after that. Every Hey, Ronnie, can I can I come in look at your guitar player? Guitar? Sure, come on in. And he had his dad had a guitar to his mom.

His mom and dad were sort of country folk musicians and they had a band or had had a band at one point or another, and so his dad had a guitar too, So we sat there together and he would he taught me chords, and then pretty soon we were playing so looks together. He taught me songs and that was it. I was off from there on. I was you know, live, eat, breathe, guitar songs music. You know, that was okay. So this was in the state of Washington.

It was in California nineteen fifty eight probably, but you were born in the state of Washington. Is I was born in the state of Washington. And how did you end up moving to California. My father was an educator. He was a teacher, and my mother was also and my father had I went to school to my dad in Washington for a little bit. He was a principal at a school I attended when I was just a kindergartener, and that's how I came to play the piano a

little bit. My dad would take me to some uh one of the students parents and lived nearby, and this kid's grandmother was there, and somehow my dad became acquainted with her and asked her if she would keep an eye on me. After I got out of class. I would go half a day, and then my dad was there all day until about three or four in the afternoon. And so about noon I would go to this lady's house and really like the first couple of days we were there, I saw her piano sitting in the living

room and I went over and I tinkled on. I can remember really memorable going over and you know, hitting the keys. And she said, oh, do you play the piano? And I go, Now, we my sister plays. She was, oh, you have a piano at home. I go, yeah, she said, what would you like to learn? I go sure, She said, well, I I teach piano among other things, and you I'd be glad to you know, your hair every day, you know, would you like to learn to play? And I go,

she goes, I love. I love to teach piano. So she started teaching the piano, and I was there every day for the next I don't know how it was, probably however long you go for a year, eight months or something, but five five days a week I was there at her house, playing the piano and loving it, you know. And then she was more than she was a teacher, but she was a mentor as well, so she you know, we would spend a half hour on the piano and then it was a cool routine. Every

day I looked forward to it. We would play a little piano and then she would say, okay, time for cookies and milk. And so then we'd sit and she turned on the radio and every day, you know, the Liberaci at a radio show, and she loved that, being a anno person, music person. And we'd listened to Libracci live on the radio and you know, he would play and he was of course, he was fabulous musician and funny too, you know, so it was entertaining for all,

for both of us. But you know that it was you know, great applic you know, really uh direct application, you know. So I would learn and then I would listen to what you know, what could happen if you continued in music, you could be playing like and she would she told me, you know, if you if you keep going, you know you could you could do this too, if you if it's in your you know, if it's something that calls you, you know you could you could be a great piano player. So I never I loved it.

But then when we ended up in California, my dad got an offer for a job in California. So I was so happy because I was in Aberdeen, Washington, which is like, you know, arguably the rainiest part of the state. You know, it's the Pacific rainforest near the coast, and pretty much my memories are rain every day. You know, it rained every day in my rain really hard some days. But even if it wasn't raining hard, it was sprinkling

or something. It was just always wet, always misty. And so, you know, come in California was like I had heard of California. It was like, you know, that's where the cowboys go, you know, that's where they take their cattle. And so we ended up in Palaulto, kind of south of San Francisco there, and we spent a year there and then ended up in San Jose. And when I was about six, I guess six seven, we ended up

moving to San Jose and I grew up there. That's where I was through high school and college, through San Jose, all through you know, getting together with with the band the Doobie Brothers. I was, you know, I'm a San Jose guy. Okay, So you're in school, good student, popular, bad student, unpopular. I was a good student. I don't know what popular is. I wasn't as popular as I as I wished I was, you know. Um, but I did well in school, and I love sports. I participated

in everything, you know, student council. I was always involved, you know, and that that aspect of school and you finished college. I did not finish college. I went until I got a high lottery number in the draft. You know, I kind of thought I would go back. I I the whole time, I should say, I was playing music, like continuously really, from the time I was eight years old,

playing the guitar. I just played, you know, every day, all the time until I could really perform, you know, until I could get up in front of an audience

and and entertain. Um. I think my my parents sort of encouraged me in that aspect for a while until I until I reached high school, and you know, everything kind of changed culturally too, you know, long hair and psychedelics and stuff, and then it became a different you know, they were freaked out by that, of course, Um, but pretty much, you know, continually continually played music and and that was always part of it. And so so I

love college, love learning. And when I went I ended up at San Jose State UM, and you know, had all intentions of getting a degree, and as time went on UM music became more of a focal point for me. I thought, you know, if I, if I don't pursue this, I could see people around me who were, you know, having success in music, and I didn't think we're that great.

And then so I thought, you know, I you know, I may, I may never get rich doing this, but at least I can uh maybe make a living around town, you know, I can get some gigs at clubs, and I did. I was able to work, you know, so to me, you know, I've always had jobs, you know, hourly jobs, but none was as satisfying as as playing you sick, and you know, you make you make more money per hour, you know, playing music than then you're going to make doing almost any well, not almost anything else,

but certainly minimum wage jobs at least. Okay, I'm a little younger than you, and you know, the early sixties was the folk boom. Everybody was playing a nylon string guitar. The Beatles hit boom, everybody gets an electric guitar, everybody's forming bands. Ay were you playing out before the Beatles? B. What was it like when the Beatles hit for you? I was already playing electric guitar. I kind of I went from acoustic guitar. I was kind of a roots guy.

I I played, you know, a little bit of country music when I was very young, and then when the folk boom came about in the early sixties, I love that music. I mean I you know, they were TV shows that you know, every week that portrayed music, the Limelighters, and you know, there were some successful groups in the Kingston Trio. Um, this is earlier, kind of pre there. I kind of there was a delineation from more ah, what would be the word real early American folk songs?

Would he got three um pete seeger Odetta. I'm trying to think of people that were, you know, within that context, even people like Johnny cash Um. I can't remember some of some of the names, but people that sang more

traditionalist word it's more traditional music. It's it's early American music, older songs, things that were written at the turn of the century and then came a more modern era with I would think probably the most obvious proponent or you know, someone to site would be a band like Peter Paul and Mary who suddenly were writing more contemporary songs and and UM singing songs by contemporary writers, Bob Dylan being the obvious writer, and so that UM really appealed to me.

Those new songs. I had been singing, you know, early American folk songs, burl ives kind of stuff. I had teachers that that loved that early music, and I loved it too, you know. And and then suddenly there was this new uh songwriting going on and kind of obscure images that were not as obvious and what those songs

are even about. Sometimes probably for my young mind, I didn't even know what some of those songs were about, but I knew that they connected with something, you know, in in my in my psyche and and my soul. And so that's where I started looking at another aspect

of of music, songwriting particularly. And then there were at that same time here shortly after that, there was in the British music scene with you know, the Stones, the Animals, um them uh and I love that, and I thought that was a There were other artists that I had been was familiar with that were more rock oriented artists that were blues based, you know, um bo Diddley Chuck Berry. But in my mind those were kind of folk artists

as well. The songs that they wrote and sang, we're reflective of our of our daily lives, you know, uh, certainly of their daily lives. Probably not my daily life. I was, you know, white kid in the suburbs. They were black kids from you know, the south and the city, but certainly similar music, probably to some of the more modern folk music that was coming out. So it all it all for me, It's all jelled into a movement in music that really spoke to me. And you know,

I began to two. I discovered the blues, you know, uh that that was really meaningful to me at that moment in time. I had a friend that was a singer at a folk club and I I went I would see him play. It was an older guy and he was singing the blues, and I thought, that is there's there's some music that I aspired to, and so I started taking lessons from him. He turned me onto you know, different blues artists and and that, and that

became another focal part in my life. And then from there I started looking around and realizing that there was some you know, the British blues scene was so wonderful because it it turned turned a lot of people onto you know, really great people that we had probably not I I certainly had not been aware of bb King and Albert King and you know, Bobby Blue Bland and so when I've heard their music, but only on the fringe, you know. And then suddenly that music came alive for me.

And so I started listening to the blues and uh and and learning the blues and you know Paul Butterfield, Mike Bloomfield again that I bought that that first Butterfield album, and I listened to that album over and over and over again. I was like, I wouldn't you know, it was just such a wonderful album. And then being there in the Bay Area when the Psycho, you know, when the Bill Grahams and and all the San Francisco bands

began again that was the edge of folk and electric. Um. It was just such a you know, I was so inspired by that, that whole movement, and I was there. I was part of it in a sense that not that I was, you know, in some really big band at that time. I played with a few bands around the area and play with the Chocolate Watch Band for a little while, which was kind of a uh you know,

a regional band there that had some success. But primarily I was just out playing by myself with my guitar, and you know, I would sit in with people and stuff. But I recognized that if I was going to work, UM, I had better have it together myself by myself before anything else. Because band sort of came and went and the one you know, you join a band and then it would fall apart, and you join a band and

it would fall apart. But I could always depend on the fact that if I had some songs and I could leaved, I could I could keep a band together, you know. So I did. I was able to make a living and and do something I loved at that time. You know, so at that time, when did you stop doing day gigs and just play music. In the mid sixties, I was well, let's see, I probably was in high school then, um, and I was always working. I always

had a job part time. Uh, And so I would work during the day and then I would play at night. I got gigs and clubs even as a kid. Uh. Those are the days of coffee houses, so you could, you know, there was no nothing about age. You could be as and in fact, being young sort of work to my advantage. I was a the youngest kid on the stage at most of these coffee houses. So it enabled me to have a kind of a unique pres since that, oh, here comes the kid, he's gonna play.

Are you working tonight? Yeah, I'm working, cool man, you know. And and so I would get these gigs as a kid, and I was able to work. It was just, you know, really great. And my parents were cool with it as long as it was a weekend. They don't like me working during the week because I had to go to school. But you know, I didn't make a ton of money, but uh, you know, I would work. I worked at a gas station. I made a buck a dollar an hour, and I worked ten hours, ten twelve hour shift when

I was sixteen, make twelve dollars. And then you had to pay you know, taxes and so security and all that stuff. So maybe if I made nine bucks after working ten hours, and even by the standards of the time, that wasn't much money. And although you know, it was money that I made and it was mine, it was in my pocket. I could do what I wanted with it. But if I played a gig, I could make ten bucks in three hours. Uh, you know, at a club and doing something I really love. So that was that

was what I wanted to do. Okay, one theme in the book that is really camered and I mean that in a good way, over and over And this is the first time I've really seen it so consistently. Is this love for Moby Grat tell me all about that. I had a friend who I played with in a band in high school and uh, it must have been I forget when that album came out, sixty sixty seven maybe. And now one day he calls, maybe, goes, Pat, I got something you gotta listen. You gotta here, and I

said yeah. He goes, I'm coming over. So he comes over and he goes, you gotta hear this. This is He goes. You know, he had turned me on to a big brother in the holding company. He told me, you gotta go up to this club in the Santa Curus Mountain, the Barn, and here this band, big brother in the holding company. And this was sixty six, he said.

He goes, they've been playing up in San Francisco. He says, but they're act there down here and they're playing the club in Scott's Valley, which was but twenty minutes from my house, you know where I lived. So I drove over and I sat there and here comes big brother in the holding company of the Janis Joplin, and I was cold. My friend, the same guy who brought me the Moby Grape album, I sat there and listened to

the band. Never heard him before, was before they recorded, and it was like I never heard any any woman singing like this in my life. This is again life changing moment to hear that live. I think I paid a dollar and a half or something to come in and see him. It was the barn in Scott's Valley was an old barn. I saw Country Joe there. There are all these bands from San Francisco that used to

come and play. So anyway, the same guy who turned me on to going to see Janis Joplin says, you got to hear this record, and so we put it on and it was the first Moby Grape album. He goes, what do you think? He goes, He goes, I think it's the best San Francisco band of all of them. He goes, what do you think I go, I think

you're right. I think I go. There isn't a guitar player in the whole state, in the whole you know, of all the guitar players I had heard, uh, there probably wasn't a better rock and roll guitar player than Jerry Miller. And it stands up today. He listened to the playing. You know, I love you know, I love Jerry Garcia, I loved your mcauchinan, I love Barry Melton. Back then, I mean I was over the head over heels for the San Francisco music, Gary Duncan. I loved

all those guys. I mean, they were great players, I thought, and uh, you know, I still love them to this day. But Jerry Miller, he was just amazing, A great sort of bebop player, you know, like I'm trying to think of the bop guitar players, you know, it doesn't matter, but just a great all around player, great blues player, a great jazz player, a great country player. Uh. He

blew my mind. And then the songs were and again, you know, this is something that probably our band is all the guys in our band I think take to heart, and I certainly do. It's about the songs. That's what people, at least for for a band like ours, it's and in my own mind it's always been about the songs. When I hear a great song, that's what stays with me, that's what I you know, uh, connects me to an artist. And the songs that Moby Grape had were just great

songs and all these different singers and players writers. It was a phenomenally talented bunch of guys. Uh misguided in terms of, you know, the business and their management and everything else that went that goes with that aspect of being an artist unfortunately, but musically, I to this day, I think they're one of the best of the San Francisco bands ever. And a lot of people don't aren't that familiar with them because they never really made a

big splash nationally. They were limited by their own foibles, if you will, you know, the things that you know, the obstacles that they put in their own pathway. But still a great band. I think people would do the do yourself a favor, go back to go listen to eight oh five by themby Grape by Skip Spence was you know a crazy person, you know, you know, really a wild guy. But Oh Maha is a song that he wrote that I still think a great rock song.

It just had it was magical for the times and pretty modern for that era, you know, with feedback and just just an odd rhythmic track. Really interesting production. David Rubinson was it was a great producer. So anyway, great great band, great album. Okay, so you're playing solo, you don't have to worry about the army. How do you get involved in bands? And then how do you ultimately meet Tom? I had regular gigs around San Jose Los Gatos on my own as a as a solo guitar player.

IM I have written songs and I was doing covers at the time, and then I at one point I played this little club in half Moon Bay and it was called the shelter In and it was owned by a guy that I was acquainted with. He had a club in San Jose, also called the shelter In, in downtown San Jose, and at that time, in that particular club downtown San Jose, your mcachenen was playing um Dave Nelson, who ended up playing the new Writers of the Purple Stage, had a regular gig there with a band his the

Pine Valley Boys. I think it was a blue grass band. I believe Skip Spence played there a time or two. Ah gosh, some some other people that had that had done well in the music business around the BA area ended up playing there from time to time. Anyway, Mike relocated to Half Bay. He sold the place to someone else, and then he opened another shelter, and I think the shelter in San Jose finally closed. He opened another one

in half Moon Bay. So I went up there. I had heard about it and auditioned, and I got the gig and I started playing there. Well, it turns out Mike was a pretty good violin player, and he asked to sit in with me. Um, this is the owner, And of course you don't refuse the owner sitting in with you, so he said. And sure enough, he was a really good violin players. So we started digging together and I I had I got the gigs, and he

would join me. Um, and then he finally moved down to Los Gatos, and then we ended up playing all around San Jose and he one day he goes, you know, I know this guy is a great bass player. Um, you think you'd want to have a bass player play was I go, of course, and that would be wonderful. So it goes. Let me call him, you know, and see if he's interest in coming and sitting. We were getting a little bit better, more high profile gigs paying a little bit better. And then I had regular gigs.

I was doing weekly, So I wasn't making a ton of money, but it was regular money coming in for for both of us. And so we called he calls the bass player and he and this was Tyronne Porter, who ended up being the bass player for the for the Doobies UH a couple of years later. So Tyrone uh flew up. Those are the days you could get a flight uh for dirt. You know, it's about fourteen dollars to fly from l A to to San Jose.

So we picked him up and we rehearse and started gigging, the three of us, and so he would come up every weekend, and UH started gigging around San Jose and and last adis Santa Cruz and we were doing pretty well. And so we ended up digging at the Chateau Liberty and that was my first experience at that club. The three of us gig in there. I think I had gig there once by myself, um and then the three of us. So we started digging regularly at the chateau, and Mike h Mike and I kind of broke up.

The band broke up, the three of us. Tyronne had something else going on, and I forget something happened with nothing. Mike had other things to do. He ended up, I think, leaving town, and uh, so I was back on my own. So I started playing around town with this guy, Peter Grant, and Peter was he was a local I had known for years. He was the banjo player, guitar player, he had played. He was friends with some of the guys in Grateful Dead. He had played on one of the

Dead albums. He had taught himself to play pedal steel and ended up on I think oxom oxiwa playing steel and anyway a really decent banjo player. So I had played with three different banjo players around town and doing blue grass because I was kind of one of my things. I had made an effort to study a little bit about blue grass, and I had friends that played, and so I would just sit in and learn the you know,

how to learn the songs. You know the lot of instrumentals and stuff, and I learned that task myself with learning and listening to blue grass. So um, playing with Peter, and one day we got this. I get this call. It's Mike Mindel, my ex middle player. He goes, I'm opening a club in h Campbell. It's the old Campbell Theater was the downtown theater in Campbell, California, which is kind of a suburb of San Jose. And I'm going to call it the gas Lighter Theater. And I'd love

I love to have you come and play. What are you doing now? And I said, well, I'm Paile playing with this guy, Peter Grant. He goes, well, I'm trying to book hot Tuna, and uh maybe you you guys could come and open for hot Tuna. I go, yeah, of course that would be wonderful. So so we get to the I told Peter Bouty goes, I go, how much are you paying? He goes, I'm paying you know whatever. It was pretty good. I think he was paying me like fifty bucks, which was a lot in those days.

So um, we get there and uh, no, hot Tuna. Hot Tuna. They had a a commit that they had to honor, and he couldn't They couldn't show up. So he hired this other band, Pachuco. I go, well, I know Pachuco. It's uh, Skip Spence and this guy, Bill Andres was a guitar player in the band at the time. So um, I go, well, that's that's great. You know, I love both those guys, and that will be great anyway. So um, so I had known Skip previously, and that's

another story in itself. But so we get there and so Peter and I play, you know there, Skip's not there yet. Peter and I set up and and we do our set. We play an hour or so and then I see Skip comes in, and I see these other guys, and they go, well, where's Bill Andres. He's not with them. So I go I talked to Skip. I go as the worst. Bill He goes, I he's in jail. So I got these guys. This is you know, I mean, you didn't gotta meet these guys. Guys are great.

I go, okay. Skip was really kind of high strung at that point, and uh, he goes, this is Tom. This is John. So I to He goes, hey, how you doing? You know? He goes, and we caught you. We listened to your set coming in this man, you guys, you sounded great, you and Peter and you really you really nailed it. It was really great, you know. And I go, well, I'm anxious, you know, hear you guys, And he goes, yeah, well it's kind of loose. You know.

We really haven't rehearsed much. We just you know, Skip told us he, you know, that his regular band members weren't going to show up, and so he called us and asked us if we play with him. So he go, I go, well, whatever. You know, I was used to see in bands like that that are kind of thrown together. And but I was anxious to see because I I hadn't seen Skip for years, and I was anxious to see him. And he had this guitar that he had built,

and it was a stratocaster. Somewhere he'd gotten these longhorn cattle uh horns and had him grafted onto the guitar. It looked really demonic, you know, and it was painted with you know, pin striping like they did on hot rods and stuff. And he's wearing this long, this trench coat, and he's wearing a hat like I'm wearing, right, now he had a beret on backwards. He looked great, you know, he looked every bit the rock star that he had been and was. And uh so they get up there

and I can't even hear skips guitar. It's like, I don't even I don't think it was plugged in. And he's like doing all this you know stuff, and Tom is up at the microphone own singing, and John and they had a bass player with him, and they are killing it. I mean, Tommy, you could tell that they were whatever Skip was. These guys were rehearsed, and they started playing kind of like like heavy metal, like cream. You know, it was before there was even a term

heavy metal. It was you know, hard rock trio just killing it. I mean I was like, oh my god, these guys are really good. You know. It was not my kind of music. I was like Peter and I just got done doing traditional kind of a bunch of traditional music and bluegrass and stuff, some blues a little bit. And these guys are killing it. And they're playing the

blues too. But it's like loud, you know to me, and as loud as they could get as he could get his amplifier to go and they are killing it, and I'm just like going, man, where these guys come from? You know. And so afterwards I go back, I go, good, you guys, you guys are great. You guys are really good. And what are you doing? You know? He goes, well, you know, I'm John. Was kind of a character, and

he was like really animated. He goes, yeah, I just got here from uh, from Virginia, False Church, and I just got into town. Yeah, I met I met up with Skippy. Was kind of job. He's going, yeah, I just made up a skip and we're putting a band together. It's gonna be like really big, really good. And uh, we're looking for some other guys. And we saw you playing. We thought yeah, and then you know, this guy is pretty good. You know, maybe you'd like to come in

and sit with us. You should come on, come by the house. Man. We were we jam, we work out, we we play all the time. You know, just this rapid speech, and I'm going I'm going, oh, I don't know about this, but but I liked him, you know, I mean it was to me. They were really great characters and really good musicians. And so I said, well, you know, I said, I I said I will come by, you know, I will come by sometime. He goes, well, maybe you'd like to. You know, we're trying to put

this band together. We could use another guitar player, and you look like you'd fit right in with what we're trying to do, you know, with Tom's rhythm and you and your picking, man, we could we could have this whole thing and be like Moby great. You know. We get skipping and I go, well, I go, I have a band that I'm playing with, you know, um and uh, I'm playing with Peter now. And I and I had been playing on and off with Mike still the guy

that had the gas lighter, and Tyranne a little bit. Still. We didn't play all the time as much, but we still did play around. I said, oh, I have these other things I'm doing. But I said, I will come by and we'll connect and you know, see where it goes. So so I never did. I never went by because I thought, you know, I don't know, it's not I'm not sure if it's my thing. So one day i'm I'm at my house and knock, knock, knock. I lived about about five blocks from from where those guys were living.

And I get to hear this knock and it's John Hartman. And John he was in those days. He weighed about three d and fifty pounds. He he was wearing clothes that it looked like he'd slept in him, you know, lived in him. They were just, you know, like he looked like a hell's angel, you know. And I was like, I loved what who he was and how he presented himself that I was kind of like a little bit intimidated. Right, So he goes, hey, man, I thought you're gonna come

over to the house, you know. I go, uh, you know, I really I really wanted to. I just I've been busy, and you know I've been I had a job, I was still working. I had a day job as well. So I go, you know, but I will, like I promise. He goes, well, you gotta come by, man. We have these jams. I mean it is they're out of sight, man, and you would love it. You would love it. He goes, you know, you got an electric guitar. I going, well, no, I have this acoustic, but I do have a pickup.

I had this darm and pickup that I put on my guitar. So so I go. Finally, I go, I got it. I can't keep I can't, you know, not go by after all that. So I got I got the address, and I go by and Tommy's here. He's, hey, man, come on in. You know. Yeah, I'm so glad you came by. Hey, you want a jam, you know? I go, I go, yeah, I just brought my acoustic. Giuse well, come on out in the backyard. He says, I got my acoustic too, and we'll just sit around a jam.

What the hell you know, I want to smoke one. I go, sure, you know. So, so we go out in the backyard and John brings the congo drum out there. Tommy is this acoustic. I got my acoustic, and we start just playing. I played some of my songs. He's playing some of his stuff, and we're just you know, backing each other up and having fun. And that was the beginning of our relationship. I just I was wondering. We spent hours just doing that, you know, we didn't

we never set up and played electrically or anything. Tommy says, you gotta come back. Then we set up, we we jam, and other musicians combine. He goes, probably some people you know. He started name and name. It's like, oh, yeah, of course I know that guy, this guy, and he goes, uh, he goes, we're playing at San Jose State. Uh, this weekend. You gotta come in and hear us. He goes, it's it's different from what you heard was Skips. Skips not

in the band. So I go over. They play this gig and it's like the trio again, but with a horn section. It's so great. It's so real and amazing, you know. It was like the horn section was really good. So they're guys I knew already. They're surround town that that I knew of them. They played in different bands and I had played with. The sax player used to come and sit in with me at a club I played at, and so well rehearsed, they killed it. I came away thinking, yeah, this is really good. This is

really something real. These guys are really they really got something. I don't know what it is, but and I don't know how I might fit into it, but I loved to be a part of this, you know. So I started going over to the house and we would just jam, sit and I had my acoustic guitar with a pickup on it. Somebody would have an amplifier. I think I had an amplifier. I brought my aunt and we started jamming and that was the beginning. And then one day

they said, you know, hey, uh. I can't remember exactly how it came about that. Tom said, you know, we're we we have a gig and we'd really like you to play on the gig with us. And I said, who who's in the band and he said, well, it's myself, John and this bass player we got and the other guy we had left. We got this new bass player. So I go over to the house and it's a guy went to high school which was in the band, Dave Shogrin. So I didn't, you know, I wasn't close

friends with Dave, but I knew him. I had met him here and there and remembered him from high school. He's to see him around the campus. And so that was the band and we started. Uh. We we had a gig, our first gig, I can't remember. It was probably some club somewhere and we started playing and then we just kept playing and we're still playing. Okay, so you're playing because you've been doing it for a while.

At this point, At what point you say, man, we want to get a record deal or were you always looking for a record deal? That is kind of a fun story. Um, I was living in this house, the house that John came and found me at in the house, and uh, one of the gals in the house played in a band and the band was had been playing around town. And I had known her for years, but I never really knew she was a singer. And suddenly

she was in this band. And she's in a band with other people that I knew, and they put they started this band, and it was sort of bankrolled by this guy who had inherited some money from his parents somehow they had a trust fund or something, and so they he went out and he bought them all instruments and they started rehearsing, and they started gigging and getting gigs. And I went to see him and I thought, my friend, that singing is the best that this in this band.

She's the best part of the band. She could sing the rest of it. I'm not sure about, you know, And I'm not sure but the songs exactly how they're you know, how they're getting these gigs because I'm thinking, but you know, those were the days when it really didn't matter if you had a guitar and you could you had something going on, you you could get gigs.

But you know, I mean I liked them all. They were all the good people and and uh as individuals, I had seen them in different entities and I thought, well, they're this guy is pretty good. That guy's good. But as a band, I thought, I'm not sure about this band. So one day she comes home, she goes, Hey, we're gonna go make we're making a demo at the studio up in San Francisco. And the guys that are that have the studio, they're here right now in the house.

And I was there in the house because I shared this house with her and a couple of other people. And um, we paid. We paid a hundred dollars a month for the house and there were three three of us that split the rent. It was thirty three dollars apiece, and somebody had to pay each each month. Somebody had to pay the extra dollar, you know. So uh so she comes in and with these two guys and they

introduced themselves. This is Marty, this is Paul, and uh, I go and they were kind of like yeah, well yea audio only so they have their noses in the airh yeah, okay. They're kind of like high rollers, you know, you know, elitist types. And she's going, we're going up to make this demo tomorrow, and they're going, yeah this man, the guys are really good. And I go, oh cool, you know, I'm glad that's happening. So so, uh, they go make the demo. I guess, and h I don't know.

I don't know. I think I heard the demo was like, you know, not that great. So it's one name over at at Tommy's in John's place and they go, hey, we made this demo. You know you want to hear it. Uh, you know, it's this two song demo and they he puts it on and I go, yeah, that's pretty good. You know, it's like these He goes, yeah, I just I just wrote the lyrics these. I don't even know what I was talking about it. I just wrote these lyrics in the studio, you know, we threw these things together.

And I'm listening to him. I'm going that sounds pretty good. You know, those aren't bad, And he goes, yeah, the guys that have the studio up in San Mateo and and there look there they're they're letting bands come up and and do demos, you know, And so I go, I guess wouldn't be named Marty and Paul. They ya, those are the guys. I go, how did you find how'd they find you? And he goes, Skip found they found Skip, and Skip found us and took and brought tom.

It was Tom John and I think at that time it was before Dave Chobrin they had made this demo. I go, yeah, I met those guys and they go, yeah, well, you know, we might be able to do some more demos. We're just kind of waiting to hear back. He goes, you would you want to, you know, play on something, and saying if if we get another opportunity, I go, of course, you know that that would be wonderful. So I don't know. A few weeks later, Tommy calls me and says, Skip just called us. He said we should

get up to the studio right away. He goes, they want to do they want to do some more demos, And I go, really now and he goes yeah. I goes, wow, I got a gig. I'll cancel my gig and you know we'll go do it. So so we drive up to San Mateo and there's Skips there and and Marty and Paul and we set up and we talked through you know, what we're going to do. And so they say, well,

you know, we have a deal here. If if we give you the free studio time, you have to sign this contract with us that we're going to be your representatives and that whatever we whatever these demos are, that we own them, uh in the capacity that we're allowed to shop them for you. And so that sounded reasonable to me. I didn't that we don't mean better offers. So so we went ahead and signed the contract and then we go and start doing demos. So over a period of three or four days, I guess, we threw

these demos together. It was a couple of songs of mine and then four songs of Tom's. So, uh, weeks go by. We heard the demos, we were like, wow, those sound really good. We we never thought we could sound that good. And we're going, yeah, wow, amazing. You know, maybe maybe something will happen. You know, when we're playing the demos for all our friends, you know, and they're all going, wow, you guys are that sounds really good, man,

you guys, you guys are really going to do something. So, um, weeks go by, months go by, we don't hear anything. I guess nothing's going to happen. And and then all of a sudden we get a call from the studio and they say, look, we got some interest from some different parties. A and M as interested in it. They're the first ones that called us. And so we spoke to producer at A and M. And at that point

we we would have taken anything, you know. And uh, then we here that well, um, a couple of guys from Warner Brothers that want to come and see you guys play somewhere. People from and M. I think we did alive in the studio where we played for them. We set up and then we did, you know. We ran through a few songs and uh it was a producer of note I can't remember his name. Was it David Anderley? It was not David Anderley, it was I'd

know the name if I saw it. I think I've seen it not that far in the in the past. But um, so then we hear that there are a couple of guys from Warner Brothers are coming, So they're going to come and see us play at the Chateau Liberty, which is this club we've been playing in the Santa Cruz Mountains, which is kind of a hippie biker bar really kind of ah a great place to hear music, but it's you know, a psychedelic inferno. And we're sort of arguably the house band that we play there all

the time, but they love us there. We packed the place and it's a small place, I mean full up. It would be you know, three people, maybe three or four people, and they would be spilling out the doors, and we used to pack them in. I mean literally, you know, people were packed shoulder to shoulder in the club. So in walks ted Templeman and Lenny Warrenker and I one of them was wearing like a white cardigan sweater with with uh, you know, penny loafers and you know,

Teddy had you know, longish hair, but not long. It was kind of like and and and Lenny is like straight as an arrow, and and he's I think his his his sweaters like draped over his shoulders and the sleeves are tied front of that kind of thing. And they're looking around and here's like the Hell's Angels and uh, you know, hippies with you know, beards down to their waist and you know, chicks with their boobs tips hanging out. And I mean it's a scene right and drinking and

and it's loud in there. And we were in there, and by that time I had an electric guitar and that I had bought from the bartender, so I got my ample and we're turned as loud as we could go, and we're blasting, we're rocking hard, you know, and I look over and you could see these guys. They stand out like a spotlights on and their eyes are as big as saucers. And I'm looking at and they're kind of like look, you know, looking cursory back and forth,

like oh man, what have I got myself into? So they're they're at They sit there through really the entire set. We do a whole set there there the whole time, and then finally, at some point, you know, we take a break, we go over and meet and they're really nice, you know, very you know, complimentary. Man, you guys sound good. We heard your demos. We really we really liked the band. And my memory is somebody said we really like to

sign you guys. And we had talked to the people at A and M and they had never said, we really like to sign you guys. And UM, as far as I was concerned, A and M was a great label, but Warner Brothers was, you know, a staple in entertainment industry, from films to some of the people that I that I had admired were on Warner Brothers at the time. So we didn't take us long to decide, Yeah, Warner Brothers is where we would want to be, so that

that's how we started. And you know, I think it was just a you know, one of those random things where our demo tape ended up at the right place. Ted was had had been his job was kind of listening to new music that was being sent in through from different artists, and ours happened to be in the pile. And from what he told me, he listened to you know,

fifty plus artists today sending material. And he told me the way he listened to music was he listened to the first song and he would listen for you know, thirty seconds to a minute, and if it, if it kind of he liked it, he would go on and get to the middle of it and listen to some of that, and that was it. If if he liked it, he knew it, and then he would go on and

listen to the whole thing. But he said, if it didn't hit him within that first thirty seconds to a minute, it wasn't probably going to get go much further than that. So sort of neat knee jerk reactions to the music, which is I think probably how it really still is that way in the music industry. Um, I find myself

listening that way a little bit. I listened further because these days because I hear things that you know, maybe there's something there that maybe I don't like it right away, but if I give myself a chance, uh, you know, there's there is something much deeper that you can discover if you give yourself a chance. But anyway, that that

was our our experience. So the two of them produce your first record, which I'm sure is a thrill You're High, has the single Nobody Everything Stiffs Okay, even though Nobody is your set opener, now set opener of your box set? What goes through your head? And then how much pressure is there for the second album? I don't think we were surprised necessarily. Um, it's you know, we were well aware of how it works, how the music business works,

and all the stories with that. People like to tell you right away, you know, and don't don't get your hopes up, kid. Um. And so when it didn't really hit, I kind of thought to myself, well, boy, that was a great chance we had. And and we got to make an album. How many bands get to do that on a major label. You know, I'll always be able to pull that album out and say, see look what

I did. I did once, you know. And but we still love playing together, and so we didn't really give up, we thought, you know, um, Personally, I believed in Tommy Johnston. You know, I believe I still believe he's a great, uh songwriter, a great singer, a great stylist, a great poet. So to me that that, you know what, was meant so much to me. And I just at that time, at that moment in time, I knew he had other great songs that he would write. I just knew it.

And I was still writing, and I felt like I was getting better as a writer, and uh and I and the whole process is a gift. You know what I mean. Music is and was has always been a gift for me. It's something that I didn't do because I thought I was going to be Liberaci. I did it because I love Liberacci. So you know, I want I wanted to be able to do that much. I wanted to be able to play and have fun and if if there was any success that came with it,

that was just frosting on the cake for me. So I didn't know how long I would feel that way. I mean, I obviously there's a point in your life where you're going to go, you know, give it up. You know you're not gonna make it. So but you know, I never happened. We kept on going and uh but initially it was simply because I loved what we were doing. And and really through the years we've had moments where we we haven't done quite as well. Um I could say that now you know we're not. We haven't had

big hit records for a long time. You know, who cares. It's about whether or not somebody wants to come to your gig and see a play, and whether or not you know you can afford to pay the guys to to to show up, you know. Um, so that it's still kind of the same for me, But back then it was it was simply just believe in in in the Tommy, particularly as an artist. I knew that he was going to write some good songs that I would enjoy playing. You know, So the second album comes out,

I'd be pretty close to tension. If I ever read anything about the first Black and White album cover that album, I don't remember. And I'm living in the hinter land and out of nowhere. Listen to the music just black you're reading about everywhere there's this band that do be brubh blah blah blah blah. When you were cutting that album, did you know that? Listen to the music, man, this is gonna be our ticket to paradise. I don't think

you can predict things like that. I certainly knew it was a good song, and I knew that for our band anyway, I don't think it it's funny because I don't think our music is quite like a lot of other bands. You know, we're a little more We're like the the White Eisley Brothers, you know what I mean. In a way, we're kind of um. You know, you could just you look at bands from the era, they weren't doing quite as much UH pop R and B maybe as we were doing at that time. A lot

of the music was more h I'm not sure. I can't even you know, I can't even tell you what was going on in the music world. But I knew that we were we had a different take on what we were doing and who we were. UM. Even as as big a fans of the Moby Grape as we were, we weren't like the Moby Grape in that regard. We were different, a different kind of a band. UM. But I knew that that song listen to music, I just knew it was a good song, and I knew it was as far as what we were presenting, it was it.

It exemplified the kind of music that we were doing. UM. And in a certain sense, that was an extension of a song like Nobody. UM. We had another song on that record called Feeling Down Farther. I think it was more of a direct um result or not result, but much more related to that that kind of a riff. But the riff was so catchy when I heard it, I thought, well, that that is who Tom is as a guitar player he has that, you know, it's sort

of a signature kind of a way of playing. And I loved that aspect I was so you know, it was really uplifting for me personally to hear him recognizing that aspect of himself that he did so well, and so, you know, I felt it was really good. And then as a song, I just loved the you know, being an old hippie and as as much of a hippie then as I ever was, you know, it really had a message that of goodness and peace and brotherhood that that I believed and still believe in at the time.

And uh, you know, I was able to jump in head first and help to make it as as good as we could possibly make it. So the song that I play most on the album at this point in time that really resonates and I'm not blowing smoke up your grass is to Loose Street, which is your song? Tell me the backstory on that. We had been on the road with Mother Earth nineteen seventy one. I think we went out on the road with them, traveling around the country, and my memory is we did end up

in New Orleans briefly. I think we did a date there, I want to say, with Alice Cooper and UH and Mother Earth maybe the three of us, and we were we had done a tour called the Mother's Brothers Show, which was a series of dates sponsored by Warner Brothers. We both were UH kind of new acts for the label, and they were those are the days when they were trying to break their acts in you know, different you know,

going out at different ways. But anyway, they put up the money for this tour and we went all over the country, did about thirty shows maybe something like that, and we ended up in New Orleans. Well, of course, anyone that's been to New Orleans and knows what a wonderful town it is, and so I basically fell in love with it. So months later, after you know, the

album had um had kind of stiffed. I think by that time, we were still booking shows everywhere, and we got this offer to play these various venues around the South, and so we ended up somehow we went down to New Orleans and we stayed in town there and then we went out and we played these you know, Baton Rouge and these little parishes that were had clubs, and we were able to make enough money to we wandn't make a lot of money, but we're able to make

money to UM pay for our overhead. And we took albums down there, and we went into a record store there and we tried to sell some albums in the in the area. I don't know if we ever did. I think we went to ended up in a record store like Spinal Tap and nobody nobody even came, you know.

But so we're down there for quite a few days, and I think we had already begun working on the album to Lose Street, and I was walking just you know, walking around town and experiencing like a tourist New Orleans, and you know, eating at the gumbo shops and uh, you know, down in the French Market and taking the street car and so on. And UM came away from that experience just in love with New Orleans as as

a town, the people, the scene. UM and and wrote that song and we went into the studio in San Francisco. Wally Hiders and Warners had been dumb enough to give us a budget, and we ended up in the studio

there as our own producers. We decided we could do it better than than Ted and Lenny and we UH started recording songs, and out of all those songs, I think we got three songs that ended up on Talu Street, one being Talu Street, another something White Sun, and then this song called snake Man that Tommy wrote, and they were all ended up on the album, almost abbreviations of what we had actually done in San Francisco, except for

Toulu Street. And I had written that song and we went in and recorded it, and I had been playing the flute. Somebody gave me a flute, and I had learned to play taught myself to play the flute, and we got UH. We had the record of the song and I and I I realized it was in a key that was good for the flute, and I said, the guys, the guys cure if I try a flute on this song. So I went in and I played the flute on it, and it was kind of the perfect tonality and kind of mood for the song. So

it ended up on the record as well. UM and then we've recorded that song, did the background vocals, the three of us, and it was myself, Tom and Dave Shogren and Dave was our bass player at the time, and he ended up playing acoustic guitar, and he did picking guitar with mine as well, which was really added to it. I never realized he could do that until we did that record, and then so that ended up

being on the album. In the end, Ted said, yeah, we're gonna put that out that on the record as well, and then we as we did the record, we realized it was a real reflection of our love for Southern music because there's so much on there. The blues based, uh and some kind of folky based stuff, but all of it reflects kind of that Southern mentality and our experience in the South. You know, I think we all we all loved it h and had not we were

really California guys when we got down there. We weren't California guys anymore. We were Southern guys. We kind of we didn't reinvent ourselves. I think we found ourselves who we who we had been all along, and uh, you know, that's kind of where we are today. The second album, you almost can't ask for more success, but the third album becomes ubiquitous with China Grove and Long Train Running. But my favorite song on that album is the open or natural thing. And if you go into the credits,

it's Robert Margloff and Malcolm cec. Of course we're famous for working with Stevie Wonder. How did those guys get involved? We heard that Stevie Wonder album. Um, I want to say songs in the Key of Life, but it might have been something. I think it was talking book at that point. That's right, That's right, that's it was. And uh was just the most amazing record and the you

know whatever Stevie wondered us, it's amazing. But uh that he for the first time, and I'm sure we had heard the synthesizer before in music, but he it was at the forefront of his record, and uh, you know,

start reading about it. I'm sure there was articles written about it, and we heard about these guys and we mentioned it Ted, Ted, we'd really like to graduate to this, you know, this instrument, and I don't know how we can do it, how we can incorporate it into our music, but we really feel strongly about moving in that direction. What do you think? And he said, absolutely, I know about it as well, and uh, let's do it. So we contacted them. I'm sure Ted contacted them because as

a producer. He was always at the forefront of helping us to contact our resources and musicians and pull it all together. He had this assistant, Benita Brazier, who was this incredible assistant of his who was really um instrumental and and doing so much for us. She's the one who helped us put that album covered together for the Captain and me among other things. But anyway, we contacted UH Robert and Malcolm and and they came and brought

this This UH structure was huge. Um it was probably you know, three ft high and four ft wide, and it had all these plugs and they were you know, um, quarter inch plugs like guitar type plugs, and that you would they would plug. And then and then there was a keyboard in front and a small keyboard. It was maybe you know, a third of an actual piano keyboard

what you'd see a normal keyboard would be. And and then they would take the plugs and they would plug from one junction point to another in this UH the structure, and it would create waveforms. And every time they plugged differently, it would come up they'd come up with a new waveform UH different. It was how they plugged it as to how the the tones would change. So for a

low tone, they would plug it a certain way. For a high tone, they'd plug it a certain wave for you know, uh, for a a waveform that was uh, you know, spiked kind of a form, they plug it a certain way. So every form had a certain h and they knew it. They knew the formula for how to how to make the sounds, and so they just started doing it. Well, what do you how do you like this sound? How do you like that sound? What

do you what do you think of this sound? And we would play, you know, we got to play the keyboard. We would play, or they would play, somebody would play until we found that sounds that we that were generated from this U synthesizer that we liked. And in that with natural thing, it was a horn sound. I'm sure Tom said, do you have something that's more brassy sounding

or horn like? And I'm sure he had something in mind, something you'd heard on Stevie's record or something, And so they came up with that horn sound for us, and Tom said, I love that. That's that's it, that's it. And so Tommy played that he uh, and all you could play was one note at a time in order to get a chord. You'd play that one note and then you'd have to double that note using another key on the keyboard to get a harmony, and then you just build it up until it made a complete chord.

So I think that's probably three notes to build that. But by spreading it, you know, across the mix, it makes it sound huge. And you know, Don Landy was really good at product producing, making more out of a sound than you had so with reverb and effects and so on. So um, anyway, that's how that song was. That sound was created and we ended up using I think we used it on three different tracks on the record. Uh Salsie Midnight Lady was another track, and there's something

else on that record. I don't remember those two songs. Those two songs, it stands out in the tracks, so you can really hear what the synthesizers doing. But it was life changing from us, you know. So you go from nowhere to somewhere to being so ubiquitous. This is now and we have Friday and Saturday night music shows on TV. You're on those that there's almost a Doobie Brothers backlash because you're so big what's it like on

the other side of the footlights? Okay, what's it like being in the middle you're finally making some money in retrospect, when you're ripped off where you're so busy working that you didn't know which end was up? What was it like for you? Boy? Good question. You know, I think I was so happy just to have some success at what we were doing. I don't ah, certainly, you know, you get tired, and you know, things get a little you know, um foggy as it were. But I enjoyed

every minute of it. I just kind of went, you know, this is what we worked towards. And I knew I always in the back of my mind, I always felt, well, this you know, it took us a long time to get here, but at any moment, you know, it could end, and so you know, enjoy every moment of it, get get the most out of it that you can. Um.

I I really didn't second guess it. You know, I recognized that it was probably taking away from other aspects of my life that I was missing, you know, some of the some of the ride, but I really didn't care to be honest with the music. Was I was married to music? And everything else sort of took a back seat. So I think I just enjoyed every bit of it, you know, I mean, I love to travel. I got to go back to New Orleans. I love

that I go there a lot. Still, Um, I loved California, so you know, I got to got to see California for you know, the place it really is. You know, most people, you know, you live one place and it's a it's a great state to live in. But you know, to to get around and see from one end to the other, and to see the whole planet from one end to the other became, you know, something that I never in my wildest imagination could have could have foreseen. Um.

You know, I'm a hopeless collector. I collect stuff, right, I collected stamps when I was a kid. So I saw the planet in little you know, one by one squares for a good portion of my child my life. And to be you know, seeing places that I've only seen in postage stamps, you know, was beyond what I had ever hoped for. So you know, I love what I do. You know, I love what we do. Okay, Captain Me almost couldn't be more successful. Doobie Brothers, one

of the biggest beings in the land. You put out the next album, What were one's vices are now habits? I don't care what anybody says. It's the Apotheosius, the best album from that era, and there was a lot of print type about it. And the song is going to be another Park another Sunday. You know, Tom has told me that, you know, their issues with radio stations took it off because you know, what's the lyric in

the song. Whatever its stalls. The album comes out in February, all of a sudden November, Blackwater comes on and then just sustains it becomes a classic. So just a few questions on that album. One did you feel the pressure? Two? Were you disappointed? Three? Tell me the backstory on Blackwater? Well, you know that that album, Uh, it took a long time to get going. Um, and I think there was

a certain disappointment obviously. You know when you're a musician an artist that you know you've been riding the gravy train for a while and then suddenly it's like, where's the hit? You know, I don't think I worry about the hit. I think I you The whole thing for me personally is the act of creativity. So I worry. I worried more about the fact that will we be able to continue our creative process, because you know, I hit, HiT's a hit, but it's just another song that we made.

Albums we didn't make, you know, hits. We wanted to make records, and you get a hit. It's the thing that drives your career. And so the career being making music. You know, it's not making hits or making money, it's making music. And so I that's probably was, if anything, that's probably the thing that I was most concerned about. I wanted to keep making music, certainly want to make a living, but you know, how much money do you need?

Who cares? You know, it's more about are you happy and are you doing the thing something that you love? And so that was a concern to me. So when when the record petered out a little bit, I kind of thought, well, you know, we gotta go back in and make another record. That's all, you know, the big deal. You know, that's what we would want to do. And if you know, how many of those are we going to get a chance to do, we better do it while we have a chance. So so I was ready

to kind of go back in. I was right, you know, writing more songs myself, and I think Tommy was probably you know, we probably had that discussion at some point. Yeah, it looks like we're maybe not going to get a hit off this record. Maybe we need to, you know, get go in and write some more songs. And then we were we were in Europe, I think, doing we

we got this invite to do this again. Warner Brothers are so innovative in terms of what they do and at that time how much money they were spending on their artists. They took the Doobie Brothers, Little Feet, Tower Power, Montrose, uh Graham, Central Station, and a band called Bonnaru to Europe to do this tour. Um. And we were there doing that tour when one day somebody came in and said, hey, looks like you got a hit. Really, what what's going on?

They said Blackwater? I go, I don't think so, you know, we all we're looking at another song. I was anyway thinking there's other songs that could be hits off the record.

That wasn't one of them. Um. But I kind of took you with a grain of salt, because you know, people say stuff like that doesn't mean it's true, and we just kind of continue the tour and you know, we're it was good news if it was true, but if it wasn't true, you know, we're here are doing something really cool that we love and with all these great bands. And so it turns out it was true.

We got back and the record was getting played. It was just, you know, a big surprise, and I told the guys see all along, I was it was me, it was but you know, so that we lucked out on that one. How was that song created? Kind of the same way to Louse Street was created? The song to Louse Street down in New Orleans. Um, I had, I had the riff and I played it for Ted

in the studio one time. I think we were making uh we were in the studio doing the Captain and the album and I had that riff way back then and I was fiddling around between takes on something else. I was putting some guitar on something and I was fiddling with the riff and that's what is that? And I go, just, you know, some riff that I have, and that's really cool. You should think about writing a

song with that. And I go, yeah, I'd like to I don't know, you know, I've been trying so anyway, got down to New Orleans and still fiddling around with that riff. And really I have always kind of written songs in two different ways. One way, I'll write, you know, chords and try to lay lyrics on top of that with melodies and other what times I'll write poetry and then bring the poetry back and see if I can fit it in somewhere with with something I'm working on.

In the case of Blackwater, I started writing images and poetic themes, and I think the first thing I remember writing was I was going up to the uptown on on the street car goes up St. Charles Uptown towards uh. I think it's two lane University up there, and I was riding on the car and it was raining outside, and I had a piece of paper and I always used to carry a pad and paper around within those days. I wrote, if it rains, I don't care, don't make

no difference to me. I'll take I'm taking that street car that's going uptown And that was the beginning of the song. That's kind of how it started. And I got to the laundry mat I was going uptown to do my laundry, and uh, I started continuing to write stuff and and wrote some more images. And you know, I always loved you know, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn and the books. And I wrote something about, you know, building a raft and and you know, floating on the Mississippian.

And I had heard the term black water somewhere and it really was really in regards to the Mississippi River Old black water. And I don't know whether I heard a song or a poem or a story, and so I incorporated that into it as well. And then I wrote the song and came back and put it together in the studio, you know, as as we usually do with things, you know, we kind of either rehearse a little bit and then we go in the studio. And but a lot of it came together in the studios

as it as it turned out. Um, but I had I had the lyrics, and I had the melodies, and I had the guitar changes in the chords and so on going in and then it was just a matter of nuance and arrangement these songs. This is almost fifty years ago, and I vividly have a memory of the song was living in Los Angeles and I went to live with these guys because my sister moved where I was living with her and another woman. And I lived with these guys all of three weeks. But we were

going up in my car. Blackwater came on and different people in the car. There were three people the car were seeing different parts and it was a good car stereo. You could hear, you know, the left and right. Whose idea was to do all that? I had the idea for singing around like that. I I didn't think it would go into an acapella section, which I which I love, and that was really Ted's idea I had. My concept was it was going to go into a you know,

five piece Dixie Land band. So I was going to take the guitars and everything to a clarinet, uh, you know, a trumpet, a tube, a band joe, that kind of thing, and do a traditional dixieland uh kind of an arrangement

behind it while singing those vocals. And Ted said, well, that's a it's a cool idea, But do you mind if I if I try some other ideas that I have And I go no, of course not, because by that time we had recognized Ted's it was a brilliant producer and that you know, when Ted said something, listen to what he's saying, because you know, it could be

a really good idea. And so um, we decided that it would be better as an acapella thing, and uh, I didn't Again, I didn't think it would break down totally to an acapella because it really I always envisioned at least some rhythm or something going on, and it works perfectly in that and that doing that, it's really

that street corner thing that I love. That anyway, And and then Ted brought in um someone to play viola on it, which I thought was Again I wasn't sure about the instrument because you know, violin is something I always was familiar with, but viola that's a little darker. And why why a viola instead of a of a violin? And and is it going to be a Cajun thing or what are you gonna do? Well, it turns out it's really not a Cajun thing. It's really more melodic

and totally different. And Ted had been producing this band Chunky Nova and Ernie, so that is no v I can't remember how you pronounce her lasting narvo narvo or something like that, Um playing the viola, and of course when I heard it, I flipped. I thought, oh my god, this is so perfect. This is exactly where it should go, and the right instrument, the right player, every you know, just was like, you know, a dream come true for me. Okay, the next album once again, my favorite song is yours.

Not that it was the one on the radio, but well I told you it was Nils fan Dangle. Tell me the story of Niels fan Dango. Oh gosh. Well, I was a huge fan of Jack Caro Whac and all those guys had a presence there in San Jose and the Santa Cruz Mountains with unbeknownst to me, I always thought they were, you know, San Francisco, the the Beat generation. And I learned that Neil Cassidy. In fact, I saw Neil Cassidy at that venue I was talking

about with where I went to see Janis Joplin. There was Neo Cassidy walking around with a washing machine and some kind of a tube going to some kind of a gas mask that he had. Just a crazy, crazy artist, you know, nonconformist guy. Um. But as I read those books, I recognize that Neil Cassidy was this really character. Of course, and then later on when I began reading, uh, you know about the electric kool Aid ascid test, and I'm trying to think, I I learned about Neil Cassidy before

I even read that book. He was a legend in where I lived around the area there as to being, you know, the just this character, and everybody talked about everybody seemed all of my a lot of musician friends and people in the literary community, they all knew Neil. I never knew him, although I saw him the one time, but everybody had a story about Neil Cassidy. You know, he talks a mile a minute. He juggles uh uh hammers. You know what do you call it? Huge? Uh? My

mind's are blank, but you know, sledge hammers. He juggled sledgehammers. I'm trying to visualize this guy. He takes more speed than anybody and stays up for a week and then he sleeps for a week. And he could take more or less d than anyone and drive a bus. And I was just like, what is superhuman? Crazy artist? You

know what is this? And so um, I'm living in Las Gatis and I'm I'm at a club and I have a friend that plays in a band, and I go to see this band and and I hear and I hear the band, I go, well, these guys are pretty good and and I'm sitting there and uh, after they took a break, this guy walks out of the band who was playing the guitar in the band. He goes, uh, hi, you don't know me. My name is John Cassidy, you know,

and uh you might know my dad, Neil. And I and uh so, I'm so I'm meeting Neil's son John. You can be becoming good friends. And and he goes, you need to meet my mom, you know, Caroline, you need to meet my mom. So at some point. And my my girlfriend's brother Bill, he's an author, he wrote an author. He wrote a book called be Nut Content. And he's a friend of Ken Ken Kesey. And so

there's this just you know, serendipity about you know, Neil Cassidy. So, um, I have this riff and this is one of those instances where I'm having this song, this you know, musical thing that I'm thinking, you know, I want to write something like the Almond brothers. You know, I want to write something with rhythm and fast and you know, bluesy and and stuff and so uh then I started thinking about Neil. And the song is fast, but it gets

faster one of the great things about it. And I'm thinking, this reminds me of Neil Cassikia and so I think, I gotta, I gotta write a song with Neil and it it's really not about Neil. It's really about about me, about my experience, but he is part of He is

part of my experience. So um, and I find out he lived up in the Santa Cruz Mountains where I lived, and not far from where I lived, and and John and I were talking, you know, and he's telling me things about him, and then I'm reading about, you know, where he lived in Las Gados and how he lived in the Santa Cruz Mountains and what he did and and and it all kind of came together as a as a little tribute, if you're will, to Neil Cassidy.

So it's it's about both of us. It's about my love for that area and and I know he loved that area. He he ended up coming back again and again to last get us Okay, the line going back to my mountain, the home Loma Creata. Was that your life or his both? I think, you know, Loma Priata is the like, like the highest peak there in the Santa Cruz Mountains. I think there's a you know, some kind of defense Department of Defense thing up on top

of the mountain, you know. But Loma Priata is kind of a part of the Santa Cruz Mountains that you know, a lot of people refer to as thea. It's up near Loma Prieta. There's a road Lama Priata. There was a train station in Loma Priata and the eighteen hundreds. You know, it's just kind of an iconic part of that area. So you know, I lived near there and and Neo Cassidy lived there at one time as well, near there, so uh so we both ended up going back.

So okay, needless to say, Tom get it's sick. Michael McDonald comes in, You make a couple of oubs. I remember buying that album to Drive Cross Country Taken to the to the Streets and just being shocked like it was a different band that had some success than the Living on a Fall line. Did Minute Pie Minute comes out? And it's it's almost more successful than The Captain and me. Did you have any idea that that album was going to break through that way? Not at all. No, U. Yeah,

you always hope that the records are going to do well. Um. I I love the songs on the record, although you know, there was a lot of tension probably making the record, and I know for a fact that Mike felt very um ambivalent about about the record itself. You know, he

didn't feel that he'd achieved at the time. Mean, we talked about it openly, that he he was achieving the music that he had set out to, you know, or not that he had set out, but he didn't feel that he had risen to the occasion as much as as he hoped. And I can't. I kept tell him that, Mike, you know, it's brilliant. You know, the songs are great. You did a great job. You're saying you're butt off. Really you have nothing to be worried about with this.

I I go, you know, and I think there was a little um insecurity in terms of you know, we had had this success with taking to the streets. Living on the fault Line is arguably probably our least successful record beyond our very first album. Although it's one of my favorite records, it's such an obtuse uh musical venture, you know. Really it's nothing like being we ever did before or after it, although there are you know, songs that certainly fit within our you know, scope of creativity.

But it was crazy, you know, experimental record. We did a lot of experimenting. But minute by minute I I thought it was a great record, and particularly I felt Mike's songs were of it had risen to another level. You know, I just you know, it was very mature on his part, you know, with a song like minute by Minute, I just felt like, um, with that interesting opening, and that it was really bluesy, the kind of music

that you know, we sort of are known for. He's singing the blues on that record, and but it was a little more jazzy, which I at that point in my presence in the band, I was kind of shooting for a little bit more. You know. We certainly did some rock and country and all kinds of things, but I love the kind of jazz tinge things that we were doing at the time. I'm kind of a you know, if not a great jazz player at least a real

jazz fan. So I liked that we were experimenting in that direction, and I felt on that record we were doing that. At the same time, I felt a song like What a Fool Believes was just a great uh contemporary pop kind of a of a song that that still had a legitimacy as a musical uh presentation. I thought, you know, it was really some serious chord structure and

rhythmic properties there and just great. We all participated, we all saying we all you know, did our usual contributions, and uh, you know, it was meaningful for me as a as a part of that, you know. And what where There are songs on records that I never even played on, and some that I never sang on, not many, but some, and you always feel a little left out, you know. But on on that record, you know, we've all participated, and you know we were we were here

and there and everywhere, and I like that. I love that opportunity, and it's it just makes you feel part of the part of the whole. And but but I love the album, you know, as as much as as as is insecure as we were about it, I really liked the record. Okay, let's talk about something really important. Okay, you make that album, you make the sub to Queen album, You cut your hair. You were legendary for your long year. You cut your hair and then eventually you grew it back.

What's going on there? Well, you know I hadn't cut my hair in like forever, and so, um, I thought, well, now that we're firmly established, maybe I can change something and it'll be uh something to talk about. You know, we're always We had a great publicist at that time, David Guest. I don't know if you're familiar with David. David Guests who married Lizamanel. Yeah, I wish he was still around for you to do an interview with him, because it would be a real something special. But he

was just a madman. But you know, just cutting my hair was something he could use to to make publicity out of. So you know, that was a good something to do, and then you know, it's just something to try. At that time, I think it was the beginning of um, you know, kind of alternative music too. You know, there was especially where I lived. I was living in the Santa Cruz area at that time, and there were a lot of uh, you know, sort of punk bands going on and stuff, and I sort of went, well, these

these guys are my friends. You know, I want to be I want to be a punk too. So I always was a punk anyway, but um so that was part of it, you know, just kind of wanting to do something different. And then once I had done it, I realized, oh, jeez, you know, I got a comb combe this stuff, this hair, and so then I thought, you know it, some was so much easier having a longer hair. All I had to do is brush it, and uh, I have to you know, jel it or

you know, do anything to it. So I kind of, you know, and I'm you know, I'm really I'm really not a punk. I'm a hippie. So okay, So you have this tour with Michael McDonald and Tom and then COVID happened. Presently you're doing a residency in Vegas. Is it a matter of satiating the fans or as long as you can sell tickets, Mike will go out with you. Or is there no plan or is this a one time deal? What's going on? I don't think there's any plan.

I had mentioned Mike years and years ago, I said, you know, would you ever want to come and do a tour with us? Because I think it would be just a great thing for for our audiences. You know, when we're doing gigs, you know, fans come up to gonna Have you talked to Mike lately as Mike can ever come back and play with you guys? And I go, he does, you know, gigs with us once in a while, or or we're playing somewhere and he's around, he comes

and sits in. But I don't know, I don't know if that will ever happen, you know, because Mike likes the way it the way he does it. And so I mentioned to him one time he had he was living in uh he had bought a place over in Maui and we hung out there, used to go surfing once in a while, and I said, you know, would you ever feel like coming and doing some kicks with us and do a tour? I have to do a big tour, you know, just something to go out and do a few dates and the fans would flip and

he goes, no, I'd love to do that. You should, We should do something like that. And so we kind of never did it, you know, we just kind of decided, and every once in a while I'd see, might go still up for coming and doing some gigs with us? Yeah, just let me know whenever, you know. And so finally I went to the guys. I said, you know, Mike keeps telling me come out and do some gigs with us. Would that be something that would be cool with you guys?

And John and Tom said yeah, sure, you know, ask him, you know when when you'd like to do that. And so that's kind of how it came about. It was really informal, and and then we just we knew it would be, you know, something cool that people would really like. And so at that point, we know the pandemic hit, and I think we kind of that we're on the cusp of doing it in the pandemic hit, and we said, well, you know, we have to postpone it, and so we did.

We postponed it, and then as we postponed it, you know more, we kept getting more and more offers people, Oh yeah, you gotta come here, you gotta come and play it. You guys should come and play there. So we ended up playing, you know, booking a lot of shows and uh, you know, Mikey, sure you want to do this. He says, yeah, this is this is cool. You know, well we'll have a lot of fun, and

I don't have to work so hard. You know, it has a lot of work getting out there, you know, shouldering all that, and and Tommy's had to work hard, you know, his shoulders most of the most of the songs for the night. So this has been in some sense a bit you know, we're gonna be older guys. It's nice to have a little bit of cushion, you know, help each other out a little bit so that that you know, it's in some ways a lot of fun in that regard, just because we we can in what

we've extended the show. You know, we we actually were playing about a two and a half hour show, almost three hours. We're down here working in Las Vegas. They don't want us to play that long. They want people to get back out on the slot machines. But we're still playing an hour, a little more than an hour, or I'm sorry, a little more than two hours here.

But it's a good show. We get to do all the songs that all the hits that people you know that they got to hear the hits, and and then we sprinkle in a few of the songs that you know, we enjoyed playing and some deep cuts and stuff, some stuff we've never played ever. And then, uh, we have this new album out that we put out and it was October of last I think was October October. Yeah, and so we're doing a few songs. We do three

from from the new album. So that's that's really a treat for us to do some new music as well. So we're really, uh, I mean, we're having the time of our lives. You know. It's never would have thought in a million years, fifty years from more than fifty years from the time we put it together, that we'd still be out here doing it and having the fun we're having being able to And I gotta say again

for me that it's it's all selfish. You know. I get to play with great musicians, singing and playing songs that are you know, iconic in in uh the American soundscape these days. You know, I mean we never never, again, I never really would have thought that we would have ever made this kind of musical impact as as a band. And uh, to be able to be a part of that, and to me, it's like a you know, it's a

gift for me personally. I get to do work in this dream band with these fabulous musicians, and our music is certainly popular music, but it's it's much more complicated, I think than the average songs that are that are out there on the radio or that have been um and and you know there are certainly there are other bands, yes Kansas, you know STEVEE. Dan that write music that

is equally interesting and complicated. But I love the fact that the music is challenging and even after playing songs for years and years, I still have to think about what I'm doing and that really makes for a great enjoyment for me every night. I don't you don't go out there just taking over. Oh I know this stuff so well. I have to worry about it. You know. The intricacies of the music are such that you can play a thousand times and still it's it's challenging. If

you're not paying attention, you're going to screw up. And so uh, you know, I'm always deep into it, every song, every everything, all night long. It's just it's it's a good thing for you know, keeping your brain active. You know, as as you get older, I'm still always thinking. Another question though, this is very significant in the Doobies career, is you had this manager, Bruce Cone. He had a very high profile and a lot of managers do not so that people in the who are just fans are

aware of him. He's part of the legacy in terms of bringing the band back together for charity things. You ultimately switch to irving A's Loss operation, and in addition, in the book, Bruce is really not mentioned. How did you decide to switch managers and what is the difference with the new managers opposed to the old. Well, you know, I'm not really supposed to disclose, you know, Well, we'll

talk about what you can. I'm not trying to you know, yeah, I will because you know, Bruce was a great manager. I think he did a great job for the band. We we had, you know, a lot of success with with Bruce, and you know, he was a great person.

Um at a point there was there were some um disagreements and we've found ourselves in a predicament where we we had to make a change and it didn't It wasn't something that I guess I should speak for myself, and it wasn't something that I that I looked forward to at the time. Um, but it was necessary. It was an impast that came about and we we had to make the change. And we I've known Irving really.

I met Irving through Mike McDonald. Mike introduced me to Irving gosh over thirty years ago, forty years ago, something like that. And naturally everyone is aware of Irving's abilities and presence in the in the music industry. And when we when we signed with Irving, it was, you know, something that for myself it was like wow, you know, he's like this incredible person, both as as a business entity and as a person in general. He's kind of

a guru to me musicians. And we had reached a point in our um in our career with Bruce where we've kind of hitting a stagnant point and I think probably the band was on the verge of just retiring, you know, and um, we we made the break with Bruce before. We didn't go to Irving and say we want to make this break. We made the break earlier on and we kind of managed ourselves for a while because we could. We were you know, had enough knowledge at that point to continue with with what we were doing.

And we did that for a while. Uh, and then of course we knew we were we would be out searching for someone to represent, and we spoke to several different a lot of different people before we made the decision. But when we found Irving would be interested, that was we knew that that would be a great place for us. Just for me again, once again, I kind of speak for myself on this. I'm a California guy. That the Irving's business is based in California. UM, I want to

stay within that context. You know, I feel like we're a California band and who thinks they're from New Orleans. But you know, so it has been really invigorating for the band to be working with Irving and Kareem Karmi, who is really our day to day uh management. Kareem works for Stop Management, And it's been, you know, I don't know, really a shot in the arm. You know, we're really being more creative, more enthusiastic about what we're doing. UM, having a vision for the future that we kind of

had begun to dissipate a little bit. I think we kind of you know, it wasn't that we were it was we were done or anything, but I think we had felt like, well we're going to probably at least yeah, I think we probably might have been done as a band, and we would certainly go on to continuing to be musicians and to write and try to be creative. But um, there it is. That's really where we ended up. Okay, you've been making music professionally for over five two years.

You know we had VH one behind the music. The stories are legend of the people being ripped off or blowing all their money signing bad deals. The Doobie Brothers has never been a small group. How have you done financially over the years and where are you at now? I've certainly made some bad decisions financially. Yeah, it kind of comes goes with the territory. I think musicians or musicians first, and and that's our weak point. You know, people can talk you into doing things because they know

you're you know, you're you're busy tuning your guitar. But I mean I've signed bad publishing deals, and you know, I've had people who have done nothing and then sued you because they can. And then you have to waste all your time and on something that really if if if you went before a jury or something they would never prevail, but you realized by that time you went to a jury, you'd lose way more money than it

took you to get there. So those things happen. I've tried to be conservative in terms of of who I am financially, I don't you know, I don't have private jets and limousines and a lot of expensive jewelry or you know, just you know, bad bad drug habits and stuff. You know, I've tried to be aware of uh, you know, myself and the people around me. Um and I and I haven't been afraid to work, you know, I Uh,

we're working. Is is good. It's good for all of us, you know, to continue to to do what we love to do, not take it for granted and just go well, you know that it used to be fun, more fun. I'm not gonna I'm not going to subject myself to that. To me, you just hang in there and do it. And uh, you know is that old adage if if you do something you love, it's going to come back to you. And that's that's really the way it's been for me. Uh, financially, you know, I'm not the richest

guy out there. I'm not the poorest guy out there. I'm kind of in the middle, and and that's really where I want to be. I don't I don't. I don't have this, you know, I don't have I don't need to make a lot more money. And it's not about making money, you know, if you can survive, and you know, I don't have a lot of debts, thank god, you know, I do own my home. Um, that's really all I want out of life. I have a wonderful family.

I have children, I have grandchildren. That's that's those are the real Uh, that's the real wealth, you know, and your health. Having your health is health is wealth. So you know I'm I'm a rich man. Okay, So you mentioned your wife and the motorcycles earlier. Is this have were you married before? Is this your one and only wife? I have had two marriages. My first marriage was to a gal that I spoke about, her brother, Bill Cradock.

Diane was my first wife, great wonderful person. Um, and we still, you know, are good friends and stay in touch. I am married to Chris Summer Simmons. We've been married for thirty two years and got three children and three grandchildren, and UM, It's been a a wonderful relationship we've we met through motorcycling. We met that Sturgis, South Dakota, the

motorcycle rally there. She came to a fundraiser that we were the Doobies were doing for the Fight against US Muscular Dystrophy that Harley supports and supported then still support. And I was the the chairman of the Biker's Fight Against Muscular Dystrophy and I was given a press conference. The band was there um to play and I was doing a press conference with the head of marketing for Harley Davidson talking about, you know, the concert and our

efforts on behalf of the Muscular District Association. And she came. She had a motorcycle magazine called Harley Women, and she and her partner came to cover the press conference for the magazine, and I was introduced to the head of marketing, Clyde Vesseler, and we became friends and have been together ever since. Chris and I we she she We went out to Sturgis that night or the next I was that night. We went out Sturgis to the to the rally and hung out and walked around and bought some

t shirts and just got to know each other. And we've been together ever since. It's amazing. So, what's the key to being together when you're on the road, etcetera. You know, the rock and roll road is it has littered with divorces. How do you keep together? She has traveled with me a lot from time to time. When my children were small, they accompanied us on the road. We took them on the road with us on the bus. They all of their bunks. They loved that, you know,

camping out with the Doobie brothers on the bus. Um. So that's helped. Um. We share so many common interests and spend a lot of time together all all the time. You know, when we're when I'm not working, we're together when I'm working. She comes, um, and you know, I'm I love that. I mean, we just have a wonderful relationship. It's probably the most important thing in my life really is my marriage and my children. So you say, okay,

you're rich because of that. We're rich in information you having taken the time to tell us all these stories in depth. Thanks so much for doing this. Thank you, Bob, Thank you for having me. I've enjoyed it, spilling my guts. You know the other thing. I'm a huge Doobies fan. You know that I have too good two things Don Handley, the End of the Innocence and the do Be Brothers. When it's like they're just in my head, they just click through. And that's not blowing smoke up your grass either.

And on that note, I'll leave it again. Thanks again, pat Hey, thank you, Bat great talking to you. Until next time. This is Bob left Sex