Tom Johnston

maybe doesn't deserve my attention. But I spent the best month of my life in nine and a condo and Mammoth Mountain, which is a big ski area that you can usually skip to July four in California, and the guy brought his eight tracks, and he brought this eight track was a combination of what were once vices and the Captain and me, and it just totally closed me. I mean, this morning, I played isaas Silver on my Amazon Echo show. So it's a great thrill and an honor.

And this is not b sing because I'm a huge fan to have from the Doobie Brothers, the legendary voice Tom Johnston. Thank you glad to be here. Okay, So we always started at the beginning. We're you know, like that old Cheech and Chong number. Where was your born? Uh? Just north of l a At, well not just north, but in the Central Valley and by Celia, by Celia for those people were not California savvy. Tell them how far from Los Angeles? That is probably about two hours

north of l A. Okay, that's the old day. I don't know about now, but that's what he used to be. Okay. But when you grow up in Vasilia, what does your father do for a living? He had an aircraft shop, untilarry, an aircraft shop, well, he worked given an aircraft repair shop, made a shop for crop desting and private aircraft. That's where I worked my own childhood. That's what. Okay. So if he's repairing those things, one would think that was he was a pilot too. He was a pilot. And

are you a pilot? No? Yeah, I never did it. I don't know why I thought about it, but I didn't give it. I wanted to motorcycle wars. You wanted to stay on the ground and have danger on the ground. I got flying nuts, so that wasn't a problem. Right. But okay, so your father is an airplane mc pchanic and your mother worked outside the home. She was a homemaker,

but she had a degree in teaching and stuff. They both came from Little bitty towns in Missouri, and they came out in nineteen thirty three and um, him to get his degree in aeronautical engineering and her to be his wife. I guess I mean. But they met back in Missouri. Oh yeah, Soliman and Bourbon to eighty bitty little towns right on what used to be Highway sixty six. Well you've certainly been there. Oh yeah, Okay, the relatives are still there, the ones that are still hanging in Yeah, okay.

So they come to word, does he get his degree in California? You know, I'm a little unclear as to where he got it. I was not born yet, and this was quite a while ago. Um, I'm not really sure where he guys. And they came for opportunity to California, well him specifically a good yeah, to get the gig with get his degree, and then he went up to work. Nobody's gonna know what I'm talking about here, but he

went up to work. Eventually invited sell at an airport called that was run by Tex rank And who was a World War two guy. And this was in World War two and he was a mechanic for so Okay, if you're growing up in Vizilia, and your mother did teach or she stayed at home. She didn't teach at any time after I was taking air as it were. Okay, she sometimes went over and did the books at the shop from my dad. Okay, So how many kids in your family? Three and you're we're in the hierarchy at

the bottom. You're the baby of the family. Yeah, I think it's more. I think it's more like a mistake that wasn't supposed to have any how much older. Your other siblings brothers nine years older than me and my sister seven years older than me. It does sound like you're a mistake. And what are your brother and sister if they're still with us, what are they up to? My brother took over the shop, and my sister ends up in Oregon. She lives over there, close to the coast.

And Okay, I grew up in Connecticut, fifty miles from New York City, so we got New York TV, New York radio. But you're living in Vesalea. What were you getting your radio from? And your TV? God, Fresno and it's I sell you right between Bakersfield and Fresno. So, as I recall, it wasn't on radio coming out of Bakersfield, but Fresno had a big station and a TV station, and so you were listening to that. But there was also a period of time when I was in my teens.

There's a little bit town called Fowler, California, but I don't know, he probably wouldn't. Um that had this great blue station. That's all he played all day. And the guy's name was Happy hair Eld's House of Blues, and so I would listen to that a lot. Okay, so you're the youngest. Traditionally, the baby gets their way. The parents, you know, they're tired for the other two children, they give you a little slacked if the other kids didn't get is that true. I don't know, because I didn't

have that. They were so far ahead of no comparison. Yeah, and you know I followed my brother around when I was young and kind of got away and stuff. But um, I have to thank him for turning me on A Little Richard. That's how I got now was like nine years old, and that that was the first time I ever got to hear a Little Richard. And he brought the album home and he played it a couple of times. I played it every day. So it's kind of like

the Beatles. The Beatles started with Little Richard. Prior to that was their music in the home, there was uh, dixie Land, primarily my dad with Dixie Land buff. Okay, so until the Little Richard Richard came along, you were not a big music radio listener. You were not. I listened to whatever was on, but nothing really grabbed me until a Little Richard and Bo Diddley and and even Elvis press leaders really stuff. Okay, so that is all pre Beatles stuff. What at what point do you then

pick up an instrument? Well, I was playing clarinet and stuff all against my will. I did not want to do this. This is from age eight. Tell freshman in high school, I played that, and I played sax and then uh, at age twelve, I started playing guitar. And I didn't take lessons on purpose, and I just said, I'm gonna do this myself. Okay, let's go back. You took saxophone and clarinet in school, so you learned how to read music for a while. Yeah, I've asked my questions.

Could you read music now? Now? Okay, so you pick up a guitar your parents bought you of the guitar. No, I bought it. You bought it? Where'd you get the money? It was only twelve bucks. It wasn't too bad. I bought it from a bass player friend of mine, uh in high school. I mean we weren't in high school, yeah, but I ended up being high school and then we were in bands together, and um, twelve bucks for a

crack in the top old arch back harmony. And the dream was what it really wasn't so much of a dream. It was just kind of think of a rebellion thing. Maybe I just didn't want to be associated with those other instruments. Actually I didn't mind the sex so much, but I really didn't like the clarinet. So the guitar is my thing. Nobody was telling me to do this, and this is totally exploration for me. So that's what it became. And how did you learn? You said you

wanted to teach yourself. I listened. I listened. I figured it out on and I listened to like Jimmy Reed. I started with Jimmy Reid's It's pretty basic and sit down and figure it out on the guitar, which really wasn't that tough. And then I'd start building on that as the years went by, and pretty soon by the time he had high school, you're in high school bands and you're playing okay, but British Invasion and went ahead. Okay. But I just remember because certainly after the Beatles, we

all got guitars and we all formed bands. And I've told this story before. I was in the bedroom of a friend of mine and we're playing guitars. He goes, now, we're gonna change key and I said, WHOA, I'm out. I don't have that patrol ability. So some people have natural ability. Would you consider yourself to have that? I never really thought about it. I guess out to a point. Um, I could hear this stuff. It's nobody explained it to

me so much. The only thing I ever learned from anybody about playing guitar, at least especially in those days, with how to make a bar accord, and then after everything else, I just kind of figured out, Okay, so you had this twelve dollar guitar and you're practicing in your room. At what point do you graduate to another guitar and start a band. Um, as soon as I could afford another guitar, which basically was a single pick up electric k and a crumming little lamp from the

music store in town. Do you remember the brand of the app? You know, I don't because whatever it was really off brand. It wasn't mainstream. Remember was a Marshal right exactly? And oh yeah, you were saying, Um, I didn't really started playing with people till I was probably a freshman in high school. So freshman in high school? What year is that? You mean? What year is like? Okay, so probably this is pre Beatles. So you had to know how to play Hideaway by Freddie King by that

That was my question. So you play that? What else? I played a lot of blue stuff as best I could At that point. I wasn't way a dance but um I had also by that time as a freshman in high school, I had a kind of a life altering experience that buddy of mine I used to hang with all the time, who was a senior when I was a freshman, was way off into James Brown. And so James Brown comes to town on his first Apollo Theater album, to ur town being Fresno, and he says,

we gotta go see him. I said, all right, because I already heard the album by then it was pretty amazing. So we went up and signed and I never seen anything like that in my life. It was amazing. I mean, the guy never stopped moving, just constant power, constant um God. Besides screaming and the amount of talent he had in those days, he was even singing more than he did later on when he got into the heavy funk stuff.

But a huge show. He had like two drummers, bass player, two guitar players, chick singers and they would come out in layers that like before he even did his show. That was like forty five minutes of I think they were called the Black Perris came out and sang and his band played, and then he came out and played organ which was a little questionable. But when he hit the stage, it was just like a tornado hit the stage. It was insane, and there was people standing on top

the Civic Center. Then there they were up on top of these old wood, wooden, armed ironed like seats just and they weren't all you know, it was like black white, every everybody going nuts, going absolutely insane. Let's go a little bit slower. I've driven through Brazili. I don't really know, is it an integrated town. Is it all white? Now? Vice Alia was not at that point in time. I don't know what it's like. No, I hardly ever go there.

PACTA basically don't. Um. Hillary had a lot of black center. So to get to Fresno and Fresno, how did you get to Fresno for that gig? Drive up the highway? But somebody had somebody had a license at that point, Oh Bobby did. Yeah, Okay, he was a senior. I was a freshman. I didn't have a license. That's why I figured. That's how I asked you was taking a freshman and you're at the Civic Center in Fresno. Exactly

how integrated is the audience? It was probably three quarters to a quarter o. The west side of Fresno is basically African American and um, but I there wasn't a lady next to me. She must have at that time. She seemed old to me looking back on it and said, let's define old. But she was probably in her fourties and she was standing on her seat just like doing. I don't believe that it was amazing, it really was. She was into it, man. Okay, So any fear coming

from Vezilia being in an integrated audience. Never thought about it. I never thought about it. The racism was not an issue. No one you know what talked to you. Okay, So you come home from the big and you say to yourself, what that's more of what I was trying to, Um, take away from what I just went through. That was amazing. I mean, I can't be It was a live faltering event. You know if people don't realize the men they talk

about it. But we used to go see bands. There were no video, no internet whatever, and the experience would hang with us. We talked to people they wouldn't really know I was talking about. It's like you could even play the record and get the same experience. Well, they were the people that I hung away in school, had no idea what I was talking about. They didn't even know who James Brown was. So it was I mean, other than Bobby, who also went to same high school

I did. But um, it was kind of a small cult if you will, that knew what that was about. And as time went on. In high school bands I would play little blues, mostly rock and roll, anything from Chuck Berry to the Birds to Box Tops two, a little bles too, and then we do the other half of the gig would be James Brown muth. Really, I'm the one that handled that end of it. You could give us a little demonstration, now, I don't think so. Okay, at what point in your okay, so what kind of

gigs you playing? Like high school dances and stuff? But in your community were you known as like the musician the star? Was there any stature or just another guy playing music with a lot of musicians playing. I mean for that side of community. I mean I was down the ladder from other guys that I knew. They were the older and had established names in right exactly. But it's also an era where you could be a king of your own town. And since your mother was a teacher,

are you doing well in school? I was doing, Okay, you've done okay, I was done a big fantasychool. Okay, you're not a big fan. But uh, it's not like you got into music and then all of a sudden you stopped paying attention to school. No, No, I didn't. My ear and his best I gave it a good shot. Okay, So then, uh, what point do you think it doesn't even happen? At that point you say, whoa this could

be a career. I didn't think that way in those days. Um, Although we did cut a record when I was a sophomore, but that was just kind of a fluke thing. And I cut another one when I was eighteen, and I did go down and try and stop it here in l A. As a matter of fact, with a friend of mine. Nothing came of either one of my Well what did you do? Just looked up record companies and knocked on the door, well and got total rejection. Absolutely yeah,

And that didn't discourage you. Not really. I didn't expect much to happen. Um. I had nobody representing me whatsoever, and I was on my own, and I was with this guy that had played drums and bassed on the song when I was eighteen. And did you write the song? Yeah? Okay, when did you start writing songs? Probably when I was fifteen, I guess. And did you take it seriously? Right? One

after an other? Are just now and again. I would write stuff for the band that I was in, you know, and we, in essence we kind of all wrote it, but I would write the lyrics such as they were, and it was kind of an offshoot of a Chuck Berry kind of thing, and the other side was kind of a quote unquote half soul half rock and roll thing. And uh it sounded very amateur, okay, because usually the initial songs you think are great, but really they suck.

Now they were pretty bad, okay. And at what point in this history to the Beatles hip sixty two, as I recall, Oh, I mean for you at sixty two was loved me do. But in the UK the Sullivan at sixty four. So in sixty four you're still in high school, yeah, I was. So it was this a revelation. Did you watch them, mom, ed Sullivan? I did, And we had all these kids in school that were following the Beatles ardently, um, wearing the paraphernalia that you know,

the hats, the beetle boots, the frank. I thought it was a little hicky, but whatever, I thought they were. Okay. I thought they were you know something. You were not a big Beatles fan, No, I was more of a blues And how about the Stones Stones I liked, okay, so they were blues. Yeah, that's why I mentioned back. I mean they used to have the Battle of the Beans on Saturday night on the radio, Stones versus the Beatles. Well, the Beatles developed and I became a serious fan. Oh really,

when did you become a Beatles fan? Probably by the time I was hitting freshman in high school. I mean, it's given me a freshman in college, and that would be which Beatles songs? Which Beatle albums? If you remember, I didn't own any I just listened to him, but I wasn't a die hard be What songs did you say? Hey, this is pretty good? Uh let me think hard days night? Uh eler Rigby Okay, relatively early, but not the initial stuff. Okay.

And you go to college and you go to college where, first of all junior college and vice he had a place, c Os College is quas okay, and you stay there for how long? Two years? And so you're living at home and what's going You're playing music? And are you riding motorcycles? Yet? I did buy one finally, after all the years of working. My dad shot much, but I did buy one. Okay. If that's something that's stuck with you forever to this day, write anymore? When did you stop?

I quit in two thousand and three, and it's a it's not because of you know you're gonna break your neck or any of that kind of stuff. We had to move out of the house for a year to have it worked on, and we got back in and I looked down and I said, I'm done. Be you're done, because you figure you'd beat the odds, And maybe it really wasn't. It's like somebody just turned the switch off. The interest wasn't there anymore. How much did you ride before you? Uh? Did the switch did go off? I

would call it weekend warrior kind of writing. I mean I had various friends guys in the band I would ride with, as well as a lot of guys that I knew around town and stuff. It's all in northern California, um, and we go right up and down the coast and stuff like that. But I never took trips across out the country or any of that kind of Did you ever have an accident? I had a couple. And does your body still suffer the consequences? Not that I'm aware of.

Let we'll take a quick break and come back with more of my conversation with Tom Johnston to the Doobie Brothers. I love getting people's stories, whether they're a famous performer, manager, record label exec or tech star. I want to know what makes them tick and how they became successful. This week, Tom Johnson tells us about going to college, informing the Doobie Brothers, and a fifty year career that came thereafter.

You can dial up by other conversations with artists like Paul Rodgers, Cascade, and Shirley Manson by subscribing to the podcast on tune in, Apple or your podcast player of choice. While you're there, be sure to rate and review the podcast. Okay, let's get back to more of my conversation with Tom Johnston. So you're in junior college, you're playing in bands. You finished two years of junior college, and then one um,

I went to San Jose. And why Santa Jose of all the other places, well as one of two places that got accepted that I had a lot to do that they were Sant JOSEVI. What was the other choice? Oregon? And Okay, I went up there and and I said, I don't think so, because by that time I had already met my sister lived in Santose, and I had already met this bunch of people up there who lived up in Santa Cruz Mountains. And I didn't not skip yet but I would not long after that, and um,

that's Skip Speps the originally for the movie Grape. Yeah. I there was this whole community that she knew and hung with, which I became involved with before I ever moved up to I used to go up there while I was in high school. And how far is that from Brazilia? That's about what three and a half for

It's relatively far. Yeah, And we would drive up there on on the weekends and he'd let us crash in her place and then we go hang out and say hey, and go to the film War and watch whoever was playing, watch all this stuff in the streets, take it all in, go back and be vice for the rest of the week. It's a big difference. Yeah, people have no idea what you're talking about. So you go to San Jose primarily because you get in there and you have a whole

social scene started. Yeah. And I was a graphic design major and they had a good department for all that. But then the first question, did you finish the Jose State? I finished it time wise. I was a semester short of the degree, simply because I got some bad advice and I took an industrial design class that did me no good at all finishing. I did all the rest

of the requirements. Okay, bad advice me, And you thought this would help you graduating It didn't, meaning I had no idea what what I needed to do and what was required. This guy says, oh, you should take this, my counselor at the point at that time, take this industrial design class and you know this is something you're gonna need. Well, that turns out it kept me from graduating when I was supposed to graduate because it didn't fit in the curriculum of graphic design. So did you

ever get a degree? No? Okay, you guys freaks. Bruce Freakstein's mother says, you can still go back everybody back. Yeah I can, But I don't think it was tough. I gotta say there was a lot of really good artists out there, really people that could really draw, I mean ragular drawing, you know, like radar type stuff and amazing. But they would have been good in the other field as well. I probably would ended up doing pay steps.

I wasn't okay artist, but I wasn't okay. But while you're going to San Jose State, are you is your then music career? Burgeoning such as you think, well, maybe this graphic design, think it is not my future. The way that all came about, Um, I went to you know, I did the classes, but I was also I was like half doing that and half hanging out in the Santa Cruz mountains, hang on Santose, playing in a couple

of bands in Santose. All this is all going on simultaneous. Um. I have to say that that's probably one of the best times I've read. There's a lot of fun. Um. I had a forty dollar room and it was on twelve Street where everything started for the band. But it was kind of a music center, and there was always

people in their places in San Jose and Santose. Okay, just for those who also don't know how far to get from San Jose to Santa Cruz, oh, shooting those days, probably twenty five minutes Santa Cruz the town not much more than that really, probably half an hour. And then if you're not talking about the time, you talk about the mountains, I'm talking about Santa Cruz mountains. That's not saying in Santa Cruz, I'm not gonna get the same ideas there's a ridge of mountains between San Jose and

then the beach. But I'm not a big expert there either. There are certainly roads, but there aren't that many businesses there, right, No, there was. It was pretty rustic, okay, but there were no gigs that you were doing up in the mountains or not at that time. No, okay, So you're living the life and you're supporting yourself being a musician, or your parents are sending your money. Actually they did help support me as long as I was going to school.

As soon as I stopped going to school, that was gone. So what I would do And the other thing is after the semester of school, you got this time to kill for summer. Well, I said, I'm not going back to sell you. When I left that town it was review here. I didn't want to go back, and so I would either work in cannaries the first time, which was well that's hard work. It was hard work. Good money though, no, I know, and you know when Alaska it's good money, but no, not that kind of cannriies.

Now this is uh, you know, like I don't know, dole or whatever it was. We're processing all this fruit and stuff and you had to be there at five in the morning and then you'd worked till two in the afternoon, and lots of incentive to do something different. Yes, here was and then after that I did construction the next year, and uh anything, so I didn't have to go back too If I say not that I hated by saying that much. I just there was nothing for

me there. So okay, So how much How long did you work in construction and at the Canary one summer and one one summer and the other. Um, so now you're out of school, then what's the next thing after when you're out of school. Well, we got we got our first album in seventy one. The band got together in nineteen seventy. We're talking to Doobie Brothers. Um, I was in two bands before that. Well, let's go a little bit slower. So how long after college did the

Doobie Brothers started. Actually I was still in college when they do we rather started. Okay, but but you were still going to school. So tell us about the two bonds before that, they were just local bands. Uh. There was an old one called South Bay Experimental Flash. I was in for a month and you know, they were just passing fancies. There was another one I don't recall the name of because it didn't als much longer than that.

And then there was PUD, which was the band that was based in Twelfth Street, in the house on twelve Street, and that's what John Hartman who came who was the first drummer of the band, came out from Falls Church, Virginia along with his buddy who played bass, Greg Murphy, and I went and picked them up with a friend of mine in a van and Sam. They were living in San Francisco, Hay, I would call living. They were staying in San Francisco, and we threw him in a van.

We took him down and they took up residency in twelve streets. How did you even know who they were? I want to say Skip had something to do with Okay. So Skip spends legendarily not rooted to the planet and uh in mbi Grape which last for braver. Time you meet him? When what is his status? When you meet him? He was on his own. He had just finished cutting Ore in Nashville solo album. My sister introduced me to him.

Um just really sisters a hip pivotal. Yeah, she was pivotal moment meeting him because because of him, I met a lot of other people and and all these players that were in the Santa Cruise Mountains and in bands like Mountain the Current and Chocolate Watch Band, all of the kind of stuff that was around there. Okay, you meet him, he's older than you would assume, you're somewhat gnaw. I was otter of fact that he was a kind of a chrismatic character. Anyway, he went into your average Joe.

He besides being a little out there and as he said, not necessarily in touch with the planet. We didn't know that back then. We're younging down and we believe anything, but he was. He just had this chrisma like people would flock to. This guy was amazing, It really was. Okay, was it you asking for things? Or is he the type of guy was giving to Hey, you got to know this person. It just happened. Like a lot of stuff in my life in that period of time, things

would just happen. It's not really that I asked for anything. It's just we would jam together a lot. We played him a couple of throw together bands, which is how I met Pat. We were I'm sorry I should clear that up. Um. He was in a band called Pachuco with If I started naming the people out, nobody's gonna. I don't bother the um okay, but you're in you go. You got to get the two guys from Falls First Church, Virginia who you know through Skip Spence. You moved them

into twelve Street. What is twelve Street? Like twelve Street the epicenter of hip hip area of San Jose or is that just where you live? It was a student get him. It was like what three blocks from the school. But for whatever reason it became kind of a musical meca for a lot of musicians. I'm not saying everybody that played something lived there, they didn't. But we had a basement and in that basement there was always a jam session. And I could come home from school and

there'd be one going on. I could, you know, do whatever I did for the for the art program. And I usually would take whatever it was and would work for two or three classes, which freed up my time a lot more. This weeat deal, you know, and and I would be down to jama and Skip would be in the heart of it. Sometimes. Other times we have horn players that we had a band, the band I mentioned which was PUD was a power rock trio, but

we also sometimes had some check singers. We also sometimes had a horn section, so it would like veer off into like R and B land. It was kind of a mismash everything. And how much were you gigging? Not that much when you stop and thinking that we did. We did play, but we didn't play a lot. We played you know, Ricardo's Pizza parlier when we played at the Student Union at San Jose. We didn't have a lot of gigs. And at this point in time, this

is just an advocation. You're really a student pretty much. Yeah, okay, so that you're in PUD at the next trigger moment is meeting Pat. Yeah I'm at Pat when we played over at the Gaslight Theater in Campbell one night, and that we're as Campbell. Keep yeah, I do this, I

have attendency. Oh you know where I'm talking about. This is is just part of Santose really, I mean it's all one big city now anyway, But back then San Jose was a very small town, or was not small tam It was a small city, nothing like it is now being the you know, the tech boom and all, but um Campbell was out west of downtown Santose where I lived, and they had that, but it was just a little club slash theater kind of plays more of

a club. And Pat Simmons was playing with a guy named Peter Grant and they were doing uh, what would be called americana now what we used to call folk music sort of but a lot of fingerpicking, and that's pretty much all I was. Peter Green was a banjo player and Pat was playing guitar, and they were both really really good. And I was there with John Hartman, Skip Spence and I think Greg was playing bass, Greg Murphy. I should have clarified, I don't know what happened Greg

Murphy and got a clue. Um. So we're playing rock and roll and I was singing. I was doing the singing, and and we watched them play. I think they played before we did. And then we got up and played and we were taking somebody else at the place who couldn't make the game. Serendipity, Yeah, And so you know, we got to talk and Pat and I got talking to John. John was part of that, and we invited him to come over. And jam was Pat going to

school or anything. He was as same as they said, well, although I never knew that at the time, I never saw him. Everybody's big enough school where that was easily, it wasn't hard to do. So you invite him to come to jam in the basement, right, and he did, and we did that a few times, and eventually we all just said, you know, kind of decided let's let's start a band. Okay. So it wasn't a light bulb moment, just it was it was what i'd call him movement.

It was another one of those things that just happens, no plans, no destination, Let's just do this, okay. And at what point you formed the band? At what point do you think, well, this this could be something. I don't know that I ever really thought that at that point. Really, I was so happy to play, and we played quite

a bit. We played every place around there, and then we eventually ended up in the Chateau Libreta, which became like the center point for so many bands in the area from all over San Jose, Santa Cruz, San Francisco, a little bit, not a lot um, and it was just so much fun to do that and hang out up there. I mean, it was just a lifestyle. I didn't owe money for anything. I didn't have any money, but it all kind of worked out. I didn't. It

was probably the freest time in my entire life. But you were making money being the band when you did play that could pay your bills. Yeah, but not a lot. I mean, we weren't getting rich by any means. Man. We were just hasn't have to pay the rent and and buy food, and that was pretty much. That's a big, big change in America today. I mean, you're from California, but statistically people don't leave where they grew up because

I don't have the money. Whereas you know, getting in your car and driving places in the sixties seventies was a big movement. In addition, it was much cheaper to live. Well, god, yeah, I mean today he asked, well, you could go what again? I mean today, you know you could have a job and you still gotta live at home. I've heard about that. Yeah, So, okay, you formed the band. At what point do they become

the Doobie Brothers. Uh. We had a gig to play one night and we were sitting around the breakfast at the table in the kitchen. We call it at the breakfast table. Whatever the everything table, and I want to say there was some combustibles being used, and uh, one of the guys that lived in the house, it wasn't part of the whole music scene, but just lived in the house, came in with his dog, which he was wanting to do at any given time, and he said,

you guys ought to call yourself the Dowey Brothers. You're always doing this and we all liked it. And he said, that's a really stupid name, man, but we don't have a name, and we didn't um, and we had a gig that night. All right, we'll use it for tonight. And we never got rid of the name. Okay, so you become the Dewbie Brothers Drewbie Brothers. At what point do you have two drummers that happened god, I would

say late seventy one. Mike Cossack. We knew from cutting our first album up at Pacific Studios in sam Mateo. He was in a band called Morning Rain. There's a lot of people up there at that studio. Santana cut his first album there. Um Keith Canuson, who was a drummer later on, was in a band called Mental Bomb. They were up there Uh, that's where we ended up. Skip turned us onto the guy that owned the studio, and we went up there and cut a demo. The guy sent it to Warner Brothers. We got sold on

the basis of that. We got it's a little bit slower. How long had the band been together before you cut the demo? Probably a year? Okay? And did you have a manager at that point? Let's define the word manager. We had a guy that hung around, if you want to call that a manager. So then Skips advice, you go to the studio and you cut how many tracks? It wasn't really advice, he just turned us down the guy that had the place, Okay. So how many tracks did you cut? Jeez? Probably five or six? And any

of those that appeared on the album? Ultimately, Um, nobody? Okay, nobody, which is on the first album and it was so Quicksilver Princess might have been on the first album. Okay. How do you get it to Warner Brothers? The guy that owned the studio sent it okay? And how long after he said it did you hear it back? Jeez? I don't know, man, it could have been a month. I'm not really sure we would be doing that all the time, so it was probably about them. You were

busy doing what sending me. Okay, you're busy playing. But in terms of the demo, this is the only demo you cut and you only send it to Warner Brothers. We didn't send it any uh. And Lenny Wankers and Ted Templeman came up to listen to the band in the studio just Fast. It was pretty weird, yeah, because that doesn't happen. But they liked what they heard and it was basically Lenny was running the show. And uh,

so they came up and watched Just play. And then Joe Smith is the one that signed the band, but that was his position in the company at that time. We didn't know what any of this man. We were green as green could be if he had no idea and uh, but you must have been very excited. We were. We were said, I can't believe this is happening. Um. At the same time, partly was going it isn't happening. You just think it's happening right right right. If you do,

you still think maybe it's just happening. No, No, I put in too many miles by now. Okay, and the guy who owns the studio, he's doing you a solid, or he wants a piece of what goes for. He definitely got a piece of it, while not at the I don't think he got a piece of ya. With Wonder Brothers probably wouldn't have allowed that to happen, But he did make a boot album off of the demo tape. He wasn't a stand up guy. Let's just put it

that way. And uh, he did that. Santani did it as he did it some a couple of other bands that had used his studio just to make money. And when it came to getting the front money that we got from Warner Brothers, I think we got twenty seven dollars a piece, and we thought Jesus were rich. So we all went straight to Leo's and bought new guitars and right right, right, right right. They, on the other hand,

got the lion's share of whatever the sun was. I'll let me know, Uh, one one of the guys, I'm not gonna give up names here, but one of the guys bought a car which he wrecked within a week and a half. The guy that on the studio, he just probably bought more gear for the studio. I don't know you're listening to my conversation with Tom Johnson of the Dubie Brothers, recorded live at the twot In Studios in Venice, California. I hope you were joining this episode

of the Bob Left Sets podcast. If you want to see videos and photos and hear sound bites from Tom and our other guests as they joined me in the studio, visit at tune in on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Now more of my conversation with Tom Johnston on the Bob Left Sets podcast. Okay, so they signed you. The first record is cut? Wherewith who? It was cut in that same studio in Pacific Studios in San Mateo with Lenny warren Cer and Ted Templement. Lenny Warrenker was the head

producer and Ted was actually under the tutelage. I guess you could say of Lenny at that he'd been in Harper's Bazaar. Correct with the fifty n st Bridge song? You're cutting the album? The album is done? Are you happy with the album? We were ecstatic? Okay, we yeah, We've never been in the studio first of all, so this is all newdad, and we've been playing every place you could find for probably more than a year actually,

and that was our existence. And we were driving around in a van, which the bass player at that time, Dave Chagrin, his dad bought for him. And that was our life. And then the rest of the time of the twelve Street and Pat didn't live at twelve Street, but um, everything happened around that that that house, and we just kept doing. Even after we made the record, we went right back to doing what we were doing because you can't stop what you're doing. You gotta pay

the bill, so to speak. Okay, so the record is made, how long until it comes out? Um, geez, I don't know. Probably a couple of months, three months, honestly, don't know. But did you you were happy with a record? Did you believe it would be a hit? I think at that time in your life being is how you have no idea what a hit is? Uh? The first song I got put out was nobody answered, oh man, that's great, this is gonna do something. Hopefully it didn't. The album

didn't do anything. Nothing did anything. It was it went as I called teflon. Uh. Okay, Well, the funny thing is that is a great track. Okay, it was you know, on your box set from like twenty years ago. That's a leadoff track and it really hooks you. So the track was good enough, Why do you think it didn't happen? I don't know, um, any one of a number of reasons.

We re cut that song twice actually I think about it once in two thousand ten and then again in two thousand and fourteen for the country covers of with a bunch of country artists, um, which actually is my favorite version of that song. Okay, So the album comes out, it's a stiff YEP. What does the label say, because theoretically they can say we're due. This is the time period when you could get away with that, and um, we were allowed to do another album, so we did.

We started working on our own. We didn't have a producer, which was a huge mistake. And why Well, because we didn't know what we were doing. Okay. Was there there no one to you know, control the catch? Yeah? I mean what we'd had on the first album, for instance, we had a lot of guidance, uh from Lenny and it was we were being cast as an acoustic driven band, which really wasn't what we were, but that's what he heard and I said, Okay, at least it's a professional.

We're we're doing something. It's real, let's go do it. And we did some electric stuff, but mostly it was kind of a lot of acoustic stuff, and everything I wrote was kind of based around acoustic guitar and everything that pat Rod was kind of based on acoustic guitar and more comfortable. He was more comfortable with that than I was, not because I didn't play a lot of acoustic, but because that was his main instrument where I did. I did both, but I wasn't as fluid on acoustic

as pat was. Mine was all about rhythm, the strumming style stuff, and his was fingerpicking, which he was really good at and still is really good at, and um but I was also way off into the electric blue in soul music and R and B and all the rest of it, and eventually rock and roll with Cream Hendrix, all that kind of stuff. Okay, so you start making the second record alone and it's a disaster. Yeah, we

needed guidance. They did well. We got We kept a couple of songs out of the batch of songs we started with only a couple, and then one of them, White Sun, we kept I can't remember what the other one was. At the moment um, they they said, you guys are spending a lot of it. We were wally Hiders in San Francisco and he says, you guys he they Warner Brothers said you're kind of blowing it. You're you're spending a lot of money. And we sent him

tapes and said, no, I don't think so. So they gave ted the job of going to corralis get us going in the direction. And I gotta say, you know, I don't know if we were his first band, because I know he did um um, thank you very much. Yes he did, and Morrison, I want to say it was around that era, but you were his first hint as a band. Yeah, and he really helped. He had ideas that to this day just blow me away. Give

me an example of one idea. Well, harmony ideas, although we were a big harmony band anyway, but he would say when to do it, when not to do it, let's say, or maybe that's too much. At that point, he being a former drummer himself, would have tons of drum ideas, um and just how a song was going and says, what if you put the chorus. Here put the two verses, then the course and maybe um assault this is your basic standard right out here. This is okay,

you're gonna do verse one. Then you're gonna have the the section between verse one of your verse two, and then you're gonna have the pre course, and you're gonna have the course. Then there is a solo, then you're gonna have the course, and this is all the stuff that's supposed to hook everybody, right, And we kind of had the idea of that mostly, but not the way that he would come up with ideas on how to

do it, and it really helped. It helped a lot, and it continued to help progressively as we got more into UM writing better songs, more professional songs. I guess you could say just from we started touring bang on the first album. We started touring and uh we started learning stuff about you know, from other guys and other

bands that we were playing with on the road. Uh. First one being Mother Earth UM in nine, which was an eye openers first time we'd ever toured, and by the time we did to lou Street, UM and Ted became involved. For whatever reason, it instigated the writers to do better stuff. I have to say that's that is a fact. Okay, So the album is called to Louse Street. Y Well is the name of one of the songs on the album. I know, but I mean, if you know, I was stunned. I was in New Orleans and you

see the sign, but you're living in northern California. Why is one of the songs In nine We flew down to New Orleans to supposedly play with the Eagles and Chuck Berry. I believe it was in some like football stadium thing or something, and we got rained out, so we didn't play anything, but we did get our first dose of New Orleans, which is a very intoxicating thing. New Orleans is so picturesque, there's so much history. The

music of New Orleans is phenomenal. I immediately fell in love with all that stuff, and so we kind of became a Southern band, if you will. Wow, you know, I picked it up, picked up the vibe, if you will, and the bands at all would come through that whole area, but not just there, but oh Mississippi, New Orleans, um, the Carolina is all the Southern rock scene was. Well, then you have to ask you do have two drummers? Because the Allman Brothers had two drummers. No, we did

it because we thought we had John. Oddly enough, it was John Hartman's idea to bring in another drummer for more power. John was always into like Mountain Cream, hendricks Um, Jethro Toll, whatever. And I have to say it ended up being a really good idea and I wasn't against it. I just hadn't thought of it, and we were using The first night we ever did that was up at the Chateau, which was not a big room. It's a

tiny little room. Ceiling was right above your head if you're standing on the stage, and um, we brought my Cossack into play with us and we didn't rehearse with it or anything. We just did it and it was pretty crazy, but it felt good. So we adopted doing that, and then that became part of the whole. When you're writing the songs, you would include that whole scene going on. And we of course knew who the Almond brothers were. We were huge fans, but it wasn't the driving for

us for having two drummers. Um. And then we continued doing that for years and years. So the songwriting was it shared by the group. Where the people who wrote the songs. The songwriting basically would be a guy comes in with an idea. It sounds like it started a good jail, right, But this happened before we even went up to Pacific Studios. I would write stuff and bring it in, and that would bring stuff in. This is all before we ever made the demo, and we would

work it up as a band. You know, the bass player would co up with the basse idea, that drums would come up with their version of an idea for what we unless we had something very specific in mind, and it was all trial and air, trial and air, and we get it to where we thought it would sounded the best. And then that never really changed for a very long time. I mean Toalu Stree, Captain and

me Vices and habits Um. But by then, of course you had the direction of a very good producer and a very good engineering Don Landy So and then but in terms of this late date, because when the hit stop credits are important, Okay, so the song credits as the money shared as you see on the album, or is it shared with everybody who it was from the album that south album sales. That sort of thing points you mean, I mean the songs, not the album whoever

wrote it as the one that got the publishing. Okay, so now you do to lose street. You've done one album that you were happy with that's stiffed the second album you've made not. What are your thoughts? Well, I think we grew a lot with that album. I don't

think I know we did. And I think I give a lot of the credit uh for that number one, to being in a better studio, but mostly from hanging out with Ted and hearing his ideas, because he was hanging around with some heavyweights in l A and he was learning some really good stuff and and he brought that in and I think it changed the band, the quality of the band. And that's why I said I think we upped our game as far as our writing. Okay, but when the record is done, do you now say, oh,

this is gonna be a hitter. You say, I've had one stiff? Who the hell knows. I don't think anybody really cared that much. I don't mean that in uh, I don't care about this thing. I just nobody was so uh fixated on the idea we gotta get hit, gotta have it, got it, I wouldn't like that. It's yes, we we We cut the songs and I wrote one song which is listening to music, and I called ted up at three in the morning and played fun this is.

I wrote it in my bedroom on twelve Street, which is why I wrote long train runners, where I wrote China Growths, where I wrote maybe you got to move back there, maybe, well, there's a different time period. What you're doing in your life really effects what you're right. I gotta say that's that's one thing I've learned. But um, I wrote a lot of songs in that room and anyway, so I called him, woke him up, which he wasn't happy about, and I played it for him over the phone.

I said, this is a single and it's the only thing I've ever called in my life that I did know, at least for me, I know. No, I'm a big believer in that when it comes to art, when you hit it, when you get in eleven, you know, and when people you tell you they don't know, either they've never had an eleven or they're not a real artist. And you wait for those moments you know, you don't know where they come from. You don't and that's the

best ones because you're channeling whatever that energy exactly. How spooky that sounded a weird hippie. I totally agree, I believe it. Okay, So listen to the music is on the album. How long after the album is released do you start to realize listen to the music is going to be a hit. When I heard it on the radio, that's when I knew something that's gonna happen. And um, I was in my Volkswagen, which I think you've actually

written about it. I was in my Voliswagen driving down the road somewhere around Santa's and on comes listen to the music coming, Holy ship, that's us. Pull the car over and you know, turn it off, crank the radio and sit there and going, I don't believe it. We're on the radio. That was a big deal then, Oh yeah.

It was also an interesting era because that was the FM AM area era, and most of the FM bands did not have hits that translated to a M video, whereas listening to the music did, and the Dewly Brothers were gigantic seemingly overnight. What did it feel like on your rend? It really didn't happen overnight for one thing,

but it was certainly a start. And after that came Jesus Just all Right, and also Rocking down the Highway, which was not as popular as those two, and Listening to Music being the most popular out of that bunch, and Um, which led to another album. Okay, before you get to the next album. Now you're on the road, you're headlining all the time, and your headlining or opening. We started out opening and we played with anybody and everybody. We played opening for Ronnie Montrose, who at that time

had Sammy agar re lead vocalist. We played with Rare Earth a lot, who I loved out. They were a great band. I didn't care if they did coverage. How did they killed Red Bone? We played with people may not know who I'm talking about something. Um, trying to remember some of the other bands we played with, Oh, Steely dan Um, they were just getting started at that period in time. Um do it again, I think was the first thing I heard by him and reeling in the years after that, and okay, so you do you

remember who your agent was? No, you want to know, I don't remember because I paid zero attention to that kind of stuff. Okay, at the time, we live in the life. Yeah, we were. We were kind of the low end of it. I'm not saying we were. We were. We were getting our feet wet, much more so than we had on the first album. But until the Captain and Me came around, we didn't really get to the stadium scene or the big halls and all that kind

of stuff. And headlining okay, but for other than the money that might come in from that, assuming get trickles down to you, there's the drugs, there's the sex, etcetera. Are you partaking of those? It was rock and roll and you enjoyed it. I did. I have to say that. Um, after a while, the way we were touring, which was over two Hunter days year around two Hunter days a year, happened very rapidly, and when that happens, everything turns into a blur. And in that way of living, of doing

playing that many shows, always being on the road. I mean we were in seventy two we were driving Winnebay goes around and then that morphed into driving i mean skinny into flying on on airlines, which frankly wasn't that much fun. And we were touring with people like Mark volunteer acts and stuff like that, and and we were, you know, getting around some heavier people and because Ringo back then are backed Mark Bowling and um. But all the same, you were playing constantly and it wasn't two

on one off like nowadays. It was five and oh. And then you get a day off and your voice is gone and you're a shot and you're pretty much you know, you're pretty tired. And that continued to all the rest of the albums that you know, and up to up to and including Stampede as far as the life, I mean, you you toured for that amount of gigs every year, and then when you weren't doing that, you're in the studio making another album except for a little

time at home. So I'm trying to I look back, I said, when the hell did we write the songs? Because it frankly is a blur. I mean, I don't there's a lot of songs that I look back, except for a couple that have special stories attached to them. I don't remember anything about doing that, about writing that song. It's just part of the whole my asthma of what was going on. Okay, But you know, people wonder why musicians do drugs, and I always say, okay, get off stage.

We're ten thousand people think you're god. You may even you know, have some sexual activity. After that, then you're in the v cool with the same assholes you've known for years, and you can't come down from the energy. And then all of a sudden, it's the next day, so you start with drugs just to wind down, uh to a point. Um, it was just it was just like a scene and whatever was going on is whatever

it was. You know, It's like he just partly took of the scene and sometimes it was pretty nuts, which kind of slowed down much later on. And yeah, and there was the chicks and it was all that stuff, but it was, you know, from one day to the next. It really wasn't outstandingly different. It was just all part of the same thing. Okay, so tell me about making the Captain and me, well, okay, we come off the road,

we write the songs. I mean, one time, I can definitely tell you I remember writing China Growth in the same room as the other one. You don't you didn't upgrade your digs now since you're a big Tory musician, I didn't st we weren't making that much money. Everybody seems to think you get instantly rich. That's not the case. That's not the case at all. Um. I wrote the songs that I mentioned earlier on I think I wrote Listen to Me to the China Grove Long Train Running

wasn't really a song in my book anyway. That was a jam, and I questioned ted about putting that on a record. I said, we've been playing this is seventy one. I make up the words every night. The only thing that is uh constant is without where would you be now? That's all we got. That's it, And and then we'd play it for like twenty minutes, you know, on and on on. So I didn't consider that a real song. So I didn't consider a real song too either. So

it's interesting to hear. Yeah, that's really how I went down. And I had to be talked into cutting that song. He said, I don't know, man, he said, really hits me as a jam. He said, well, why don't you go. We were working at Amigo Studios, which became Warner Brothers Studios, which was on Constant, which is all all that's gone now. But that was a real cool studio. This is in the valley Valley and of course Harlot Gut We did the album called Amiko after cutting the record there well,

and he played on one of our albums. He really Yeah. We toured with Harlo and U j. D. Salad was hanging around there right, Couter was hanging around there. Randy Human knew I was hanging around there, James Taylor was hanging around. Who is all these people? All right? You know it sounds like fun? It was. We had a really good time. I enjoyed working There was a really a lot of So you're cutting Captain and me yep,

and I talked. Ted liked that song as well. He didn't think it but at first I didn't think it was a single. Leader and and I wrote it in the bedroom and I wrote it on acoustic, and I said, no, this is an electric song. So I went and grabbed John out of his room. I said, we're going down to the basement and we're gonna we're gonna play this electrically and we're gonna play really loud. And so we did. So I had drums and me John Hartman. I should mention his name was a while some people know who

I'm talking about instead of me. Just going through what I'm thinking, um, and we were playing it was probably one or two in the morning, and you know, it was pretty loose in that area as all students and data really didn't care. They weren't bothered by it, and it was kind of a wild neighborhood. And uh so that was the beginnings of that until we got it into the studio, though it didn't come to fruition as a song. And as far as the lyrics to that

after We've been touring in seventy two and Winnebagos. At some point in time, we were driving down the road that goes into San Antonio, Texas, and there was a road sign that said China Grove. I didn't remember it at all. I had no memory of that. However, I friendly believe that that planet is see That popped out later on with Billy Payne, who played the piano on it, uh as he did on from Little Feet, who played

on basically most of our albums. He was a keyboard player and he came up with incredible parts, and he and table to workout stuff and and so in the bridge of that song before it had words, in other words, is what I've been saying. I didn't have any lyrics for that song. And when that didn't, that didn't, that didn't.

He did that, I went wow. So I went off and wrote all this stuff about the Sheriff's with the Samurai soars and I was crazy, little town called China Grow, and I thought I was making it up, and uh, at that time, I was making it up as you would with anything else. But uh, I got told by a cab driver in Houston a year later, he says, no, there really is a China Grow. I said, get out of here. He says, no, I'm serious. It's right down

there by San Antonio. So that's why I said, it's got to be something that I saw on the road sign and okay, the album cover you're on the freeway that is not finished. I think up near Pasadena or something. Um, yeah, see Lamar or something like right, So, how did you decide to do that? We didn't. That was Warner's idea. Um, and they were I had to say at that point. And the record company was your manager, and they did everything I did, not only the artwork, but they also

got you know, a lot. They'd hook you up with the with the promoters and and all that kind of stuff, totally different scene from what's going on now, and so they came up with this idea to go out. This was from an earthquake in I think it was left over from that and uh, so they wanted to take pictures on top of that stretch of road that just fell off. And we did that, and they brought out from the movie studios. Wondered by thes movie studios. They

brought out all the clothes we were wearing. They brought out the horse team and that stagecoach and we did that shot down below the freeways as it is on the front of the album cover. But we also did the shots on the centerfold whatever you want to call at the inside of the album. Um that was up on top and this big old table Chalice is and all this stuff and top pads and so, uh that album comes out. Are you aware it's going to be such a monster? You know? People ask you that a lot.

It's like somebody asking you, did you have a think when you wrote whatever that it would still be played almost fifty years I said, Hill, No, how could you possibly know? There's it's unknowable. That's not something you could say, Oh fifty years and now this song is. Nobody knows those kind of things. It's impossible to all those kind of thing um, so it's always an interesting question when people ask you that stuff. So suddenly you are literally everywhere.

I remember in concert on TV. Seemingly every time you turn on the TV, you guys are on. So at that point you must feel pretty good. It was me. It was a lot of fun. Plus we had gun International by then and we were playing, you know, over the Pond. We played it at the Rainbow in in uh London, which was really the in spot to play in that period in time. We also played and a lot of other towns in England. We also played in Germany,

and we played in France. We played in Paris. All this stuff like was growing and it it happened really fast. You didn't have time to think about it, just all of a sudden you're there and you're doing it. And that crazy Warner Brothers tour in seventy four with six bands, it was really a lot of fun to remember what it was called the Warner Brothers Music Tour, and it was to promote everybody that was on it. And we were supposed to lead a lead band, but Little Feet

was on it and they were incredible. This is while they were really hot. Uh, Tower Power was on it. Um Montrose was on it. Uh, Larry Graham's Graham's Simpler Stations and a band called Bonarut. And so what we would do is each night we would play, they would do not a lot everything, but they would change out the guys that were going to be the three bands were gonna play, and so everybody played with everybody on

one night or another. And I remember one night we played in Leeds and Elton John showed up and he played with all three bands that were playing that night, which was us, I want to say, maybe Little Feed and on Rue kind of unclear because it changed on regularly, but he got up on stage with each band and then I ended up riding back to London in the back of his P five roll along with Jeff Baxter, and uh, that was my first time around Alton John. And then see you. Stuff like that happened a lot,

and that tour was insane. It was crazy, but at the same time, Uh, you learned stuff doing that and songs got written on that tour, not for the Doobies. But I remember sitting down with Larry Graham and Butch his B three player, and he wrote this Ain't Nothing but a Warner Brothers Party, which came out to describe

that tour. It was a great tune, funky tune, and I was I was playing guitar and you know, helping with a rhythm of it, and uh, just a lot of camaraderie, hanging out with guys that you really respected a lot as musicians and really like their music. And uh, it's a very cool thing. I really enjoyed it. Okay, but it now, is there any blowback from other musicians because you're so successful? No, I don't recall that ever, Han't you mean other bands? No, not at all. Huh.

And now that you're so big, you know, I don't know that we were as big as you're implying that. And listen, you're this is even when I write something that I'm not have a you know, a minimal amount of reach compared to you. But when you're the creator, you're at the eye of the hurricane. People are talking about you all the time and there that you have no idea of I was just gonna say, you're not aware of it. No, you're completely unaware what it is.

You know, you're just with the same guys. You know you're doing playing a gig and you're still going to the next time. You didn't change anything. No, I mean there was a moment. I very vividly remember when Captain Me came out. It was seemingly everywhere, and it was one track after or another on the radio on all formats and Doobie Brothers, you know, they'd had the hit before. We listen to the music, but it was really the tip.

So then you have another album coming up to follow that up, which is what were one Spices are now Habits the title they as came up with that title. Okay, it was an apt title. Okay, now I love that album, But at first the album did not live up to its uh financial uh what people thought it might be. The first track was another Part Another Sunday, which I love I played all the time to this day, but

that didn't make it as far as the other tracks. Well, and the best of my understanding, because it's a little unclear to me, but that got yanked off the radio by warners. Not it wasn't there I did he yank it off the radio. It's supposedly from being under pressure by radio stations saying you can't have a song that says in the radio. It just seems the radio just brings me down. You can't do that. That's what I was told. I don't know if that was jib or well,

but that's what I got. That might have been the party. So the flip side of it was Blackwater, which started in Rollingo getting spins by a local DJ, and it started gaining popularity and getting listens and people liked it, and then it's somehow morphed into Minnesota I think it was, and started getting real heavy rotation, and the next thing, you know, as a nationwide hit. It was our first number one record. Okay, I gotta believe you'd never thought that was gonna be a hit. I didn't think about

it one way the other. I didn't. I wasn't choosing singles, they were choosing singles. I just wrote songs that I wrote. Okay, But all of a sudden, you know, I remember being that's when I first moved to l A. Remember, you know, the song would come on the radio and the people in the car would literally seeing different parts. Yeah, it was around. It was an exactly. It was really big and did you then see that the band was any bigger than it had been, or you already felt you

were at a certain level. Once again, when you get to a certain place, we're on the road all the time. Everything is everything. You don't really pay attention to that. And at what point did you move out of twelve St Okay? And you move where to Marin County, Okay? So at this point you have money. I had some money. I wasn't wealthy, but I had some money I could pay. I bought a house, so I had enough money to

do that. In those days, it wasn't like buying a house would be in Fairfax, which is where I moved, would be now right, and you buy a good car. I did buy a car, Yes, I bought an Audi early AUTI and um. So I had enough money to do those kinds of things. And mostly I would spend a lot of money on guitars and amps and Okay, at this late date, how many guitars do you have then? Before I really went's doing that, I probably had five times fives. I had probably ten guitars, and how many

you have now? Ah, I went through the phase where I had forty guitars and left behind and got rid of most of them. But um, at this point, I probably have twenty guitars and now and when you go on the road, how many do you bring? And then they're already out there. They stay in Nashville where our stuff is. All our stuff is drums, keyboards, guitars, amps, everything,

So it's all sitting in a locker. And when you go out, then the stuff gets on you know, it is put on the truck and it's driven to wherever you're going to practice before you start digging, and then you do the rehearsals and you started playing. So your home now, which is where I live up in Marine County, different town, but but you have guitars in the house now, Oh yeah, Okay, I have a studio upstairs at the writing studio. It's not a full on studio, but that's

where I do my writing now. Okay, the next album is Stampede. Okay. Jeff Baxtre suddenly of the band. He was already in the band. Jeff started hanging around with us. We had been playing with Steely Dan and he would come over and hang out with us when he wasn't doing them. In fact, he would go on are some of our tours when they went off the road, which I think was probably late seventy three, yearly seventy four, and U and he ended up on stage with us playing,

and he was a phenomenal player. He played pedal steel, He played great leads, and he also played polsterring, which is something I was unfamiliar at that time, which was a telecaster strap was hooked up to a uh like a well, I at strap lock, but if you pulled on it to change the tones on it. Really yeah, it sounded like a pedal steel. It was a really an interesting device, and I haven't seen it since it was on a telecast. Okay, how come he doesn't play anymore?

Do you have any contact with him? I played a benefit with him about god four months ago. Now he still plays, He still play is great. Uh. He's has done some things that have been pretty interesting with the Pentagon and all the rest of that. But he he just finished moving back. I want to say to Virginia to be with his daughter and his grandchild. Okay, you cut Stampede. Are you as happy with Stampede as you

are with the previous record? I was you were. I was enamored with it because I got to do take Me in Your Arms Number one. That was that. That's my I take claim for that because I had tried for a couple of years to get the band to do that and I wasn't getting any takers initially, and then eventually I guess Ted came to bad for me and they liked It's not they didn't like it that he just maybe didn't hear what I heard. I said,

this would be killer. And then the arrangement, well, the arrangement took place in the studio with Ted overseeing the whole thing, and he brought in some chick singers who were fabulous, um I think it was and out the field Shirley Matthews and one other guy wasn't clydie King and I can't remember who her name was, but boy, they were something else. For that album we had that had an exploration song called music Man where I got

to play backwards solos more than one. So was my Hendrix moment, if you well, that was a big deal to me. But it was a cool song and it also had Curtis Mayfield did the strings on it. Really Unfortunately I didn't get to go to that set. It was in Chicago, Teddy flew back to Chicago. They did the strings and he had his wah wah Watson whoever it was guitar player that did the the wa. Uh wasn't really strumming, it was more of a sound effect.

It was really cool. It sounded like, all of a sudden, we were doing a Curtis Mayfield song, but rock and roll and Uh. I was very enamored with that tune. And it was never a single anything. It was just fun to do. And then there was another song that that we cut just extemporaneously. It was cut in a garage in Nashville. We were there a year and a half,

two years before guy's name was buzz Case On. It was out on Murphysboro Road and I was with the former drummer of of Mother Earth, Carl Himmel, and he he was just hanging out. We were just hanging out with nobody's idea to do anything. We ended up a buzz Case on studio. He had a sixteen track out there. Tyran was with us, and so the three of us put this track down that we just made up on the spot. I made up the words on the spot, which never really got written. So they stayed those words,

and then we added those check singers. This happened in seventy three, by the way, and that two years later ended up on Stampede and it was called Working on You and it was just a fun song to do, and it ended like an old man Assis ending or something. Everything just kind of falls apart of That's funny you mentioned that the first double album, the Manassa's album. I don't exactly you're talking about, great record, Okay, then its

then it all falls apart, right my ulser he bloomed. Yeah, I had an ulcer in high school and due to the frantic living pace of you know, being on the road all the time and all the crazy stuff that went along with that, it got worse and it got pretty bad, and so I had Right when the tour for Stampede was taken off, I had to leave. And

that was a drag, but that's what happened. So that's when they first they just started doing it on their own, and then they Jeff Baxster suggested bring in Michael Donald just to play keyboards and sing backgrounds, and that's how it was for that tour. Who sang your parts? Pat did a lot of it. Pat Simons did a lot of the singing and I wasn't there to watch any

of this, but that's my understanding. And then they started working on Taking to the Streets, which is when Michael contributed as a songwriter and UM which that song being one of them Taking to the Streets. I had one song on that album and that's all I contributed. And by the so by the time they go out for a spring tour, I went out with him. I did,

and we did this before the album came out. No, the album was out, okay, I remember the Spring of seventy remember, and it sounded so different from what came before. It was very different from what came before. UM on

the road with him I did. I did that tour with him, and then I stayed with the band UH and had I think four or five songs for the next album, which was Living on the Fall Line, which I don't think did that well all things considered, UH, especially after Taking to the Streets was pretty successful in all the previous albums had been pretty successful. UM, and I just decided I'm going to withdraw for right now. I'm not sure I feel a part of this musically.

I don't feel like I'm in the right spot, and I just wanted to break. So I left and I spent a year playing baseball, lifting way. It's um getting healthy again if you will, and um, And then I started writing again, and the next thing you know, I'm doing a solo album in seventy nine with Ted So at all, you know, I didn't stay away very long. We'll stop here for a brief moment and get right

back to my conversation with Tom Johnston. For those who are unaware, I'm primarily a writer and have a newsletter called the Left Sets Letter. You can sign up and read the history of my work at left sets dot com in addition to experiencing my commentary on music, business, technology, and my life. You'll be the first to find out where we've published a new episode of the podcast. Go to left sets dot com and sign up for the newsletter.

I know you'll enjoy it. Now more with Tom Johnston of the Doobie Brothers, recorded live at the tune In Studios in Venice, California. Okay, so once again, now you were sold a walk. What are your expectations and what's it like? It's pretty different. Remember, first of all, you're in the Driver's Seat and um, it was an exploration album as well. I look back at it now that they weren't the greatest songs ever, and I hadn't been planning on doing it and then I ended up getting

to do it. So I kind of wrote the songs hastily, if you will. Um. But it had one song that did fairly well, which was Savannah Knights, and it was all kind of an R and B sh album. But I got to do a lot of stuff that I always wanted to do but never could doobies. I got to use towers horn section and like I said, David Garibaldi on drums and Cheese Toudakov from a band called Crack and played bass, and it sounded sort of like rockle So I wanted to be like a Tower Power

kind of unit. Um. The song started off sounding like a Temptation song, ended up sounding like a James Brown. Yeah it was I don't how that happened. But none of these are singles. They were just fun to do and we used so many different players. That's another thing. I wasn't you. I mean, we thought we'd had other guys come in and on the albums through the period of three or four albums in there who were studio guys. We had Right Couter play on an on an album.

We had the Gutty playing an album. We had um Mac, Malcolm Cecil and as a Bob margol if I think exactly. They came in and said yeah, and they step with Stevie wondering right. They set up the synthesizer and I played the keyboard horn parts on on Captain and me Um for Natural Thing and Yukaya. I love Natural Thing. It was fun to do. I had no idea what these guys were all about. They just showed up and said, up this big monster thing. Okay, I'll play it on keyboards.

Oh when you're in the heat of the moment, did you say, but now suddenly you're out of The Doobie brother and the Jubie Brothers have a renaissance and they're as successful as you were. You they were very successful. Not the same sound, but it's called the Doobie Brothers. How do you feel about that? It was pretty different, and it's like an adjustment that you have to make. But I didn't want to change what I was about

and what I was musically. Where I came from and the interesting part about all that is both Michael and I are R and B guys. I have a lot of R and B influences. His was a little different in mine. Mine was like I started with Little Richard and worked my way up through Joe tex and and and Wilson Pickett and all those kind of guys. He was more into the Ray Charles and the more gospel kind of things. So you could have that much variation and go in completely different directions. And he was a

keyboard player. I was a guitar player. UM, So that was probably the difference um and stylistically, song wise, it was very different because I still had a rock and roll edge to a lot of this stuff I did. And so when it came time to do solo albums, as I said, the first one was an experiment, a lot of fun I had. I had a ball doing that album. That was so much fun. I got to play with guys, some of which I didn't even know it. David Page played on it, Um Yeah, a plethora of Dummer's.

Keith played on it, Michael playing on that album at some point, Um Path playing on that album. Um Rick Slauser played on a lot of the tracks, I'm not sure what happened to Rick Mark, because Mark Jordan was a keyboard player. He was really good and he played on a lot of stuff. Um Towers Horns used Memphis Horns on a couple of the songs. So you've got this plethora of really top notch players, and that, to me is what that experience was all about. It was

a growth period, and then we went out. I went out and toured on it and did a lot of with um various bands. UM Kenny Loggins was one of my toured with for a while and it was a pretty wild and wooly tour. You got the band such as it was, which was me, three Memphis Horns, John Hartman, and Um something. Anderson on the other said, we had two drummers again, uh, Mike White on bass. Probably nobody's not gonna be filming familiar with these names. They were

in household names. But so we went out and toured, so the crew and the band are all on the same bus every night, and it was lunacy. That lasted for a month and a half and then that was the end of the touring for that album, and then I did another solo album with a different producer, so that's another big step. And those were actually, in a sense more commercial songs. But the album didn't do very well, and I was told that it sounded too much like to Do You Brothers. I said, it was that a

good thing? I am? I don't know if that is good or bad and different. I said, I'm not trying to do anything in particular. I'm just writing songs and here's what they sound like. And uh so that one was produced by Michael o'martin, who did Christopher Cross and some other people like that. And then after that I just kind of played around Maran and hung out with a band called Border Patrol and we did gigs and stuff and that lasted until a D seven And then

in a D seven Keith had this idea. The band by the way, they right there, Okay, you make two solo records. Then Warner Brothers says they we don't want to make anymore. Right, Okay, now you don't have you're not at the level you were before without a recording deal. You try to get a recording deal with somebody else. No, okay, do you have enough money to get you through? I did, Okay, I wasn't like large and in charge, but I getn't buy and okay, So then get to eighty seven. Okay, Well,

the band, the Doobie Brothers, they ended. They split up in ninety two. They did a farewell tour ascuse me and they did a farewell tour which I went and played on one of the last gigs with him over in Berkeley, and um, which was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed. You remain friendly with these guys pretty much? Yeah, yeah, I mean I I sad him with him in Seattle one night when they were playing with John k and he was doing a solo album thing, and you know, I didn't sit there with him a lot, but once

in a while I would show up. And when the night they got their first Grammys and stuff, I was on that first solo tour and I ended up in Bakersfield, drove down to l A And went to the after party and hung out with all the guys in the band and lost and and everybody else was there. So yeah, we stayed on good terms. And then in seven there's

this idea. There was an idea by Keith Canudson, who had read a book which I don't remember the title of, about guys who had out in Vietnam and what they were going through and the problems they were having health wise, housing wide, you name it. They were having all kinds of problems. And he called each one of us in the band and said, would you be interested in getting together and doing a gig to raise money for these guys,

And everybody said, sure, why not? And that included four drummers for a guitar player, one bass player who was tyrant because Willie Weeks had been playing bass for the band at the end, and Um Michael of course on one side and Cornelias Pumpus on the other side playing keyboards, and then Cornelias played sax. So we had this huge

conglomerate on stage, which was insane. So we had to rehearse that get the songs together, which is everything from nobody to admitute by a minute, all of it one night and the first um the first gig was a trial gig before we did the Hall with Bowl, which was the prize. That was when we wanted to get the money for the Vietnam vets from. So we played in San Diego, the place we used to play all the time. I think it was called a Porratorium if

I'm not mistaken. And uh so we get there and we walk on stage expecting absolutely nothing because we hadn't done anything in all the formats at once, for sure, and we had never done anything with that many guys on stage, and the band had been apart for a while, so nobody's really expecting a heck of a lot of anything. And we get this standing ovation we had not let us start playing. It was a ridiculous. Everybody looking to going, what is going on? Man, this is crazy. Nobody hadn't

inkling anything like that was gonna happen. So apparently the band had been missed in its absence, but we didn't know it. And uh so we ended up playing the show they were The crowd was ecstatic. So we left that thinking, wow, that's amazing. I wasn't expecting that, and I mean everybody's saying that was something, right. And so the next show is probably the next night actually at the Hollywood Bowl, and it was the second fastest selling

show they'd had behind the Beatles. That was the fastest one, and it was packed and we played the show made a ton of money for the Vietnam debts, and we played one more for the Stanford Children's Hospital, which was

one of our pet charities. After that, and then we played ten shows to pay for all this because it cost a force to do all the rehearsing and everything and everybody, the whole routine, the multiple drummers, Guitarsit went on all those gigs and we played them like you with a small tour, you know, we played and that was no but that's just the way it ended it up. And because we had this huge debt, we had incurred

putting this together. But while we were doing the rehearsals putting this together and doing the songs from the early do we period, Ted was there for all the rehearsals and he came up to all the guys from the original band. He said, what would you think about reforming the band in this original form and doing an album? At that point, none of us were doing anything that really added and we all said sure, why not? So

we did and that was supposed to happen. It didn't happen until Lady nine and Ted wasn't the producer and we were not Warner Brothers. Stuff changed from the idea until it actually happened. By then we were on Capitol. Do you think it would have been different if Ted

had been the producer? I do, I do, um, because we started off with a couple of producers at one time, Eddie Schwartz and Charlie Midnight, and then that morphed into Rodney Mills and then he did the second album that was on Capitol and we the first album was Cycles, and it did pretty well and it had the Doctor on it, which I with those two guys if I hadn't written it with those two guys, because I had written this song for a band I was playing in and Marin, but it didn't have that chorus and it

didn't have some of those lyrics. Those that had not been added, that song wouldn't have been ahead. That was the catch the catchy part of it for then. I mean they hadn't added that those core structures and stuff, which I thought, that's really poppy. It's like almost bubble gum. But um, it did well and it served its purpose and uh and the band was back, if you will. Then we did the second on which was Brotherhood, and do so well, and then we just have been on

the road since. Okay, so a couple of questions. Now, let's stay with the recording. Do you make a recording sibil sibling rivalry ivalry I believe in and there are I believe that record is very good. But there are multiple writers. So when you have there was no producer, and I was against that. I didn't think that was a good idea, but this is what they wanted to do. They wanted to try doing it with the producer. I said, Okay, so you do get multiple writers, you also get multiple

sounds because you got four guys singing lead. And I didn't think that was a great idea, but I didn't raise a ruckus about it too much. Um. So the album really didn't do anything, and we weren't really on a label. It got put out by Rhino, but we were doing it with a guy from Florida was just a money guy. Much like what we did. Um ten years later, Okay, you make a record ten years later, but at this time it is with Ted Templeman. It was with Ted Templeman. It was not a Warner Brother,

it was not any label. It was once again a money guy who was from Texas. And uh, we were with what they called themselves a record company, but they really weren't. And it's too bad because that really was a good record. It had good songs on it. They were well thought on. Billy came out and Billy Payne came out and played on it. I had written four songs on keyboards, and so I just said, here, you're

the guy, you play these. But I had already UH, but I'd written him on keyboards and by then I'm working with uh digital performer and I could play all this stuff because of Mittie allows you to play bass, allows you play drums, you play keyboard parts, and you could fudge it. And so if you can't really play the part you're not fluid or not, you slow it down and you play the part and needs speed it back up again. So you're down here in l A

now for writing sessions. What would these songs be for? Uh, we'd like very much to put out at this point, probably an EP because people don't buy albums anymore. They don't care about that and UM, to me, it's important to stay valid. To me, if you're a musician, if you just sit around and rest on your laurels, you're not growing and you're not getting the job done. We play plenty of gigs every year and we love playing for people. That's what's kept the band thriving and alive.

But I think there's something as a musician. It's not just me that feels this way. We all feel this way that in order to be valid you need to put out new stuff. It's you know, in this day and age, it's probably not gonna do anything per se. It's not going to be some humongous hid but people know you're still making an attempt to be honest about your music, and that to me is important. And on one hand you say nothing's gonna happen, but another hand,

I don't know what. But in the other hand, if you're actually doing it, you must have an inner flame saying well, I would like alway that yeah, at this point in the game, Yes, there's always that hope. And then I had that for World Gone Crazy. I thought that album was gonna do something. I was really disappointed

when it did so. In this particular case, since you would be doing an EP somewhere between four and six songs, is there a desire to hit a certain level of quality to give your project a better shot in the marketplace. In some ways, I don't think that's ever change. You always want to do the best you can do where you're at at that time, with the knowledge you have with the songs that you're writing, and that's what you know. I'm co writing at this point, which is something I've

never used to do. And uh, I really enjoyed the two songs that I've written down here in l A with with John and it's it's been just for those people who are not up to speed, and um, guys got a lot of vision. It reminds me of Ted. You didn't have personality, is like night and day from not at all like, but he has vision and he hears things and it's it's mind blank because you're doing it in his studio and he's got an engineer and as you're tracking, I mean, as you're writing the song.

It's kind of what reminds me of my my writings sessions in Nashville, and that you've got two or three guys in the room all at the same time writing stuff. So as you're writing the chords, you're writing the verses. That's something I never did before in life. It was I would write the songs generally first, the whole damn thing, and say, Okay, what's gonna work on this. But that type of writing, when you've got more than yourself, you've got anywhere from two to three people in the room.

It's like you get this first stretch of the song, Okay, let's write the verse. I said, well, we don't have a song. Yeah, this is how we do it back here whatever. And so it's a learning it's a learning curve for me. And it was really interesting. And that was with Jeffrey Steele and who has had a lot of success back to l A Boy originally, and um Um wrote with Chuck Cannon wrote with Bob d. Pierre. You guys are all successful back there in Nashville, most

of his country. And this is all for the same theoretically. P No, this was just for me to go back and write with people, just to do it. And what's happened to those songs so far? Nothing? They are saying one of them might get used. I don't know. Yeah, I there's one of my things is a possibility for what we're doing, okay. And also you switched managers relatively recently. What was that about. We had reached a place with our former manager where we just thought it was time

to cut ties. And actually I had been thinking that for a while, and without getting into depth about this, some things occurred that convinced other people in the band that it was time to do that, and we did, and so I took it upon myself to make some phone calls. And so the decision to cut ties was before you had a new person, okay. And both the people that I called were receptive and positive about it. And the last person that we spoke with, and the last person I called and that we went and sat

down at a meeting with was Irving. He's off and he was great. He knew all about the band. He says, I know what you've been doing. Uh Um, I'd like you to meet our staff, and which is the same thing I did with with another manager in Nashville, and he came out to us in in St. Louis and we had a big meeting. They were great, They really were, I mean, they were first class about the whole thing. Both guys um and it just seemed to me that

it was a better fit. And after I got the guys down to l A and they saw what Irving was all about and how things were done and his people that did online presence and as people who did this and did that. Um, they kind of agreed, and so we chose Irving. And so since you've been with Irving, what operation, how is it different from your previous life? Uh? Touring is still touring. That had never changed. But as far as the quality of how things are done, it's

night and day. Uh. From the business standpoint, it's on another planet. So and we also changed book agencies. We went from Paradigm to C A A, which has also been a really neat thing for us to do in a very positive jump. And um, so it's all changed, right. And then so the band has been back together its original format a close there to for a better part of thirty years. How many days a year do you do gigs? We do about eighty shows a year. And

how do you come up with that number? Uh? I don't know, it's not really we haven't got to a point where we sit down, I won't do more than this. It's just that's what we've been doing for a while and or between eighty two shows up till about five years ago, six years ago, and then we were kind of trying to keep it down to eighty. UM. At one point we talked about seventy and in fact, since we've been with everyone. We were talking about with seventy

but it hasn't happened. Yeah, we're still doing eight because shows come up you don't want to say no to. That's pretty much. They don't want to say no because, well, there there, you want to go play with these people. Perhaps, Um, shows come up all the blue that you don't know we're gonna happen, like some of the stuff we did, like those classic gigs for instance, they got interjected into

a tour we were doing with Chicago at the time. Um, where are you gonna go play with um Steely Dan and the Eagles the day that you play, get on a plane and fly back to Detroit to play the next gig that night after you're done, and and other things like going to Europe. Uh. And we played with Steely Dan and then we did a European tour by ourselves in places of some of the places I'd actually never played before. It was kind of hip. Really enjoyed that.

And then and this now, when you're singing, listen to the music. You're singing one of your big hits. What you have to sing otherwise the audience is going to revolt are you think, are you thinking about doing your laundry or you think about other stuff? Are you still know it's it's still a thrill to do those songs. And I'll tell you why, because it could be exactly like you just just gribe. I can see where that would happen. It's because of the response the crowd gives

you when you play those songs. So in essence, every night that song takes on a life of its own because of the people in front of you, not because you're playing it. God, you know the thing and you sleep, but when the crowd is singing along with you, and in particular a couple of songs, they're anthemic and nature for the that very reason. How can you not be happy with that? Man? It's pretty hard. Okay, So generally speaking, let's talk about when you're playing with another band, how

far can you stretch it before the audience. I don't want to say tunes out, but we all go to shows these days, and you're on stage whatever. There's the casual fan of knows the hits, and then there's the die hard fan. So when you don't play and a few people who don't really know any of the hits, right, So, hey, to what degree do you feel you want to convince the fans bring them along, or to what what's it like being on stage when you're not playing the big hits.

It might be songs that you really dug as album cuts in the first place. In particular, things like for me, dark Eyed Cajun Woman or something like that meant a lot to me alone as a person because it was the blues and it was a tip of that had to be be king. And it's the only time I ever got to write a blue song that was a really that really was a blue song. Is there a dark eyed Cajun woman? There is a dark eyed Cajun woman that really exists. It came off of Captain and me.

We'll be doing that. I have been doing a lot. I mean, is there a woman who? Oh no, it was all fictitious, But that was a big seminal moment for me in the studio. Not for anybody else probably, but for me it was. So you'll enjoy playing that live, I do. I mean, there's a lot of songs I

enjoyed playing live. It's just how you build a set in order to how you know, take the crowd on there on this little journey with your sot A spirit, And do you find if you headline that the fans are a little more die hard as opposed to play if you're opening Let's say, for uh, when the first tour we did when we got with Irving was with Journey and um and it was us and and Dave Mason played before we did, and we played, the Journey played, and so every night to places, which as they always

are in any of these kind of ship gigs, are always packed pretty much, and uh, we were getting really great response, so it was it was not you know, we were this this is an extension of what we've already been doing anyway, so it's more of the same but different bands than we had played with before. We'd played with Dave before, but we've never played with Journey since way back when, and then um, this last year we've been with Steely Dan. We just just finished that

two our month ago. We were out for over two and a half months straight and wide swath musically, I mean, you've got jazz rock and all these phenomenal players on stage, and Donald still sounds great as ever and really a killer band, but completely musically different from what we did and the crowd loved it, which was very cool. So it all works. We had You've had a lot of hits, so at this Okay. A couple other questions. How many times you've been married? Once? Really? Uh? And I'm still

married to her now. We've been married for over thirty years. Okay. So because most bands, seems the band goes on the road. Remember Metallica, They went on the road for extended period of time, they came home, everybody got divorced. How did you how did you maintain that relationship in the face of this crazy lifestyle. Well, it's not that crazy nowadays. It's it's work, you know. I mean, you're out making a living. It's not the days of the seventies and

the hey day. You know, sex, drugs and rock and roll are gone. Um, it's just it's a job. But I enjoyed the job. I love playing music and I love, as does everybody else in this band, interacting with the crowd. And to me as a musician, when I'm on stage, the prenuptialate job that you have is to get that crowd up every single night and barring security guys and a place that won't allow him to get up even and then I still try, but the idea is to get him up dancing, say along with you if they

know the songs, which in a lot of cases they do. Um, that's an every night thing. And on that note, what a better time to end with the pinnacle moment of what's still going on the road. You can certainly see the Doobie Brothers on the road, as we said, eighty times a year. They come to your marketplace eventually. But even so, the records, I really would say go back to listen to those early records Vices and to Lose Street and the Captain Me. They don't really sound like

anything else in the marketplace. There's a unique sound and as a results are also not dated. It also has something to do with the level. They're the high level that recorded on but really satisfying music. I mean, I literally play them all the time. So it's a thrill to have you here. Thanks so much, Tom, appreciate if I play here until next time. It's Bob left Sets. You're listening to me on my own podcast recorded live here at tune In Studios in Venice, California. How great

was that? Listen? I'm a huge Doobie Brothers fan to sit here and get answers to some questions I've had for decades and listen to Tom talk about what it's like being in the band and being on the road was very special and stimulating. I know you loved it too. Until next time, I'm Bob. Leff says, don't know