Steve Poltz

to open the shows and be in her band. And that's what first brought me to Australia back in nineteen ninety nine.

gigs and I've never quit coming back. So it's become a regular tour stop.

keeps me coming back. And there's so many festivals I can play.

get three hundred people in there. They make you a great meal and you're hanging out with all these crazy Australians and every night it's just like a new thing, and I show up and they go all out for the shows, and they're just so welcoming.

and every night it's just a blast. And then the next day I'm headed to another city.

on a two hour journey. And I've tried to really learn to play fewer songs, like because for a while I was doing four hour shows and I realized, you know, there's got to be a beginning, a middle, and an end. So I've learned to pair it down.

funny is going to come out of it. And I'm going to take the piss out of the audience, make fun of their accent and what I did that day, and hopefully have them all smiling and feeling good. I always want like a sense of redemption by the end of the show, where everybody's just up there on their feet and they're just feeling really good.

doesn't love drugs. That's what I told the audience. And so I want you guys to feel good, and so I would give them an example of a poem. And it doesn't have to rhyme, but you just go up and you get to do this poem and it makes it so much fun. So, for instance, last night I was on stage and I just I remember I was sitting there and I said, dear Diary, this was my poem. I took a shower and used doctor Bronner's peppermint hemp hippie soap. It smells so good. I washed my armpits

and my bum and my private parts. And then I thought to myself, I need to wash my feet too. The water in the shower isn't going to just clean them. I should scrub them with his hand towel and soap. Now I'm sixty four years old, So I lifted up my foot and scrubbed it real good with the soap every little toe. It felt so good and clean, like I was doing God's work. Then I washed my other foot and that felt good too. I was so happy

and proud that my feet were clean. Then I thought I should scrub my butthole because I have this hand towel and lots of soap. But then I was worried that the foot germs might get into my butt like athlete's foot, so I scrubbed my buttole anyways, and then I had to pee in I thought to my so I should wait till I get out of the shower and pee in the toilet. But then I looked around and Sharon wasn't in the bathroom, and I obviously wasn't

live streaming. So I peed real good like, and I watched it all go down the drain, and it felt like I was doing something bad and that felt good to me. So I got out of the shower and dried off. Now I can't sleep because as I was drying off, I looked in the mirror and my balls looked terry. So I thought I'd try shaving them, even though I'd never shaved them before. It just seemed like an impulsive decision. So I tried it, but I accidentally got a cut on my scrotum and red blood dripped

into the white sink. It looked really cool, like art, and I like art. Then I signed my name in the sink with a swirly S and a swirly P. But then Sharon walked into the bathroom as I was stretching my ball sack and looking at the blood, and she goes, what the fuck is wrong with you? And then some the air scaped out of my butt and made a party sound. So I decided I should go to sleep and not shave my balls anymore, and Sharon put a band aid on them. The shaving was a

bad idea. Thank you God for listening to me, your friend Steve. So I did that piece last night because I knew it would make me sweat to do that on stage, and I just wanted to take them on a journey, and see, I like to take a risk. And then my body makes a drug and that drug is this adrenaline, and then all limits are off and I can sing any song I want because I've taken them to a place where I want them to go, and I want to encourage them to write.

tell you. So I would go up and pour the wine into the gold chalice that the priest is holding, and I would say, this is in nineteen sixty seven, Goblin Savignon. He would be good with it, Phil Mignon, Goodrea, and then the priest would just look at me and go, this guy is crazy. And that kind of basically stopped

my altar boy career. And so then I kept drinking, and I would have fun drinking, and that led to marijuana queludes in the seventies led to cocaine, opium, everything, and then, like any good musician, I ended up in rehab nineteen years ago and I haven't had a drink since, and my career got better due to not drinking and drugging.

the Rugburns, and the song was called Hitchhiker Joe. It's about a cannibalistic hitchhiker that would hitchhike and then he would eat you, and so we made a video for it and everything, and then Steve got into drugs and he got stabbed to death in a crack deal that went awry with some prostitutes, and so I had to id him at the Morgue and I had a nervous breakdown. And I remember I flew back to San Diego from being on the road. I've been doing blow all night

and I kind of collapsed at the airport night. There was this one attorney. I knew this guy, Michael Wilson, and I called him and he heard it in my voice. He answered the phone. I don't even know how he answered the phone because he had secretaries, but he heard my voice and I said Michael, and he goes Stephen and he goes, what's up. And I said, I'm in big trouble. I've gone insane. And he said, you need

to go right away to this rehab place. And for some reason, after twenty eight days in rehab, they graduated everybody except for me, and they said you need to do another twenty eight days. So I did another twenty eight days and then they let me go, and I remember I got out and I had a show at the Belly Up in San Diego Salona Beach, and they sent guards with me to make sure I wouldn't drink. And then it was weird Bob. I just I didn't

want to drink anymore. I realized I could do more damage not drinking and drugging, and it was getting in my way of my muse and my creativity. And I love not drinking like I love it. It's a drug to not be on drugs and to just create and take chances and risks.

So Neil Young became a higher power. And then as it went on, I had no problem with the God thing, the idea of that there might be something up there, stronger, and who knows what it is if it's just a spirit. So I just say a prayer of thanks. I don't pray to be good, but I do this visualization thing. It only takes me a minute where I picture everybody on their feet smiling, and I've converted the room and it's just going to be I've done some work that

was good. I made people feel good. Maybe I'm down in the middle of the crowd, maybe I'm on the stage, but I love it. I just like coming out with whatever I'm feeling. So it's just honest because people can tell. And an audience is like a horse, and a horse knows when you get on it, if you're scared of it, if you come out and let the audience know you're in control, they're gonna come along for the ride. And that's where you really build a fan base because you

got five thousand people out there. You know, I'll be playing Newport Folk Festival this summer, or in Australia, I'm going to Byron Bay Bluesfest. Probably played a seven thousand people and a lot of whom have never seen me, and so what you need to do? Do you know? Do you remember Huey Lewis?

what was that song you did? I loved and he'd say, oh, that was an original, and they said that is so good. So at a festival you need to infiltrate then double crossing, not meaning you're doing covers, but go out. You can't just go out and talk about shaving your balls in the shower. You've got to lure them into your world. And then slowly, once they commit to loving you, they're with you. They're a part of your tribe. It's amazing.

And then you slowly collect people. My buddy Oliver Wood from the Wood Brothers has a quote that he told me about my career. It's a slow rise to the middle, and that's the best kind of career to have.

You're selling stuff and I shake everybody's hand. I believe in the Willie Nelson School of music, you'd always wait by his tour bus afterwards and shake everyone's hand and sign everything. I love it. I love the interaction taking pictures with people and then playing the show, and slowly they convert over. And then you play a club in a town and they show up and say, oh, oh, man, I saw you at High Sierra Music Festival, or I

saw you at tell your Ride Bluegrass Fest. And the cool thing is I'm just solo on stage, so I don't have to deal with a lot of logistics of band members and everything. I can surgically strike and play Stan Rogers folk Fest way out in Canso, Nova Scotia, and then zip across the country and play Rocky Mountain Folksfest in Lions, Colorado. And I can do it and get there pretty fast.

who you are. Okay, you can't see that and say, oh, it's Steve Poltz and you know, number ten in the Spotify Top fifty, but they know who you are. So the game has changed. Yet you have continued in the game. To what degreed does it frustrate you that you have this middle level of success and to what degreed do you have hunger to be known and exposed to more people.

has something you want. Even Springsteen, where he's at on the wall now isn't in the stadium thing he was at at one time. So we always want to be somewhere else. So number one, the first rule is be kind to everybody you meet on the way up, because sooner or later you will meet him on the way back down, and you're always going to want more, but you've got to just remain grateful and thankful for what you have, your little slice of the pie. And for me, I'm happy with the slice I have because I get

to do the weirdest shit on stage. Bob, I'm not beholden to a hit song. I go out and I'm doing spoken word and it's a drug to me. I'm an addict, and so I'm addicted to the performance and I'm looking for that high, that sort of danger on stage and also the sense of community. And so I have like the ultimate career because I go from city to city. People show up in Australia and it's like whatever, a fifty dollars ticket and they're showing up. The shows

are selling out and they're in small areas. Of course, you think, God, it would be cool to go up to bigger theaters, but it's just one day at a time, and I get such a high from the shows that I'm happy where I'm at and if it grows I'm playing on the house's money because I don't have to do this anymore. I could retire right now. My wife always reminds me of that, that you don't have to

do this anymore. I was one of those musicians that put money away back in the day when some jewel money came in and other money, and I'd just go out and work and I just put it in a Charles Schwab account and never touch it. I've never touched it. I'm sixty four years old, and I don't need a lot because I live kind of a simple life.

and then she blew up really big. I was just like, Wow, why is she blowing up big? And I'm not or Jason Moraz another friend of mine from San Diego, Like there's a whole San Diego scene, why did these people blow up so big? But then when I really analyzed it and did a deep dive in it, I'm not really made for the masses. I'm not. Jason Ras has a great boys, Jewela has a great voice. I'm sort of a wild card, and I get the freedom of doing the show I want, and I have gratitude for

what I'm doing. And Jason's a friend of mine, Jewele's a friend of mine. And I saw Blink one eight two blow up big, but the Rugburns didn't, And why didn't that happen? I just felt like we weren't made for the masses. Probably, and that's okay. You got to make peace with that way.

a private Catholic school called Saint Rita's Elementary School. We lived in Hastings Ranch for a little while, and then we moved out to Palm Springs, California, because he got a great air conditioning job out there, and that was how I ended up meeting like Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley and Liberacchi and Bob Hope and all these people that lived there, and it was pretty interesting being a part of that. So it was great.

which was like a different time. Nowadays, everybody's flying a rainbow flag and stuff, but back in those days, it was like some more broke back Mountain type stuff, especially for my uncle who had come from Cape Bretton and he was a musician.

was very strict about it. She said, if I pay for lessons, you're practicing forty five minutes every day, no excuses, Not thirty minutes, not forty two minutes forty five minutes, and I realized how hard it was to learn guitar, and I hated it. But after twenty one days it became a habit, just like anything, and then I just

would get so into it. My guitar was my best friend because I stuttered as a little kid, and I had asthma and exema, and so I would just be alone in my room playing guitar, and I loved it.

would hear Joni. All of a sudden, love came to my door with a sleeping role and a madman's soul. I thought for sure I'd seen him dancing up a river in the dark looking through a woman to the core and spa and I would listen to that, my mind would be blown. We had a Moranz receiver, these big speakers, and my sister would have me. Then she would put on another record and we would listen to music, and really listen to music. I'm talking like where you

would drink it in. And I remember I went to school, Bob, and there was a Jewish girl named Hallie Rothstein, and she was so beautiful and they had been living on a kabbutz in Israel, and her dad, Jean Rothstein, was the chemistry teacher, and he was so cool, and he also did the hiking club and he went out of town on business and Hallie Rothstein asked me to come over. And I was fifteen years old and she had me come over. I know, I couldn't believe it, and I thought,

this is when I'm going to lose my virginity. And I always loved the I just my mom was like, you're Catholic. You got the only dated Catholic girl. And so when I heard Hallie Rothstein was Jewish, it was like that forbidden fruit. It even made me like her more. And they would talk about you know, how they would celebrate Hanukkah, and I found it all so interesting. And my gay uncle Louie would dress me up and I would sing Fiddler on the Roof songs to all his

gay boyfriends. And so I always had this love of the Jewish faith because it was so different to me. So my uncle Louie would dress me up and I'd sing if Iridi go dumb, and he'd have his arms around a couple guys, and I thought that's how all kids grew up. But I went over to Halle Rothstein's house, and I remember she wanted me to bring some boons farm wine over, and I was only fifteen years old.

So I went to the liquor store, and everybody knew there was this old perverted guy that would sit outside the liquor store and if you let him touch your leg a little bit, he would go in and buy you the wine or the beer you want. So I remember having this whole existential crisis. Do I let the old man touch me so I can go to Halle Rothstein's house and lose my virginity. And I rode my bike over to her house and the old man was there.

He got to grab my leg and he comes out with a bottle of Boons Farm wine and I had it in a brown paper bag, and I was so disgusted. After the old man grab my leg. I was riding my bike to Ali Rothstein's and I had screwed the cap and I was drinking the wine and chugging it. And I went over to her house and I crawled in the window of her room and then we started

making out. And you know, back in the early seventies, you would make out with the girl and she'd have Levi's five oh one button flies on and she would let me on dudes like two buttons, and I'd get my hand ride down her pants almost to the promised Land, and then she'd pull it up put it back on her boop. We both had braces, and the braces were clicking as we were making out, and the dried saliva smell, you could smell it wafting up your nostrils and we're

making out. But then back in those days, you couldn't just put your iPhone on Spotify shuffle and have it keep playing music. No, the record would die out. So you hear this, and she asked to get up change the record, so she gets up to change the record and she puts on this other record. Come back. I think I'm gonna lose my virginity to this beautiful Jewish girl.

We're making out. One thing leads to another, and I hear this voice, this beautiful voicego moving in silent desperation, keeping the nih on the Holy lad a hypathetical destination. Say who is this Walking Man? And I just stopped kissing her and I said who's that? She said, it's James Taylor. And I just looked at the album covered Walking Man. He was in this cool pose. And back in those days, you couldn't look up if they were shopping at Kroger and what they looked like, and when

they were getting their groceries. All you had was the mystery of what was on that album. And you held that big album up and you look at the back of You're like Danny Kortzmark Russell, kunkle Leland Sklark. Who are these people? These are gods. I need to know about all these players and who they are. And I looked at Hallie. I said, I'm sorry, I have to go.

Can I borrow this record? She said, I guess so, so I didn't lose my virginity because I wanted to go home and listen to James Taylor and hear Danny Korchmark Cooch. They called him Cooch. That's all I knew. Cooch was his name. I needed to do my research and I needed to listen to this James Taylor guy.

Then years later, Danny Goldberg signs me to Mercury Universal Records, and Timothy White, the now deceased editor of Billboard Magazine, calls me up because he hears my record One Left Shoe, and he says, Steve, I'm wondering if you were influenced at all by James Taylor because of your fingerpick. I really like this record, And I said, was I influenced

by James Taylor? And I proceeded to tell him about the old man grabbing my leg embraces, clicking the drive Sliva, the buttons on the Levi's five oh one, my hand, going down to the promised land of Nirvana. And I said, because of James, I didn't lose my virginity, and Timothy White goes, oh my god, I love this story. Listen. I'm friends with James Taylor. He's in Martha's Vineyard. Right now, I'm gonna call him up, and would you tell him

that story? Well, Bob, I'm freaking out because James Taylor was like one of my heroes. Right. So he gets James on the phone in Martha's Vineyard. Timothy White's in New York Billboard Magazine office, and I'm in San Diego, and it's like a split screen, triple screen Doris da Pillow talk. We're all on our phones. Can't see him,

but I can imagine it. And then all of a sudden, right before James gets on the phone, Timothy White says, tell James's story, but don't tell him the part about the old man grabbing you, because that's kind of he doesn't need to hear that. But tell him the story about everything else. And I said, okay, okay. And so that James gets on the line and I hear that sweet tenor voice go hello, Steve, and I go James, He goes yeah, Timothy goes tell them the story, and then I go, I let an old.

I could do everything I could get up there, and he would paint a little mustache on me and I'd go become Bear, come and I would do the whole thing and gabba lay, oh, gaballet do gabal lele, and he would dress me up as Oliver, and I didn't know how weird it was, because he'd have like eight gay men over to the house and he would dress me up like Oliver and make me go, please, suh, may I have some more? And then they'd go, he

wants more. And then I'd have to think, oh, well, buye this wonderful morning, and I'd put on a whole show for them and I'd see how it worked. And that was where I really started learning stuff because of all of them. And he took me to see Julian Bream at the Hollywood Bowl at the age of six years old, Ella Fitzgerald, Carmen McCrae, Sarah Vaughan, Jesus Christ, Superstar, god Spell, Hair. He took me to every Planet of the Apes movie. My uncle Louis was just he was so good for me.

would try to make her laugh. I really wanted to make my mom happy because it hurt me to see her so sad, and my sister was really sad. So I would figure out what made them laugh. So if I was able to do the Lord's Prayer with a French accent without my mom hearing it at church to get my sister to laugh, I would.

loved me? And I think she did. But I used to feel like the audience is kind of like my mom, and maybe I'm on this search to win over the audience to get her a rooval, And so I think that's where it all started. Was I wanted to make sure that I could try to make her happy because I wanted to make sure she loved me. And I haven't done deep therapy at all on it, but I sort of have a sense that the audience is like my mother.

I got on the wrestling team. And I wrestled for four years ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grade. And I got really good at it and it really helped me because I didn't quit. But I was the only guy

on the wrestling team that was also in drama. And I was in the Madrigals, which was the top singing group where we would go to other schools and compete sing songs in Latin and French and German, and so I was constantly busy in school, constantly, and I think part of that too was I didn't want to go home. Because I went home, I felt a sense of darkness and I didn't want to see my mom sad.

would be the greatest thing in the world. So they came into our high school and played I've Never Forgotten the shows in a big assembly hall a theater in our Palm Springs High and I went up and I said, can I apply for Up With People? And all my friends were like, the stupid man, don't do that, like all their wrestling friends. They're so lame. So I auditioned for them, and I've Never Forgotten. I played a song

called Romanza, this Andre Segovia piece that's really sad. It's a beautiful piece, Romanza, and I played it and they went, man, you're a really gig guitar player. And then they ended up giving me a scholarship Up with People. So I got accepted and I went and I lived in Tucson. And this is back in nineteen seventy eight. Like most people have like that started band, like the Rugburns have like punk credibility. You know, they're listening to television and

CBGB's what's happening. Not me. I was in Eliza Minelly Barber streisand and Up with p People, Joel Gray and classical guitar and so Up with People. I go over there and I auditioned, and I live in Tucson and I get in casts I think I was in cast A and we were in the Latin American group. So we went and lived in Mexico and we would sing instead of up with people, because the song up with people goes up up with people you meet and wherever

you go. But ours was biev lahente, and so we would live with Mexican families and that's where I learned Spanish. And then we went to Argentina and imagine I was eighteen years old and I was in the band of up with people playing guitar and we had like a full orchestra, French horns, timpany, drums, everything, and that was where I learned about soundcheck, loading and staying with people in their houses. We'd have to write them a thank

you note afterwards. And we'd stay with all these different people, and we traveled around the world and I got out of up with people, and then I went away to college University of San Diego, Catholic University, which made my mom happy because it was Catholic, and I graduated from there and that was where I started well a little bit slower, okay.

So I go in for a whole year, and Bob, it's so goofy to say, I think I'm the only person in the world who has co written a song with Billy String's Jewel Mojo Nixon and wasn't up with People and played CBGB's and got to open for the Ramones, Like it just doesn't make sense.

relationships happening. I remember I had a cast girlfriend and a girl named Kathy McCarty, and we would have to find places to meet up, to sneak out of our host families or go in because you always stayed with families. So I would find out where she lived, and we

didn't have Google maps. It was nineteen seventy eight. I'd have a street map in Mexico, and I'd at midnight climb out of the window of my place, find out what Kathy McCarty was, sneak into the room where she had a cast mate with her in another bed who was asleep, and have the most silent sex that was so forbidden, and the forbidden sex is the best, and then climb back in the window of somebody's house in Mexico, wake up in the morning and act like I've been

in sleep, and then surreptitiously walk by her on the bus the next day and kind of wink and we'd be laughing at what we pulled off. Yeah, it was crazy. There was a lot of sex happening.

It was nineteen seventy nine at a place in La Mesa called Porfivore, a Mexican restaurant, and then another restaurant in Eltahonne, California, and that was called Ela Migo Ballroom. So Miles went, hey, you're pretty good. I can't always play well. You sub for me at the gigs. So here I am nineteen years old playing at elam Ego Ballroom and at poor Footbore, playing like four nights a week, classical guitar, four hours a night, five hours a night.

I'd get a break in the middle. They'd feed me when I got in and feed me again when I left. I was a growing kid. I'd did two Mexican meals. I had it made Bob. I was getting twenty five bucks a night sitting in the corner playing classical guitar pieces. And then one night I sang a song, and I sang the song Time in a Bottle by Jim Crochy, and we were only supposed to play, but I sang Time in a Bottle and one of the waitresses was named Brenda. I'll never forget. She was like forty five

years old. She came up to me and she goes, hey, you can sing. I didn't know you could sing. You sounded really good. Come outside, you want to smoke a joint with me? And it was like Steve Martin and the Jerk. And I went all right. And she was this tough biker chick. So I smoked a joint with her. And then she said, my old out of town at a biker rally in Sturgis. He's got choppers out there. He's shown him with all his biker friends. Why don't you come over the house with smoke some more weed

and drink some beer. So I went over to her house and it was in this area of Elkoholm that was kind of scary. And she brings me into her house. One thing leads to another. We end up in their waterbed. We're having sex. I'm nineteen years old. Also, I hear this Harley pull up in the driveway. She goes, you gotta get out of here. You gotta get out of the window right now. That's my old man. He'll kill you. And I said, I thought you said he was in Sturges.

She said, he doesn't trust me. I think he came back. He will kill you. And I remember leaving out of that window, and one of my shoes was left there. It was my left shoe, and I ran out and I never showed up again at that place. I just quit playing classical guitar in that one restaurant because that guy was going to be looking for me. And to this day, So I was in nineteen seventy nine and she was four five years old. I was nineteen. I don't know how old she'd be today, but I'm still scared.

When I see a biker come up, I imagine him coming up with like a voicebox thing in his throat. I'm going to kill you. I'm ninety.

and it was amazing. Bob and I'd pull a record out and I go ros Daman vibrations, re reggae music that sounds interesting, and I put it on and all said, I to hear Bob Mark like I'd never heard that. It was like this whole foreign feat and I got to listen to as many records as I want. So I finished that year out there, and then I was driving around San Diego and I saw University of San Diego, Catholic University, and it all goes back to my mom. I wanted to please her. I thought my mom would

like it if I went to USD. It's a Catholic school. So I applied, got in, and I remember what got me in was that when you were in up with people, you're the kind of guy we want.

But I rewrote that as a punk rock song and I had to go, Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world every day, give them back. We want them back. Well, you think it's so cool, you can take them away any time you want. We got nothing to say, so we rewrote that. And that's where the rugburn started. Was at USD and the guy I started with was a guy named Rob Driscoll, and we did classical guitar duets together, and now the Rugburns started as classical guitar duets like box Beret and we

would play outside at Balboa Park for passing change. And then our first gig was at Oh Hungary's where they had yard long piers and I got really drunk and broke a yard long pier and rather than pay us, we had to pay them fifty bucks for the broken glass that we did. And that was how we got started.

And doctor Stoddard and doctor Otter Auto would come to Palm Springs. I would drive them, my professors from University Bob. I drive them two and a half hours. My mom would have them over and the professors would get drunk and try to hit on my sister, just like Elvis Presley tried to hit on my sister when he Elvis had me on his shoulders my sister, but these professors were hitting on my sister. And I would ask them political questions to try to get them into an argument.

It was like I was. It was almost like I was Chris Matthews or somebody. I would ask me questions, what do you think about this? And I'd get them going at each other. They'd be screaming at each other. It was really fun. We'd have the best political discussions. He had a book written on Nixon Ping pong diplomacy, and gil Otto would talk all about the Sandinistas and what was going on in Central America. And I found

both sides really riveting and fascinating. And I've always been a political animal because of that.

a senator named Joe Biden. And so Joe Biden came in, I have dinner with him, and it was at that moment I went, oh, my god, this guy is going to be president. Of course, this is back in nineteen eighty three or eighty four. And I remember he looked like Charles Groden, and I always loved Charles Groden and the stuff he did with Goldie Hahn and Joe Biden was just so charming and so fun to have dinner with. And I went, I would quit everything and go work

on this guy's career. Little did I know he would be president so many years later when he was old. But back in the day, that guy was sharp and he was so charming, and it was really neat to say that I had dinner with Joe Biden. Got out of USD. I graduated, had really good grades, and I applied for a job at a plastics factory because my parents used to always go to me plastics, plastics, just like in the graduate and so I thought my mom

would be happy if I got this job. Honestly, Bob, the theme I'm finding out you're like a great shrink. You asked really good questions, and I'm going to reiterate this long time. I love you like I always have. I love your letter. I love what you write, and you've taught me a lot of just being yourself. That's all you can be. I'm apologetically you. And so the theme of this is I wanted to please my mom and get a real job, even though I wanted to

just play music. So the night before the interview for my job, there was this girl that lived at the beach right by me named Kiara Talini, beautiful Italian girl, and she was in her room and I was walking down by the beach and she was with Elizabeth, her roommate, and she said, hey, Steve, I've you ever eating magic mushrooms? And I said no, but I want to. So she said, we just got some and I said, well, I got an interview at eight am. I had a plastics factory.

And she said, oh, they'll be worn off by them. So it was midnight and I ate these magic mushrooms. It didn't kick in. It had been an hour. It was one in the morning, so I said, give me more. They gave me more, and it kicked in at about two am. And when it kicked in, I was out with my fucking mind. I took a can of spray paint out and started spray painting the wall of my house.

I had Elizabeth and Kiara with me. I said, let's all three of us get in the bathtub and get a dozen eggs, and we took off our clothes, were in our underwear, and then they broke eggs over my head. And I remember this feeling so free and so good. And next thing I knew, my roommate came in and said, dude, I got to take you to your job interview. It was seven. I had egg in my hair and I bought an old suit at a thrift store. I duct taped up the pants and I went in for a

job interview. I was tripping balls on shrooms and this guy, Tom Plane sits behind this desk and he was a Wharton graduate from University of Pennsylvania, and he said, tell me why I should hire you, dude, this is why mushrooms were so cool back then. It was like I became Tony Robbins or Stephen Covey the Seven Habits of highly effective people. I sat down and told him why he needed to hire me at his plastics factory because he had a product called slip Fix that could repair

PBC pipe. And I said, let me tell you why you need to hire me. I'm going to get a truck and a barbecue, and I'm going to go out where the contractors go and I'm going to make them hot dogs, and he goes hot dogs and I said, yeah, I'm gonna call it slip fis and dogs, and I will sell more than you've ever expected in your life. Dude.

This guy's mind was blown. And then he took out a piece of paper and he wrote seventeen point five and that was his offer for a salary for me, and he slid it across the table and I didn't know what it meant. So I crossed that ou out and I wrote fourteen point two. He goes, what do you mean that's less than I'm offering you? And I didn't even break a beat and I said, why would I want more when I could have less? And he

said what do you mean? I said, I want back in deals, Tom, And I said, I know I'm going to sell a lot. I need a company car. I need a percentage of sales. And he said, I like your style. He hired me right there. He said, you can take the company on a car home. In my mind, I'm like, I'm tripping balls on trims. Let me pick it up on Monday. So I got the job. He

gives me the job. I worked there for three years, went to sales conferences, everything I would tell people I wasn't up with people to try to get them to trust me. And after three years, I read a book called The Edge by William Somerset Mom and Mom is spelled im a Uga Champ, great author. That book changed my life because the protagonist in the story was a guy named Larry Daryl, and he wants to just go bum around Europe, and that's what I wanted to do.

I wanted to play my guitar on the streets. So I went into my boss's office. I said I need some time on He said how much time do you need? A week? Two weeks? I want to go to Europe and he says I said to him, I need nine months and he looked at me like I was crazy. He said why, I said, because I want to play my guitar on the streets. And he goes for passing change.

I said yeah, and he said like a bum and I go yeah, like a bum And he said, you know what, I'm going to give you nine months off, but you have to shake my hand and promised me you'll come back and work for me after nine months. And I said, I'm a man of my word. I will do that. He gave me. Nine months off, I went to Europe. I played guitar on the streets. I'd already been in the Rugburns, started the Rugburns, but I wanted to be a street musician. Nine months I went

all around Ireland. I hitchhiked, rode a bicycle, played in front of the Loop in Paris. I played in Amsterdam. Then I want to see what it'd be like to busk in Morocco, so I went to Africa. Busked in Morocco, went to Lisbon, Portugal, Bartholona, Spain, everywhere, ended up in England, and then went up to Sweden Norway. Met beautiful people and I would play guitar on the streets. Lived in Amsterdam. And after nine months I came back and my hair was long. He made me cut it, and he hired

me back, and I did it for three more years. Well. I played at nights and then I said I've got to quit now. And I'm still friends with that guy Tom Play. I just stayed at his beachfront palace in San Diego. He has like a ten million dollar house right on the beach, and he's still a dear friend of mine. And he laughed so hard because he comes to my shows and sees the crazy shit I say on stage, and I always make him stand up and take a bow. Changed my life.

a piece of pipe that's threaded. And I said, when I'm eighty years old and I'm on my deathbed, do I want to look back on my life and go, hey, you were a great nipple salesman. Or do I want to say you didn't whist out and you followed your heart and you lived your dream, which was to play music, make cassettes. The rug Burns we had cassette release parties.

You know, would we would have this whole scene we created because I always believed rather than play in a bar without our has a scene like the Chasmon in San Diego or something. Find a bar that's your own. And that's what I told Jewel as well. Find a bar, create your own scene, and people will come to you, kind of like you. You started your lefts Its letter, you were mimiographing that shit.

were singular, purpose driven. It's not about how rich you are, what you have, or if somebody has more people than you and they're playing to a stadium. No, what it's about is were you in the flow? How did you live your life? Were you in the flow? Did you find something that you had to do because I have to do this, like I have to play shows. I will play shows till I die.

the Crypt, Rust, Blink Inch a Miniature. There was this whole punk scene happening, and so the Rugburns. I became really good friends with Mojo Nixon and the Beat Farmers. Those guys were kind of my teachers. So I said to myself, I gotta go out and keep playing music. So this guy who was in the Beat Farmers, his name was Buddy Blue. He's now deceased, but he was also a writer for the San Diego Reader and for the Union Tribune, and he was in the Beat Farmers.

Buddy Blue got me signed to Bizarre Planet Records and Bizarre.

a video cassette. And my ePK was me with Wildman Fisher because Wildman Fisher was on Bizarre and wild Mount Fisher would walk around and for those of you listen out there, wild Mount Fisher was signed by Zappa and he was this guy you would go.

called Dix Automotive. Because of Dick's automotive, weird Aal wrote the song Albuquerque, which is one of his songs he wrote, but it's a direct takeoff of the Rugburns, but he didn't credit us. I kind of wish he would have, but it's okay. He wrote Albuquerque. If you ab di'x automotive and Albuquerque he's doing. He would always he was obsessed with that song, would come in and listen to.

John was living in Ocean Beach, California with his girlfriend Juliet's where I'm talking really rapid, and so we get signed herb Cohen for whatever reason, loves me. He flew He would fly me to Paris with him to meet this guy named Ben Waugh who worked at Monterey Jazz Fest and stuff. And Herb Cohen was this insane guy who used to to run guns with Fidel Castro. He signed Lenny Bruce, Alice Cooper, Linda Ronstadt, Tom Waits. I mean his history is crazy. They on the publishing on

Everybody's talking at me. Fred Neil saw on that Harry Niels would say, so, Herb Cohen would fly me to Paris out of the blue and go, I know a great place where we can get couscous on Saturdays. Are you in? And he would buy me and him tickets first class, probably charge it to me, and then he'd pay like three hundred dollars cab. Right, we'd end up in some nondescript Moroccan neighborhood in Paris eating couscous with Ben Law. I mean, being signed by Herb Cohen was

like a blessing. Even though he took half the publishing. I didn't even care. And he would show up at my gigs and Herb would go because Herb if put anybody out there listening. He was on the cover of Nighthawks at the diner with Tom Waits, he's the guy sitting in that picture, and Herb Cohen would go, you need to get midgets on the stage with you, and don't drink whiskey. Put iced t in the whiskey bottle.

So we get signed to that label and this guy Mike Haller and ninety one X starts playing a song called Hitchhiker Joe and the song starts kind of getting college radio favorite type stuff. So we end up going on tour with the band X and I'd split my head open. I had fifty six stitches in my skull and we would play with X and John Doe and then we got to play with the Ramones and Cleveland, and it was just nuts because Joey Ramone was really

nice to me. They didn't let bands stay backstage when they would be on, but Joey went, you guys are cool, you could watch us play. But everything changed when Mojo Nixon took me out, because Mojo was insane, and we would play stashes in Columbus, Ohio, and a biker would show up and you'd go come down to the basement. I just made some crystal meth in the desert in Baker's Field, and Mojo was like Saddam Hussein, and he would have me try his drugs to make sure they

weren't poisonous first before he did them. So you go have Bolts try that drug. And so I would snort the meth and then we would be out of our minds and the Rugburanns would go on stage and just destroy shit, get the power turned off on us. And Mojo came up with this quote, no mom meth, but Bolts, y'all. Motherfucker is gonna make me work too hard. And so

we became super close with him. And so the only couple times I'd done meth where with Shane McGowan of the Pogues and with Mojo Nixon and think I'm the only guy that sat on Elvis Presley's shoulders and snorted meth out of Shane McGowan's dirty thumbnail, and then with Mojo Nixon's drug taster. And so our shows just became nuts where we would just anything would go on stage, and the Rugburnds toured hard.

We're going to go over there. And we would go to Musso and Franks and just hang out, Me and Herb Cohen. It was crazy. So they would give us money to go out on the road. We toured NonStop. We would go for like nine months at a time. And we had this old van and most band members when they're in a van, they put band stickers on it,

you know it's a band. But I came up with this idea because fans are always getting broken into tint out the windows black and on the side, just put Saint Joseph's Catholics had that on the back and on the sides.

called Morning Wood. It was on bizarre and then we had Mommy, I'm sorry, this other one where I'd be in a pink dress. And so this state trooper pulled us over when we were in the rugbords and he starts looking at us and looking at our hair, and he goes, what is Saint Justsephe's Catholic school? I said, And I remember I said to him, I'm just singing for the Lord, sir. And then he saw make a lady playing cards and he didn't know what was going on. Just get out of the van. He looked at the

van and he didn't know what to do. And this is the weirdest thing that's ever happened to me. He goes, you can go and he goes here, maybe you need these, and he gave me some handcuffs with a key, like real cop handcuffs. He gave me them, Bob, and I remember I would pull them out on stage and a big part of my show would be I'd handcuff myself to the drum kit and I put the key somewhere and I'd fake like I lost it, like I was going to be chained to the floor of the whole show.

So then we played in a Chicago at a club called shubas Southport and Belmont. There was a girl that was beautiful named Anastasia who was the booking agent. Now she's a big part of my life because she went to UCLA and I took her to a place called mccabs in Santa Monica to see a guy named Loud and Wayne right the third And I remember when I was with her at that show, I watched Luden Wayne Wright,

and that's when I saw my future. So what I mean is I'm watching Laden Wayne Write play on stage at mccabs and I was in the rugburns and I have my arm around Anastasia and I looked at her. I've never forgotten this and I said I can do that, and she goes, what do you mean? I said, what he's doing, I can do that. I'm in the Rugburns right now wearing a dress on stage. But that's my future. I don't mean I can be him. I mean I can do what he's doing and I can make a living.

Everything came before I saw everything my future. And then Anastasia got a job as the booking agent moved out to Chicago. I remember I showed up sorrow. I had just gotten the handcuffs, and I said, why don't you meet me anywhere in Europe this summer. Let's take two weeks and go make love on the beaches somewhere. And we opened up the Let's Go Europe book. This is pre internet, and I said, wherever my finger touches on the page, you're going to meet me there. In October.

It was a place called Making Use and Greece. She showed up and I brought the handcuffs, and I was with my friend Kevin McGrath, who I wrote I want all my friends to be happy about. He died of cancer and he came out to run the Athens Marathon.

I brought the handcuffs Bob and Tom Petty had just come out with free Fall, and so we were walking on the down the streets and Greece and making us singing She's a good girl, loves her mama, drinking shots of Luzo, but me and Anastasia are fake drinking the shots because we had no money, so we were all

sharing a room. I wanted to have sex with Anastasia, but Kevin was going to be in the room, so I needed to get him drunk enough where he was passed out because I wanted to use the handcuffs on Anastasia.

and Kevin's asleep and I'm nude. Anastasia walks out in some sexy lingerie and she sees me, and she goes, you're a bad boy. And then all of a sudden, Kevin sits up like a mummy.

to see him play at the joint. He was with Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros and I walk in I got a black eye, and I show up at this place, Java Joe's, and there's this blonde girl and she's beautiful and she says, oh, I like the Rugburns. How can I get a following like the Rugburns? And she was making me some tea. It was midnight. They would run an illegal poker game in the back of Java Joe's. And I said, well, you should find your own place and that that doesn't have a music scene and make

it your own. I'm a big believer and create your own scene. And so Jewel says, you want to hear some of my songs and I said sure. So she takes me out to her Volkswagen van. She was living in it in the back of Java Jo's and Powie and we made stained glass art and then we fell in love and we would go surfing together and we found a place for her to play. And so at the time I was still signed with the Rugburns. And

then Jewel and myself. We ended up in Mexico surfing and we ended up on a drug bust with all these cops and the pictures are online where there was tons of weed and we end up on this drug bust. We take pictures with her arms around these cops. And that's when I went back and we wrote this song called you Were Meant for Me in the room, which meant nothing to me at the time. Little did I know it was like writing a winning lottery ticket. So we write this song you Were Meant for Me. Come

back to the United States from Mexico. We go out for six year old tacos.

a boat, and none of us had any money. So we're sitting on the beach and Jewels in a yellow bikini. She looks beautiful, and these four Mexican federales come down the beach with guns in their belts and they walk up to us. It's like something out of a Clint Eastwood film and you can see the heat rising off the sand and they say, would you guys like to go watching? So I said no because I was scared to go out on a boat with them, but Jewel said yes, so I had to go. So we go

out on the middle of the water the Bahia. They sent the weeds Gonzaga and these guys have automatic weapons. They're just looking at Jewel in this yellow bikini. I think they're gonna kill me, throw me overboard. It's like a Cone Brothers Blood Simple or something. And so instead they get a call on their radio and they say, hey, we have to go catch these drug smugglers and we don't have time to take you back to shore and put on these bulletproof vests. So we put on the vests.

My heart's found it, so fast. The boat goes to this little island. It's like Miami Vice. You see these drug smugglers running. They caught the slowest one. He tells them where all the weed is. So the cops make me go to this boat and carry all the weed back to the boat and they give those guys those plastic ties around their wrists. They have like six drug smugglers.

And we get on the boat with the drug smugglers who look at me like I'm stealing their weed, and they're like they want to kill me and the cops there. So we go back to the shore and we get out and I said, well, we're going to get going. I I just wanted to get the hell out of there. And I said, what are you guys going to do? And they said, this is the largest drug bust we've had in years in this area. We're going to have

a party. And so we go to walk away and the cock goes stay by Bena key, which means Steve come here. And I said what he said, I want you to take some And this is back in like nineteen ninety two, right, maybe ninety four, I think, And he opens up a switchblade and he stabs one of the kilos of this Mexican dirt, and you can smell the skunk smell coming up through my nostrils, and he says,

take some. So I'm trying to figure out what less than announces, and I stick my long, bony fingers in to grab the weed out, and as I do, he says, take the whole kilo jewel, digs her fingernails into my arm and goes, Steve, don't do it. You're gonna end up in jail. It's going to be like Midnight Express. I'll be talking to you from me on a glass wall. And then I just said, a man with the badge in Mexico is telling me to take the jewel, and they pulled their guns out, and I took the whole kilo,

and they said, let's take a picture. So if you look and type in Jewel drug Bust photos, you'll see us and all this weed shoved into a black suburban. Behind us. We're holding Corona beers or some kind of beer, and we have guns in our hands, and the cops are next to us in Mexico. And these pictures I think made High Times magazine, and my parents were so proud.

So we went back to the room after the drug bust, and I gave the kilo to this old woman who was making some spaghetti sauce for a Mormon youth group, and she poured the whole kilo into the spaghetti sauce fed the youth group. And I woke up at midnight and all these Mormon missionary kids were like playing frisbee

and stuff. And I came back, got in bed with Jewel, woke up in the morning and I grabbed the guitar, and Jewel goes, do the thing where you make up a song, So I start doing the riff you were meant for me. Little do I know this song's gonna sell millions and millions of records, like ten million. Who knows set a record on the Billboard Top one on your chart. I have no idea I'm writing something that's

gonna pay me the rest of my life. And so we write the song, but then we write a second song called food Stamp Love, and I go, this is the hit you were meant for me sucks. Food Stamp Love's cool, and the whole chorus was I'm sick of your Foodstamp Love about a lever who doles out food do you like, it's a government assistance program, and Jewel goes, I'll never forget jewels. She was like, I think you were meant for me as the hit, not Foodstamp Love.

And we're driving back to get to San Diego, and you were meant for me flies out of the window. We didn't have iPhones back then. It was on like napkins. It was written and it flew out, and I go, it's okay, we got food Stamp Love and Jewel goes.

burrito and six year old tacos with guacamole. Stick the Crispy World taco with the shredded beef inside, stick it in the bean burrito and then bite that for the crunchiness. Boh, it's sublime with the guacamole a on top of the six year old tacos for like a dollar ninety nine. So we're sitting out there, me and Jewel and there's four prostitutes and they say, what do you guys hippies? And we go yeah, and they said you sing songs and I go yeah. They go, sing us a song.

I go, we just wrote a song called you Were Meant for Me. You want to hear it now if you look at Timespace Continuum. Nobody'd ever heard that song but me and Jewel and now four hookers. So we sing it for the four hookers. I go, tell us who should sing the song? So I sang it first, and then Jewel sang it, and then they clapped for both of us, and they said we're going to go over here and deliberate and we'll let you know. We'll come back tell you should sing it. And it was

a quick verdict, which is never good. Off they came back and the lead prostitute, I said, have you reached a decision and she said yes, we have your honor, and I said, please let us know, and they looked at Jewel and they said, honey, you sing that that white boy can't sing. You do the song. And that's that was our an R department. And then Jewel ended up getting signed to Atlantic Records by the same guy you signed me, Danny Goldberg, because he was the Atlantic

back then he was the president of the ACLU. He would switch things. He was married to Rosemary Carol, you know, who had been married to Jim Carroll, and Rosemary was Nirvana's lawyer. And so Jewel gets signed and everybody's going, you were met from me, this is the hit, and I was like, what about food stamp love?

come live at his ranch to make his record. So me and Jewel move up to Elliott Roberts Place that was on Neil Young's property because Elliott was going through a divorce and wasn't there, so we lived on Neil Young's Ranch and the Stray Gators were the band, and I got to beat the guitarist. The drummer was Kenneth Butchery, who was the drummer on Rainy Dame Women number twelve and thirty eight. I think that's the numbers from the Bob Dylan song.

Klein's Crazy. We had the coolest band and I got to play guitar, so we did. You were meant for me. We lived at Neil Young's ranch and Ben Keith and Neil Young couldn't believe how much food I could eat because I'm so skinny, but I was always hungry from the Rugburns days. So Neil Young had his own personal chef who he called Cookie, and they would weigh me before breakfast and after breakfast because they said they'd never

seen anybody eat so much. I was like a snake with apossum and his stomach, and so he would Neil Young would.

jewel from me and so he directed the video. So I was glad when the video failed because then they redid it and I was the guy in the video with jewel and I'm not wearing a shirt, and that version went really big and Flee played bass on it, and so it was pretty cool. Because I got to see Flee when we played Woodstock ninety nine and Fleega was about to go on stage naked, and I remember

he didn't even have a sock over as Dick. And I remember talking to Flee and I had smoked some fog hat weed because Jewel bought fog hats sold tour bus, and I was so stoned, and I remember just looking at Flee's Dick and you should not be named Flee because that thing's big and he's a little guy, and he's jumping around on stage at Woodstock ninety nine is Dick's flopping around. And I remember before he went on, he was like, did you like the bass part? I

laid on you were meant for Me? And when we played the riots calmed down. There was like all these limp biscuit dudes out there. Nobody was rioting because we were singing you were Meant for Me, and everybody was at peace at that moment, and Juel End had to set on who Will Save Your Soul? And Elvis Costello went on before us. He had warned us it was getting crazy, and then we got off stage, and then the Chili Peppers were the final band, and you could hear what.

I think it was like a couple of nights sold out. So he flies Jewel in to open for Neil Young at Madison Square Garden before her record's out. Nobody really knows who she is. And he comes backstage and he goes, how you doing, Jewel, She's not too good and Neil Young why not? And she goes come about to open for Neil Young at Madison Square Garden and it's sold out, and Neil Young goes, ah, it's just another hash house on the road to success. Show them no respect, which

I think to this day is the best advice. And uh so, then the record Jewel goes out and she would open. I was with her. She would open for Peter Murphy and there'd be all these goth fans there and Jewel would come out barefoot and go, Hi, I just want you guys to know I believe in angels. And I would think I'd be standing side stage going, don't say that these are goth people. But to Jewel's credit, she was true to herself and it worked and she

would win over these goth crowds. Then next thing, you know, the songs gets legs and it starts breaking all these records, and I am now checks were coming in and I was using my mom and dad's address and checks would be like one hundred and thirty thousand dollars and my dad would call me up and go, this must be a mistake. I'll put it in my account how much faith he in me?

on my answering machine. We were getting our makeup and on the same time, and I had a flip phone, you know before we had iPhones, and I said, will you make my outgoing message of Michael King goes sure, and when it beats, he goes, hello, this is Michael Caine. Steve's nodding. They'll call you when he's recovered. It was

so cool. Off the top of his said, So we do the show and then Sean Penn came to the Liz Fair Show and Liz Ferrer was playing I'm a huge fan of Liz Fair, Exile and Guieville and all that stuff. And then he invited us over to his trailer in Malibu because his house burnt down where he lived with Madonna, and so that house burnt down, and then I think he and Robin Wright had broken up

or something. So he invited us to his trailer. And so we go to Sean Penn's trailer and Malibu overlooking the water, and I remember he had a broken nose and we were smoking weed. Jewel didn't smoke, she didn't drink. Me and Sean were smoking weed and he was playing me tapes that do you remember Dave Baerwald, David and David, that band.

I'm really good at seeing things. And I remember then she was in New York and I called her room and Sean Penn was in the room and answered the phone. I remember I go Sean and he goes Steve, and that was it. I was sad for a while. And then she flew to con Film Festival with Jack Nicholson and Sean Penn, but then they didn't last and then Jewel redid you were met from. Peter Collins was the producer, and redid it because they thought I could be a hit.

And then Flee played bass on it and they kept my guitar part, and then Jewel asked me to be in the video, so I was like that. That was when MTV was huge. So I was the shirtless guy in the video and we were like the remote host

of the MTV Music Awards. And me and Jewel lived in wind and Sea Beach and La Joya, and they had all these MTV crew there and they go, let's cut the Jewel Saint with Steve Poltz and La Joya and we would talk about the Music Awards, and that video was everywhere, and I was for a while known as the dude in the Jewel video and people would see me, go, that's the dude from the Jewel video. Like bikers and shit would come up and want me

to sign their old ladies breasts and stuff. I was always scared it was gonna be the biker that was gonna kill me. I had slept with this old lady when he was at Sturgis. But uh, yeah, it was crazy all that stuff that happened.

guy who was nikelaing diming stuff. I mean, I probably had a bad deal because I signed it on the hood of a Cadillac outside Molly Malone's in la and I was like, you'll give me two thousand bucks cash right now if I signed half my publishing away, Because that was how those guys worked back in those days. So yeah, they probably owned part of it. I've never analyzed it.

we would sing. My friend Steve was in a band called CLA that stood for Carnivorous Lunar Activity, and so we would sing all the Carnivorous Lunar Activities songs and I would learn all the parts that Steve wrote, and we had written a song called Hitchhiker Joe together, and so that was where I met Sharon because she played bass in the band, and so we started dating. And she has been really good for me because you know how that whole same behind every man, that whole thing,

and she is organized. So see, I used to make money on the road and I would come off the road with Jewel, and I was making great money because I was opening every show as Rusted Route would go on first, I'd go on in the middle, and then Jewel. We'd play Red Rocks or The Gorge, and I was selling like if we played Royal Albert Hall in London a couple nights in a row, I would sell like three fifty four hundred CDs a night. Back in nineteen ninety seven of One Left Shoe this Mercury release, and

Bob I had so much money. I would come home. I would shove it into suitcases. And I lived at the beach, would just leave my doors open. I wouldn't even put the money in the bank. I don't know why. So I would have like four hundred grand in my closet and old suitcases. I just shove it in there, come off the road. I lived in a shitty apartment and drove an old Ford truck. I never cared about money. I didn't need it. I just knew. I bought my clothes at thrift stores. I had my one guitar I needed,

and I had an audience. That's what I cared about. So I didn't pay my taxes for like ten or eleven years. And the irs showed up at my apartment and they were outside the door, and I came walking up, and they go, does Steve Poltz live here? It was at wind and Sea Beach and La Joya, right across from the pump house that Tom Wolfe the pump House came about. And so I said, I don't know who you're talking about. I remember I ran as fast as

I could down the beach and I got away. And then I called this guy who was the CFO of the San Diego Padres and he met me. He said, meet me at the tilted Kilt. And the tilt kilt is like a Hooters, but for girls that dress and plaid skirts and their boobs are pushed together. And so that was where the accountant wanted me to meet him, at the tilted kilt. I've never forgotten this, So Sharon put all my IRRs notices in a brown wrinkled paperbag.

I'd never opened them, and I show up at the tilted Kilt with Bob Crozdill, the accountant who's still my accountant. And he opened up each one as he would eat some of his nachos with his other hand, and he opened him up and he looked and his face was kind of growing a little more pale with each one. And I remember finally when he was and I go, is it bad? Is it bad? Is it bad? And he looks at me and he put his hand on top of mine across the table, and he goes, I've

seen worse. We're going to get through this together. And it made me feel so good. And then everybody said, you can make a deal with the irs. They'll make a deal. And the irs said, not only were it not going to make a deal with mister Poltz. He's lucky he's not going to jail for willful negligence to

pay taxes. The next morning, I woke up and the night before I'd had four hundred and fifty thousand dollars in my checking account like an idiot, like not even really earning interest, and it was gone, and I remember thinking, they're going to probably take my money, and I thought, if they take it, I want to kill myself. I want to take it out first and give it to

my niece and nephew. But then once they took the money away, I remember going I felt a sense of peace because I paid off my debt to the irs, and it was almost as if somebody said, if you give us four hundred and fifty thousand dollar, you will have peace of mind. I'd say take it. I'd give you anything to have peace of mind. So then I just built it all up again, and I still had that money in my closet, and I slowly would put it into my account, nine nine hundred dollars at a

time and get everything going again. I don't know why I wasn't putting it in the bank, because it wasn't like it was I was a drug dealer, so yeah, it's pretty crazy.

Volkswagen van staying in trailer parks. And I remember thinking, I did this whole tour where I called it the where did it all Go Wrong? Tour. I would play like twenty three people in Iowa, and I would say to the audience, last night I found myself negotiating in a trailer park to get my costs down in my Volkswagen van from forty dollars a night to twenty eight dollars a night. And as I popped the top of my west Bali at Camper before I went to sleep,

I said, where did it all go wrong? And that's what I named the tour, and I thought it was the funniest thing. So I got signed by this guy named Charles Dreby to be my manager. At the time, he was managing Blind Boys of Alabama, and it was He's still a friend of mine, he's an attorney. But it was the wrong mix because my first posters I sent out was me catching a rock in the air, opposing like I'm catching a rock, but it was blurred and I called it the Catch a Falling Turd Tour,

and Charles Dreby got so mad. He was like, we poked the Blind Boys, but this is not how we want to be represented. And that was a three year management deal. I was so glad when it was over, and then I ended up getting finally got a booking agent again, and man, I'm still with him to this day. And I have the best manager, a nice Jewish boy named philine Son with seven S Management out of Denver. I love my manager, phil line Son, and I love

my booking agent, Adam Bauer. He's with Madison House. He was with Fleming Artists and took me with him when he went to Madison house, and I say this to this day. I would not take any other agent. Anybody could come with me with any offer about anything, or another manager told me promised me in the world. I would not leave either of these guys because they took me in like a rescue dog. Adam Bauer saw something in me and has slowly built me up. I'll be

playing Newport Folk Fest this year. I play all these great festivals. I tour everywhere, and I'm so loyal to that guy. I want him to make money and I want my manager, Phill to make money, like I would do anything for these guys. And we're the smallest team. Sharon books all the travel and we're Marriotts. We always stay Marriotts. Sharon has a sewed down We're special, like they have Titanium Platinum where this special top level called

Ambassador Elite. And it's so funny because they have a special carpet you stand on when you stay at really nice places like we are here in Sydney, Australia at the Hyde Park And whenever I stand there, there's businessmen behind me and they always go, excuse me, sir, you're supposed to be over there, yes, And they go to the business time behind. I go, no, this is a line for me because the way I look, and they go,

this is ambassador Elite. I go, yeah, I'm Ambassador Elite and they go, oh, I'm sorry, and they just look really weird, and I'm Ambassador Elite. I get upgrades to suites. And my manager always gets me the best deals of playing gigs, like gets my offers up and my booking agent does too. They work in tandem and we're just small, bare bones operation and we make a great living.

don't expire ab a Canadian passport in a United States passport. Everything, So she's the organized side of that. And Phil Einson with seven s, my manager. He looks at the bigger picture of things, and Adam is the booking agent, because you really need a good agent and you need a good manager. As you know.

so good for me. Now I'm a homeowner. My money is in a Charles Schwab account and I could retire, and so she said, you need to be in Nashville. So that's how I ended up writing songs with like Billy Strings and Molly Tuttle and Oliver Wood. Everywhere I go at Sierra Hall, there's all these friends of mine that are songwriters, and just being in that area, crumbs will fall on your plate just from being there. It's just it's such a great vibrant city to live in.

I'd always been in San Diego and said to come to Nashville's I think the only place I would live other than Nashville would be Los Angeles, and that might be our next move because I miss California so much.

I don't know what's happened to him. They thought I was taking the piss out of him, and the way Andy Kaufman might like, just to see how long I could keep a bit going. But it wasn't that, And so I got rushed to the hospital and if you ever want to get to the front of the line, tell them you've gone blind. And it's like a curtain coming down. They fast track you ahead of the guy with the ice pick in the side of his head and everybody else. And so they did these tests, and

I've never forgot the lady. She was from India, doctor Mody, I think was her name, and she said, mister Poltz, you've had a stroke. You're going into the stroke woard. And I couldn't see and then my vision came back, and when it came back, I couldn't read, like the letters didn't make sense to me. And it took a couple of weeks and then everything started getting back in order. But I didn't want to drive for a few months.

And I remember Sharon was like, you're going to drive again, and she pulled the car over and made me drive, kickstarted me. And I recuperated from that stroke and went back out on the road. And they don't know why it happened, because I'm pretty healthy, but things happened.

playing all these shows. And I just finished that tour and then came to Australia and I thought I was having a heart attack on that last tour and I missed a show because I had chest pains and it freaked me out, and I never I'm not a hypochondriac, Like I never go to the doctor. I should. I read your letter and you're always telling us we need to go to the doctor. I do get my teeth cleaned every three months. I and your letter is making me go I need to And I love it when

you say that in your letter. It's really important. And so I was on stage and I got chess pains and I didn't know what it was and I didn't tell Paul, and I went to the room that night and it got worse than at two am, googling chest pains and a nausea, and it said, immediately call an ambulance. But I had a showing at the Vogel and Red Bank, New Jersey the next day. My buddy Mojo Nixon had

just died of a heart attack. So I thought, I wonder if I'm having a heart attack Mojo just died, And instead I called an Uber like an idiot, and I'd got this uber and that uber driver was from Iraq. He was from Baghdad, and as we were driving there, I thought, I'm gonna die in the uber because it got worse than chest pains. This was just two weeks ago. And my last thing I said to the uber driver was I'm sorry we bombed you guys. I was apologizing,

and then we pull up to the emergency room. He goes, are you sick? And I didn't want to upset them, so I said no, I'm just visiting someone here, and so I got out and they fast tracked me because I told him I was having chest pains, and they said, do you have heart disease in your family? And I said no, and then he goes, you don't have any and I said no, And I said, well, my mom had a heart attack, and he said, well that's heart disease. And he goes how old was she when she had

I go sixty four. He goes how old are you? I go sixty four, and then he goes, is your mom still allowed to go No, she died of heart failure at the age of eighty eight. He goes, anybody else in your family?

And I said, I dance around on stage every night because I don't sit. I'm running around stage. And he said, well, your heart looks good. What did you eat for dinner? And I said, I don't like to read the menu because I have add and I just like, I don't like to think about it. I'm in a hurry, so I just let the waitress decide for me, and she suggested it She's burger with deep bread pickles and hot sauce.

He said, have you ever had heartburn before? And I said no. Back once I ate four bites of that deep bread pickles, it really affected me, and he said it mimics a heart attack. And I had chest pains for like four days after that, but now I feel great. So I'm back up and hat.

attack at sixty seven. Oh yeah, I was totally healthy. And then that's it. I mean, I see this special heart doctor, which I would recommend to you because with that amount of heart disease in your family. You know, the guy in the er, you know, it's good that he you know, don't take that as a complete pass, even though your symptoms may have been because of the deep right pickle. It's like you have no idea what's going on. Everybody thinks they're cool, and it just like

Russ never sleeps, Calcium never sleeps. But changing subjects completely. Speaking of the dearly departed Mojo Nixon, you know, he had somewhat of a record career and then he had a giant career as a personality. He was on outlaw country, on serious XM. You have a lot of personality, You tell a great story. Have people ever offered you similar opportunities?

riveting stories, and a unique outlook. And Steve, I want to thank you so much for taking this time to speak with me and my audience.