QLS Classic: Steve Miller

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For the next COLS classic, We'll get back to Steve Miller's January tenth about eighteen appearance rock and Roll Hall of Famer talks about the early lessons he learned from Les Ball and Tibo and Walker, singing on a Promptu recording session with the Beatles and performing with greats like Chuck Berry, slyestonemor Fly Like an Eagle.

Back to episode sixty.

Six, Suprema Sun Sun Supreme, Roll Suprema Sun Sun Suprema Roll Suprema So Sun Supreme, Roll Suprema Supreme.

Quest Love in the Place. Yeah, I want to talk about what space? So Yeah, I'm starting a question inside the theme song. Steve Miller, I just have to ask you, that was what was on your mind when you were making Blue Odyssey in Space and just in less than thirty seconds, please.

I had just got a really really cheap synthesizer, my first one, and I immediately hooked it up to my echo plex, and I had an eight track tape recorder, and I just was building electronic soundscapes, like broadening the horizon so I could put something in it.

Beautiful.

Thank you.

Oh, Suprema Supremo, Role Suprema Suprema.

Roll call.

My name is Fante, Yeah, your favorite rapper. Yeah, I work my magic. Yeah, abracadabra, Oh Supremo, Roll.

Up, Supremo.

Roll call.

My name is Sugar Yeah, Sugar sugar Baby, Sugar Baby, Sugar sugar Bet.

Supremo. Roll call Supreme.

So Supremo rolls bills in the place. We're gonna have some fun, yeah and learn how the biz. Yeah, take some money in runs.

Supreme Supreme Supremo.

Roll call. Yeah.

Steve Miller, I'm stoked.

Yeah, I don't know.

You want to say smokering joker. Yeah, That's how I feel.

Sure, m Supremo.

Roll call. Some people call me Maurice, some people call me the space Cowboy. Some people call me Stevie. But I'm gonna tell you that cowboy Supreme.

Roll Suprema Supreme, Roll Suprema Suprema, Roll Suprema son Supreme.

Wow. Well, good morning, good morning. I feel much better.

Cool ladies and gentlemen, we are honored here today to have the legendary the artist artist. I'm very glad that you're on the show because I've always wanted to talk to someone that to whom it took more than seven albums to finally break on through to the other side. So I'm not alone this world. No, no, you're not.

Well, that's that's pretty humbling. You know, we would have had had we been rolling at the same time, we probably would have been touring together because trying to do artistics, make pop music intellectual, and do artistic things and be political and make a change and in our society that was those were all things that I see the roots is being very interested in it. When I listened to your records, I kind of go, oh, yeah, I know who. Yeah,

Yeah, So I mean being as though, I mean, you definitely came from an era in which songs had to speak for themselves, where there's actual grassroots, uh kind of work put into spreading the word and word of mouth and those sort of things. It wasn't like you know today, where your celebrity determines how far you're going to go. And you know, even sadly as of twenty seventeen, I mean,

So my journey's crazy. I can give it to you an im areagraph. I'm so. I was born in Milwaukee to a family. My mother's side of the family were all musicians, and my father's side of the family they were kind of inventors and doctors. So my dad was a pathologist. He had a tape recorder. And when I was four years old, I met Les Paul And this was nineteen forty nine. Are you ready for that? Really? Yeah? It was just a few years after World War Two and Les Paul showed up with an electric guitar.

And how does your family know Les Paul?

Well, he came to Milwaukee to put his act together with Mary Ford before he went to New York to do a TV show. It was one of the first TV shows. It was a real weird little TV show. It was like fifteen minutes long. It had kind of come on at three point thirty in the afternoon from his house. Wow, and they were putting They were rehearsing at a supper club just down the block from where we lived. My dad went down and said, I have a tape recorder, which was this brand new technology that

Can I ask one thing? Yeah, what city in Texas was this?

Dallas, Okay? And Freddy King was on television in the afternoon. Saturday afternoon, there was an R and B show on TV, and Lightning Hopkins was coming through town. There was a lot of jazz all over h. Charles's band lived in Fort Worth that had Newman. Those guys were in and out of town and and so there was this really cool music scene going on. And I was listening to Jimmy Reid and Bill Doggett. Those were when I was eleven and twelve. That was the stuff I really liked,

Over and how accessible were because I mean, the story that you're telling is just not the average story where like TV and WATS. So first of all, I mean as as a five year older or even okay, I'll put you up further as a ten year older. I mean, are you truly absolutely knowing that you're witnessing history right here and this should be preserved and and huh.

So No, I just thought what I was witnessing was great music, and being a musician was a lousy job, you know, like in growing up in a middle class family, you know, and I had I had, like my my uncle my mother's side, had been in the Paul Whiteman orchestra. He was a hot jazz violinist and he played in that orchestra. And then when the depression came, he and his brothers all went to medical school and became doctors. So in my family, it was kind of like my

Going to ask you how I knew that Milwaukee and Chicago in proximity to each other, But how did those records, How did those how did that blue scene even get to you at the time?

And was it was like everybody's all records?

So were they on the radio at the time or was it still like race.

Music in in Texas?

Uh?

Was? I mean? In Milwaukee? Was all records, and you know, when I got to Texas, Texas was like a really different place. And and radio Top forty radio was invented in Dallas at KLIF by guy named Gordon McClendon. Yeah. I used to play sitar on those radio ads that k Yeah, those were all made of Pam's recording studio in Dallas and sold all over the United States, and guys who owned radio stations went, Okay, we liked this program, let's do this top forty thing, this top ten thing,

Was can you receive these shows?

Yeah?

So back then, like how much would a show cost to to see these acts? Like what was the typical building?

Oh, Frankie Avalon, I mean Frankie Lyman and the Teenagers and Al Hibbler and Chuck Berry and the Cadillacs or somebody like that would come through and it'd be like two dollars at the sport of Toory, you know, and as a package tour and just yeah, they were all package tours.

Then how long would those shows be? Because I'd see the marquis of some of these shows and I would think that, okay, even at three to four songs each, this could be a three to four hour fair. But I know that they're doing matinee shows, afternoon shows, evening shows, night shows.

And yeah, they were, you know, I kind of remember him as being like three hours long. You know. We used to go to the Sportatorum. The Sportatorium had the big Djamboree and it had all the R and B shows and they had the There really weren't a lot of rock shows there, you know, there wasn't a lot. Like I remember when Carl Perkins showed up at one of these shows and did blue suede shoes and that was like a oh wow, this is really different. And

And so you're saying that these shows that you saw, it was mostly black acts and the idea of like Elvis culture and more white oriented rock acts or the people that would established.

It, you know, like like like that was that they were R and B shows that came came through that everybody went to. And then when the white acts came through, like I remember seeing Ricky Nelson, you know, with James Burden. Wanted to go see James Burden play guitar, and and he was big enough to come and do a show in a theater. He played at the Majestic Theater, but mainly it was like, you know, these arena kind of big all star review kind of shows what the.

Term rock and roll even popular?

But at point kind of not still race music.

No, it was you know, we didn't call it race music, but uh, it was totally segregated on the airwaves, but it wasn't. I mean people, you know, everybody listened, like everybody I went to school with listened to K and okay, which was the black radio station, because that was always going to be a lot better than k l i F, which had like, you know, Frankie Avalon. You know, like if you go back and sort of look at the pop list and stuff and don't make fun of the

So even then there was counter you're saying that there was counterculture, totally mainstream squares, totally, that's that's sort of play.

So I was walking around in the seventh grade with my Jimmy Reid records going listen to this baby, okay, you know, and.

What were people saying back to you?

Oh yeah, everybody loved it. Everybody loved it, and we uh hell, I used to back up Jimmy Reid when I was fourteen years old. We played and backed up Jimmy Reid, and Jimmy Reid was like one of the most popular acts in Dallas. In Dallas for white kids, black kids, it didn't matter, you know, he was those were hit records.

So you must have been the ship at fourteen to like your peers, right because you're playing behind him.

So what was that like?

Well, you know, nobody even cared about that. There wasn't anybody, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no no. We were a bar band. There weren't you know, these careers that exist now people like us sitting here right, you know, pontificating about how important it was and how deep we thought didn't even exist. If you were a musician, you know, you were working in bars and nightclubs, or you were on the Dick Clark Bus, you know, with forty people, you know, to going to town to town

You mentioned about these shows in sports arenas, Okay, because I know that you're a stickler for sound and engineering, just because I'm from an era in which you know, big speakers and backline and those things. How were those shows able to translate sonically in a large sports arena with what I would assume was inferior sound.

Well, an audience was generally they weren't big, big, huge sports are anything like the Sportatorium, is what I said. The Sportatorium was like this funky kind of I think it held like twenty five hundred people or something, and it was a place where they had boxing matches and they had music, and so it was small enough that you know, you could sing through your amplifier. And the volume levels were totally different. There were nothing like rock

He's wondering about that, because I know that's why the Beatles stopped doing shows, because they're like you can't hear us anyway.

Well, the Beatles stopped doing shows because they thought they were going to be assassinated.

Yeah, and I was about to say, you were there for that mighty argument. I'll get to that.

Yeah, they thought they were going to be killed. But like if you look at the Shea Stadium show, you know, like the way I see this, that Shay Stadiums show, I go, well, look at that. They're on second base. There are put one hundred and twenty feet away from the audience, and look, there's three bookshelf speakers. There's one on the ground named here, there's one there, and there's a little under the front, you know, and you just go, what were these people thinking?

I can't hear them?

You couldn't hear anything. So that was like one of the things I'm proud of that I actually worked hard on, was we went from that era to building the pas to getting the stuff that everybody enjoys right now in your monitor. Yeah, the flight for you know, in your monitors. Man, I spent three hundred thousand dollars developing those you know, oh wait you literally yeah, you know, speak well, very interesting. So there was this guy in California was kind of nuts.

You couldn't talk about last night's.

Meal or hey, what the you know? What are you? You know you had I mean it was like, we're on the air and we could really be fine. Seriously, so we snuck around and did that.

Oh wait, so you had to even though it was for monitor purposes use FCC.

Well, no, we were illegally broadcasting FM.

Radio radio.

We had five pirate radio stations stacked up so each guy could hear. And and I this is this is how gets invented. It's always simple and really dumb. And and so here we are, and we're setting this up every night and we're broadcasting. And we're the first band that ever went out wearing ear monitors. And the ear monitors were made out of clay and they really hurt.

Wow, did you get any thank yous from the neighborhood, Like anybody ever come up to you? Like, Man, that show was awesome last night, I said on my.

Couching, you know, and we never got busted. Oh, you know, we got away with it. I still have these things, man, they're in my warehouse suits. Like it's like, you know, it's like the first space capsule or something that say you look at it, just go. But you know, it's like tape echo and the stuff less Paul worked on. All of these ideas start from you know, you kind of go like, I gotta get this done. Honey had

You know.

Yeah, you just you do what you gotta do. And and it's, uh, you know, I just did it because I needed it. I didn't do it do it to you know, to start to start a company or do anything like that. I just knew that I wanted to protect my hearing for life.

Well that's the show, Leason, gentlemen.

I brought an out audiologist and we're gonna test everybody, now, Larry, come on, we need that.

Did you develop it to the point where it was like, did you patent it? Did you sell it to Shore?

No? No, I gave it to Marty and look there are you know, it's like all this kind of stuff. A lot of people were thinking about it, but I was the guy who went like, I can't work in this situation. You guys got to stop this. This is nuts, you know. I mean, if you're on a stage and it's one hundred and twenty GB, you can't sing, you can't think, you can't rest, you can't sleep after the show, you can't hear the next day. You know, you know all that. So that's that had to be fixed. So

You've literally described that is crazy?

Steve, was that in Buffalo by any chance?

Uh?

That was the last gig of that tour?

Okay a show?

Actually, yeah, yeah, that was. That was a really amazing run.

It was like ninety one, ninety ninety two maybe.

I think there's ninety two, you know, because.

Yeah, I was in the parking lot during the opening.

And what were you doing?

A grateful show?

You know, those shows were really funny, and bands that played with a grateful dead usually got shunned, you know, like I sting had done it before I had done it, and they said, yeah, you know, like there'd be eleven

So did they figure?

It's interesting because you said when you got with them, it was kind of like a two for one deal, like on top of getting the band, they get the any our monitors. Is that what most bands were thinking at that time about guy.

No No, they had they had got a system. They wanted they wanted to see how we used it. They wanted to learn how, They wanted the best. They wanted to learn how to do it, you know, and see see how it worked. And that was you know, uh real comment. I remember Guns N' Roses came by. Oh okay, you wanted to see how because we were the guys at the monitors, you know.

And that's weird because I've I've thought that it was invented because by the time we started using it in like two thousand, I felt like, well, okay, this is probably like three years old already. I felt like just came around like yeah, nineteen ninety seven or something.

No, I was like ten eleven years old by then. But you know, you have to develop that stuff. But for me, I think because the less you know, and being around him when I was little, and like you were saying, well, did you know, I didn't know he was a genius. I didn't know anything about him except that he he was like this great, great guitarist and he was really funny. Every show he did was always sold out, and uh, you know, he always had somebody

Nonchalantly.

He must have practiced it a thousand times, you know. But but that's what it was like, hanging out with him and so I got so lucky to be around the technology, the idea of recording, the idea of promoting a single, the idea having fun at a show and it's a jam session. The cats are all coming by and they're all going to play, and so, you know, Charles Mingus was at the House of Milwaukee Red and

Uh, I want to be a sleazy swanky doctor.

You are you are? You are? Yeah? Well you know Swanky's good.

So has have has Less left you any of his like artifacts? Like did he give you your first guitar? Or do you have like an amp that he oh this tape recorder?

Kids, Yeah, I don't have it, don't have it. I have a guitar. I have a one, a Gibson one seventy five that he gave me in what I used to steal from him as guitar picks. And it was a big joke because the well, the first time I went to see Less play at Fat Tuesdays. You know, he worked at Fat Tuesdays for he stayed in New York for thirty years. He had his heart attack at sixty three and when he was sixty three years old, and then he played until he was ninety three. So

So I know that the city of San Francisco. I was about to say, we do have to start discussing your actual music there, I actually stay off topic, out of your your discography forever, but you eventually, uh migrate to San Francisco, which is we're considering that even though there's psychedelic leanings and a lot of your music, I wouldn't necessarily peg you as part of that dead kind of jam. Yeah, kind of lucky, even though there are elements of that and and a lot of your music.

Well, Chuck Berry, Yes, my best Chuck Berry story is the one I should have told Keith Richards before he made the movie. We walk off the stage and I say, if you ever fucking do that to me again, you motherfucker, get your own fucking band, get your own fucking amplifier, and get your own people. Man, fuck you. I'm never gonna back you up again. Guarantino. And then from that time on he was great.

What did he do?

What he was Chuck Berry?

Broll No, no, no, there are two guys that used to do this trick. So now this is a Chuck Berry and the Lightning Hopkins story and a San Francisco story. Yes, So I dropped acid in Madison in nineteen sixty three. It was lysurgic acid. It was pure.

I was at that show too.

And that was before anybody knew what it was or what was really going on, and.

So you were wing your time and everything.

So my first trip was poetry, Marvin Gay, Robbie Shankar, literature, mind expanding consciousness, do anything you know before there were hippies. Okay, Then I go to So I'm in Chicago and we're hearing about San Francisco, these gigs and San Francis light show. Butterfield's out there, man, and he's like making money, and they're playing to like eleven hundred people a night, not

You were sober watching them?

Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah gee look at the time, you know, so it was all the bands were like, uh, they weren't really good.

Bands, and they were like guys who'd been playing acoustic guitar who decided they were going to get some beatle boots and a groovy coat and a scarf and grow their hair long and have a rock band and they're going to be rock stars. So I got out there. I'd been working in Chicago, where Junior Wells would steal your gig if he sat in, if he could, you know, I mean, everybody had to be really good, and I was like on time, great sets, everything was really good.

So right now you're destroying the myth of what we thought that the San Francisco Musician was about. Like you're just saying that they were mediocre at best or just.

The band, right, The bands were a social phenomena. No, no, And you know, the Jeffer Airplane was kind of interesting. They did some things good and then other things are just like insufferably boring, you know. And and so it was what I finally realized was I'm standing there, going, what is this? You know, what's going on here? And I finally went, it's a social phenomena. This is like, this is about acid, This is about an awakening, this

But I like that.

I like that, But I want to change things. I want to see the world change too. I'm I don't want to have a crew cut anymore. I don't want to go to you know, some company and get trained for six weeks and then work there for the rest of my life, you know, and do that that fifties early sixties thing. I want a life, a much different life. And so, you know, the expansion, the mind expansion that took place, and then it filtered into the music, and

You were the influence that brought them out, because a lot of us were like, no, a lot.

Of us were, you know, But I was like, yeah, I was the guy who went and picked up Holland Wolf and my bus. You know when he arrived at the airport. You know, James and his band stayed at my house, you know, when they came to town. But and you know, I was there the first night BB King played, I was there. I backed up John Lee Hooker on his first night. I did Chuck Berry Show and the BB King show at the Fillmore. You know, they talk about it and bb cried that night and

As that's going on.

How long is this process that that the audience is watching? You like grabbed the guitar.

Well, I'm sure you didn't let the audience know.

No, no, no, no no no, that just was like it broke a string, put the guitar down, here's another one, picked it up.

But good night.

Bb I saw Biby come out and do a show one time and break a string and uh, reach into his well. First of all, he broke a string while he was singing, and he just kept singing, never looked at it. He went down here and he like took the string off, and I'm not making any of this up. Reached into his pocket and pulled out a string in a package and took the string out, and he's singing

Like without looking once, he just put the string on.

I'm telling you, man, I to him. It was in a little club and Sun Valley, Idaho, was sitting right there like that, and I just went, how many times? You know, it's like the handkerchief trip? How many times do you have to do that before you can or have that happen?

You know? Have you ever tried to do that?

Uh? No?

So I know that I know that you had your eyes on Paul Butterfield's slot. You know that I want that. But one thing you didn't mention was the desire to get a record deal, which I'm wondering, why did you choose San fran over Los Angeles and how did record label start calling?

So I had a record deal with Barry Goldberg. We had the Goldberg Miller blues band in Chicago, and and we got. He had a swanky, sleazy manager, Steve Yeah, yeah, and uh swanky and and uh. We were given a day and a half to make a record. And while we're making the record, some guy came in and was going, yeah, you guys, you know, you guys should be doing some Jerry Lee Lewiston's. You know, he's trying to tell us what to record and what to do and everything. The

I'm surprised he did that.

Yeah, what he did that was upsetting was he rehearsed for two days, and we hung for two days, had a great time, and then five minutes before the show started, a friend has showed up. They went out and got high on some smack or something, and he came in and did the whole show. Like at halftime. It was just that very slow set, and that was disappointing, you know. But so now I'm seeing this and now there's a feeding frenzy in San Francisco to sign anything that's walking,

Set and.

Ten times what it was in Seattle. It really so. I mean I had fourteen record companies giving me offers, fourteen of them. So now I'm in a feeding frenzy, and I got everything's going the way I wanted to go because I'd had a little taste of the record business, and I learned very quickly that I wanted to complete artistic control over everything, every picture, every cover, every album, everything they said, anything they put out, any music I did. I had to own all the publishing all of it.

And how did you learn to?

Yes? I was like, Wow, when you run a band from the time you're twelve years old, life is really simple, you know, like the things I just told you, You know, when you talked to brilliant musicians and they go, come, man, how did you How are you so smart to know you should keep your publishing because I kept track of the money, clown. You know what, you think somebody's gonna take care of that for you know, nobody ever takes

I just and I always said, like I always said, I'm not going to like gouge anybody, but I'm not going to be taking advantage if I just want to be on kind of a little win win situation for everybody except with the record company.

And I had a friend who was a prosecuting attorney and San Francisco, and he didn't care about being a music industry lawyer because all music industry lawyers work for record companies. Rather than I don't worry about that. I'll go take care of Jimmy Hendricks. I'll get him signed up here and everything will be great, you know. Whatever that happened all the time. My guy was didn't care. And I went to him and I said, this is

Have Everyone was a suit.

Everybody was a switter, and anyone that was like hip because you hear people are like, I'm so passionate about music.

But were they all just suits?

No, they were all suits, and they were all husted. And we really began to look at everybody from las kind of like a weasel and a rat. And somebody was trying to steal everything. And I did my contract. I got my contract done, and I brought my contract down to a community band meeting at the Carousel Ballroom and gave it to everybody and said, this is what you need to get. So there was this kind of

Were you the loan Cynic in that whole atmosphere. Yeah, for a while I was down h Street and people just put a flower in your.

Lapion, Yeah out like I mean I was, I was. I was a cynic about the bands. I sort of regret a lot of what I said about a lot of these people I have now known for fifty years and they're still playing, you know, But I used to go, this is just such nonsense.

Well, I know you're saying it now in hindsight, but were you that honest back when you were doing press sixty eight, sixty nine to seventy, like, yeah, yeah, Stone whatever, you.

Know, like, oh no, no, it was there was no Sly Stone whatever.

Well, okay, that was my.

I was in the studio. Sly was cutting his tracks and I never heard rhythm tracks like that in my life. Just the whole building was just doing it. I opened for Sly one time, another hard gig. This was This was when Sly was healthy and he was okay, oh damn was and he was unbelievable, is what it was like. It was one of the greatest nights you ever saw in your life. And I'm down to like playing as a power trio, you know. You know, it's like we're a power trio now because that's all we could afford.

Degree, you know.

I mean, you know, the approach was like crazy and drugged out and too much money and too much stuff. And like I looked at all those bands, like they all had kind of drug dealers for managers. So they had all this money. They were the local guys. I was from out of town. I had to make my way. I had to you know, do my way. I felt like I personally kept the film Ore Auditorium open for Bill Graham. I played their one hundred and twenty times, you know. I mean when they needed help, I was

What now, you walk out walked.

Out of the building. They just left, and we were just standing, what do you mean? They what? So I go call my executive producer, John Palladin, you know, and I say, you know, I'm here at the studio. This is what's happened in the last two days. You can have your money back, you can have your contract back. You know. I'm done here, you know. Oh no, no, no, no, no, no no no no no no, no, no no no. And that's when yeah, I went, okay, I've been so

I was gonna say, because the legendary Glenn Johns was involved with the first four records.

Correct, Yeah, and he was our engineer and he was always legendary.

But I was gonna say, did you purposely for the No, like Glenn John's like shaped rolling stone stuff, but I mean more importantly, like that's just the way he engineered, especially with led Zeppelin's like records.

No, No, that's his brother Andy.

Wait so there are two of them, Yeah, there's two.

So here's the thing. Glenn Johns was this very rigid British pop guy who had a pop haircut and an alligator skin jacket and a briefcase and drove an xke and come on, let's here we go. He was like and he had done, and he was He had come up as an engineer in the British, the London pop scene,

Was this on for eight track by the Time Children Futures for Yeah? Okay, okay, Now I have a question. A lot of your one of your signature trademarks are well, obviously you're you're an albums based artist instead of just.

For electronic music, aren't.

Well you don't understand.

I can't wait for this.

Wait. But what I'm saying is that a majority of your albums sort of have this cinematic intro to it.

You don't.

I'm just scouting space, even with the the fatality of records. I mean all most of your records. You start this album with a damn near a two minute drone, so in your mind, I mean, I know that in the late sixties the whole don't bores, get to the chorus, you know, just throw your hit sing out front and whatever.

Well that's singles.

Albums are different, right, But I'm just saying that no one's truly thinking in terms of crafting albums.

So well, there were you know, like the Beatles were doing it, and this stuff comes from like symphonic music and like Bozo goes to the circus, turn page to put the next disc on, and you know, Sparky and the radio mystery shows and all of that stuff that I listened to all the time as a kid. Made making an album cinematic. So it's more like, we're gonna go someplace. We're going into this special place, We're gonna

As far as engineering is concerned. You would re engineered and mix a song that was going to be a single for specific reasons.

Or yeah, yeah, as soon as we could. Yes, And you know it was always hard. I mean, like back then, you know, like if you wanted to change the running order, you had to cut all the tunes up and put them on separate reels. You know, if you had fourteen songs or twelve songs, you had twelve different reels, and you go, okay, give me song number six. I'm gonna make it song number two. Okay, splice it together. Okay, now splice all fourteen of them to give us this

As far as your approach, I mean a lot of that earlier stuff was just blues heavy. How did you well, the thing is the one thing I didn't do even though I had Okay, So I went through two phases of discovering your music naturally having it of course, you know, my dad had like a couple of records, and then later my sister had a few records, and then once hip hop came to play, then I had to buy everything that any any artists ever made, just so I

You know what white blues is? I mean, it sounds weird when you say it like that. What's give me? Like the three?

Like?

I mean, yeah, I mean his whole career. I mean, the basis of his career is taken. But the thing is is that I'm now realizing the life that you lived from Les Paul, entering your life into all the people that you backed them when you couldn't help but take the torch.

And when I got to Chicago and everybody I met in Chicago, these are just a bunch of white kids have been listening to records. I just went he's got a record contract, give me the mic, youll because where I grew up.

So they were they amazed that, like you listened to him I play, he was in my living room, like I was.

Trying to steal Muddy Water's gig.

Oh So even then, Muddy Waters wasn't like a god. He was still competition.

And it's like I told you, Muddy's career was over. They had had their hit singles, they were done. There weren't any gigs for Muddy w except in these night clubs in Chicago on the South Side and the near North Side. That was it. They might go to Detroit. Maybe they were living at home. Muddy was. I think Muddy was working as a janitor a Chess Records when the Rolling Stones came in. And I mean, it's just

But wasn't it technically always going to be a disconnect, Cause now I'm getting what y'all was saying about white blues, black blues, But wasn't it always going to be a disconnect sense? Muddy Water and all the black musicians were speaking from a place of pain, and regardless to if you were in their room, the room with them at the time, you would never really feel right what they are.

White people have pain, y'all.

Not in America.

Different.

It's a different kind of pain in America.

So you know, I think, like, first of all, first of all, like I used to hear Muddy Waters and Otis Span and that great band playing in a room the size of the room we're in right now, And what I was thinking was how great this sounds, How what a phenomenal you know, adults playing adult music. This is this is jazz, this is this is incredible. And you know, I think, you know, the music just gave you empathy. You know, I never, I mean, I didn't

Set, whoa they were?

They were they were clowns, they were clowning around. They were just fucking around. In the minute they got their record contract, they stopped playing blues, and Junior did a solo album and wanted to be James Brown. So everybody's human here, you know.

And so your thoughts on the what was the electric album that Muddy Waters did? Were electric clud or even that where he said Muddy Waters hates this, Yeah, what were your feelings on I didn't.

Really like that that that approach. And I was asked to do a record with John Lee Hooker and I said, well, yes, I'd love to. So I go over to the studio and there's like, here's what it was like, this is the white Blues syndrome. Is a white guy producing the record, going okay, John, all right, that's fine, just sit over there. And John Lee Hooker's like in a in the corner, you know, like he is, you know, kind of stuttering

Okay, so there's a question. Now, I believe you when you're you know, even though I wasn't there to see these bands in San Franciso or any bands that you've seen, you're like, Okay, he's good, he's not good. Their quality they're all right, but sort of the way that the three of us would know, and I'm pointing up Fonte and Bill, the three of us would know equality producer all right, Dyla right like, and we respect his his drum patches, all of his you know, his whole arrangement.

It's right now, right right here, what you know you're doing right while you're here. And some people can be just technically totally incompetent and can be great, and other people can be just unbelievably technically competent and just. And so it's all the idea, you know, it's it's the material, in the in the presence.

Well, can I ask, as a blues guitarist, what is what was your opinion of Hendricks as a blues guitarist?

Great, absolutely fantastic.

Now as an amateur, well at okay, it's not me being an amateur. But if I'm coming from an amateur standpoint, and I have this problem with musicians today, they think, okay, I gotta overplay everything to make up for a technique. And I knows that with with with blues guitar players, that the guys that are often praised are the guys that have the least amount of the least amount of of of notes.

So my favorite blues guitar player is Jimmy Vaughan. Okay, Jimmy Vaughan. And Eric clapped it just at his seventieth birthday party at the Garden and John Mayer was there and was there and Booted boot blas there and how do you how I was, you know, and he's got all the guitar players and Jimmy's there and everybody's coming out and they get to do their cello and they're all playing like Eric with that sort of soprano woman tone that.

What's it.

All over the place right, you know, just fast and fantastic and like you think that was good? Dig this thing that And Jimmy came out and hit one note and kind of went splank and they kind of hit the floor and went flap and the whole building kind of went oh, oh, oh, okay, you know. And that's the difference. And some people have got it. And look, there are people who make millions of dollars selling bullshit. We know that, you know, and and the public's easily fooled,

Era never got. Their props are their respect that you felt deserved. God, status, My God, We're never going to get to fighting. We're not gonna get to fight.

But I'm not mad is Curtis CeAl Gato and the Stilettos.

I hate to say this, I've never heard.

Curtis cell Gato and the Stilettos. Check them out.

You know.

They're phenomenal blues songwriter and singer and great harmonica player and badass band leader. And he said like four or five bands. He's really funny with his bands. Every every time he has a new band, I just go, God, Curtis, where did you find that guitar player? I don't like that guy. I'm firing him. My rhythm guitar player came from Curtis's band. I was just going, when are you going to fire him? Great? Thank you?

All right, I'm gonna try and skip ahead a little bit because I gotta talk about you, all right. So I want to go to Brave New World now, I've heard a lot of stories throughout the year is about especially with my Dark Hour. Can you confirm or deny that you were witnessed? Well, you guys are smiling already

Or yeah, I'll tell you what, tell me what happened. So I went to London to mix Brave New World, okay, and Glenn was gonna mix it, and he was working with the Beatles at Olympic Studios, and he said, they're running a couple of days over, so just come and stay at my house and you know, uh, we'll we'll go. We'll start in a couple of days. And then he said, let's go over to George's house. To George's house. He says, yeah,

And so you did like the Beatles.

I loved the Beatles. I thought the Beatles were just one of the greatest things that ever happened.

In the talk Somebody's Lose that, I just didn't think that ye was even on your.

Oh I love pop, We're just talking about one. So uh, he says, all right, we're gonna go over there doing a session tonight, so come on with me. So I go into the control room and John comes in, and Paul comes in, and Linda comes in, and Oko Yoko comes in, Tom Stop Lo and they're doing Jojo, Get Back, Get Back, Yeah. And they just walked in, sat down,

They said.

Okay, So I borrowed got Lennon's epiphone and then plugged into some cool little lamp, and I'm playing this this riff and Paul's playing drums. You know, I don't think about all these things the way a fan would think about them.

Man.

I was pretty you know, shy meeting the Beatles. But the next thing I know, I'm doing this recording with Paul, and Paul's a great drummer. You just heard it, and I was just going, oh, this guy can and I'm going, yeah, well dig this lick. Well yeah, and we're we're in here doing this now, you know, and I'm not thinking about it. And so we start building a song. And we're building a song and Paul comes back out and plays the bass. I did the second guitar, and he says,

Yeah.

And while we're doing this, the session gets stopped and a newspaper article is brought in that Brian Epstein's mother, Brian had died. Their manager had just sold the Beatles publishing to Northern Songs for I think it was four point nine pounds, and that's when they found out that they're publishing had been sold.

The ANTV Northern Song. So happened that moment?

Yeah, I mean it came in. It was announced in an Emmy New Music Express and hey, look at this and so we're kind of reading it and I'm sitting there going, fuck, you don't own your own published, guest. And then we start talking about Alan Klein and John wants to sign with Alan Klein and Paul doesn't. And I'm going, you don't want to sign with Alan Klein, Alan Klein, all your publishers, you know, those guys are gangsters.

You, Steve, did you ever have a manager?

Never?

Yeah, I've had a couple people manage me. And my first manager got me busted when I was in London. I fired in and yeah, he had a heart shaped Valentine with a pound of weeds to him, didn't tell anybody, it didn't arrive and he left town. Yeah, it's just stuff like that, man, you know, I have never had.

They weren't.

They didn't have the kind of connections I wanted. And I was always scared of guys like Irving A's off. You know, I was the Irving would skin me. You know, it's turned out to be one of the best guys there is for artists.

But you know, during that time period, so mafia infused that, you know, you could make.

Well, everything was mafia or record company. And the managers, I mean a manager was a guy who was like in Los Angeles going, hey, what what do you mean? The hotel's bad, the PA doesn't work. Listen. I got to talk to Madonna right right, you know, you know, I mean they were just playing everybody and there wasn't very much respect for artists, and I just didn't in

Of what it was around at that time.

It was fun and I love Shep, you know, and and he's you know, you was the dealer, and you know, I didn't want a drug dealer or a kid to be my manager. I wanted I realized that I needed more than that, you know, and it's taken me a lifetime to figure out what a what it really takes,

So what do you want to give advice to anybody that's listening on what to look for as a manager, like I mean yeah, like or maybe like things for them to to you know, sign for them to.

Go for honestly an organization really well yeah, yeah, an organization that's honest. Honesty is the is really important. And of course knowledge too, but uh, it's really really, really a difficult thing, and you have to u decide. You know, when people make these decisions, they don't even know what they're getting into. They don't even know what their lives are going to be.

You know.

It's the only place in the world where you know, somebody comes up to you and go when you're eighteen or twenty years old, and goes, I'm going to manage you, and I'm going to own part of this for the rest of your life, and I'll probably sell it and make more money off of it than you will later. You know, that's kind of what management is really looking to do, you.

Know, honest though. Yeah, yeah, so, okay, I guess we show also been at least Space Cowboy on the record. Did you plan on that being a main single? Because I always wanted to know why I was at the end of side too, because I would normally think that, Okay, your first single, your big single, should at least be in the first three songs.

I hated Space Cowboy. I would want to put it on the record.

So was it an accidental hit?

Yeah? It was one of those kind of things like I have had. I've written myself out of what I call the rock ghetto, right, you know, several times by luck. And Space Cowboy was a poorly executed, executed tune, poorly written, done in fifteen seconds or was it? But the idea was really really great and we knocked it out without any respect and we didn't take Like when I was talking to Paul about writing to McCartney, was going, man,

You're still maintainment to this day.

No, it's a great song now. I completely redone it. We're killing it now.

When you hear the original, you're just like, man, so I get a sweat and blood.

Dude.

I mean, but you see there's a Simpsons episode about it, so you're at least like, Okay, maybe I was wrong about it.

You know, here's the thing, like, I've never met any artist who has any concept to who they are. It was so obvious Chuck Berry didn't have a clue who he was. You know, didn't know who Chuck Berry was. You know, I don't know who Steve Miller is. I'm inside of Steve Miller trying to think this stuff up and do it. So when somebody comes up and goes, oh man, Steve Space Cowboy, you know the Stephen Mere goes God, that was the lamest track we ever cut.

Ugh?

Ah, you know that's me. That's the way I'm looking at it. And somebody else has gone, god, Man, Space Cowboys saved my life, and you have to you know, it's really hard to just shut up and go thanks and thank you. You know, so it's really hard to know who you are to other people. I have a hard time with that.

You said, only take fifteen minutes in one take. Well, in contrast, you said in an interview once that I think The Joker took three weeks to make.

Oh no, that's a whole album, okay, not just no the Joker album.

I thought you meant okay, I thought the song The Joker.

Was really quick. That was like seventeen days for the whole thing.

Oh man, Okay, So even thanks for putting that song in guitar heroll.

My kids love that song, you know, God bless it.

You know.

I love the fact that little kids love my music and they all sing it, and they all like it, and they can sing the parts.

You know.

That's that's as good as it good.

Not that I think, well, I don't know, if you see. I like to think that everything that you've done on your records had some sort of scientific, purposeful.

Meaning to it.

Oh yeah, and I know you're going to be like, sure, I don't know what I was thinking. Okay. On the Joker album, right at the beginning of Come to My Kitchen, I mean, you have this monster group. It's only for like eighteen seconds, but it feels like you're going to do live concert, and this monster group starts and then it just fades away, and then you go into come to my Kitchen. Why and where is that group? Because that group was.

Kind of a sound check. Yeah, but and and uh and and still have all of it. And it was a great groove and and I wanted I want I wanted to you know, I wanted to create this environment, and I wanted that it was I knew it was such a great piece of music. I wanted to put it on the record, but I didn't know more what to do with it, and and so we mixed it with the Kitchen Blues, which was this live performance.

And it's just like, was it us like walking into the concert hall as the It's kind of.

Like to me, it's always like the spaceship lens, you know, it's like there's a lot of that. Like I was always playing the echo plexo.

Woo wool wall wah wah.

You know, into another thing, you know, and I don't know, you know why I didn't take that and write write a great piece of music. You know. I was always very serious about making my albums and trying to say, say entertain people, say good things, kind of educate people, have it be a little bit more than maybe what they were thinking they were going to get. And so it's always, you know, serious about it. It wasn't just like, oh, I don't know what I was doing, But sometimes I

When you're making these records, do you, I mean, they also have a and it's gonna be weird maybe for

Stop we had a black audience. We had a big audience, and everywhere we played it was really a mixed audience, and we were a mixed band. And uh so, you know, Gerald Johnson is one of the greatest bass players from the whole fucking planet. You know, he's great, and uh we had you know, before the sheds, it was all integrated. And as soon as the sheds were built and they moved out to the suburbs, like all of a sudden, I was just playing to an all white kind of.

Like man music. Well, see, our shed is actually in the inner city. Actually our sids in the hoods Center and Philly Man Music Center is right in the hood. Yeah, and the Plateau.

Played one of the you know, I played there many times and had one of the most corrupt gigs of my life was done there.

Music Center was the name Larry Maggott brought into play.

Yes, it was okay, Larry Megan stories.

He's the man my dad, so go ahead.

So so oh that explains everything. I was reading your book. So I was like, yeah, so all right. So Larry Maggott, like a friend of mine who had started off as an equipment manager for Santana Herbie Herbert, put together created and thought up the band Journey. He thought up the poster art, he thought up the t shirt business. He's the guy who created the t shirt business now. And he picked the people in Journey and he said we're gonna have a rock pan and we're gonna do this,

You know.

So that's that's what That's the kind of manager you need is you need the space cowboy man, you need the champion of justice.

Sounds like we need to Stephen Miller book though publisher, you know what I mean?

I think I think you know, the book's been written. You know what the problem I found was what people would say, you know, like, well, that's an acceptable contract that they would have, you know, fifty percent of your publishing. That's that's the industry standard. And I just from my twelve year old days of getting paid for what I did and what I thought was mine, I would just say, well no.

And that's still you think that's realistic in twenty seve seen you think that, you know, some courage field artists can go into office and be like I want it all.

Yeah, But it's so different now because you have to here's here's the thing, you know, like here, here's the thing. You can only do that when the situation's right. So when I told you I had a feeding frenzy, I thought you understood what a feeding frenzy is. Feeding frenzies, you know, when I when I told you that in nineteen sixty six there was this giant awakening in San Francisco. I'm not talking about some little scene in the club. I'm talking about.

The world movement.

A thing popped out. You know, it was like whoa, whoa, there's a whole different way this can all work. So these things are like you know, situations timing all that kind of stuff.

Or unicorn in a way with the kids call like to call it these days.

Well, you know, if you want to get, if you want it so bad, you'll do anything that's man listen, then then then you know, I can get all your publishing and your shoes and your watch and your ring and your wallet. You know, in thirty minutes. That's now with three sixties, yeah, and all of that because they know it and the kids don't know it. And you know, kids always want to you know, you wost want to do it, but you have to say no.

You have to learn the leverage is in your favor if you if you have even.

If it isn't, you have to say no for a while. Do you know, Like I never did anything I didn't want to do, and I had people trying to get me to do stuff. You know, hey, man, go do this thing for this DJ for free, and he'll do that and go, fuck you man. You know there's going to be four thousand people there. Sure you want me to come? I always had that attitude. You know that you got to pay me if you want me to put the amp in the car and drive there and

So I have a question in in retrospect, was there one historical event or one color collaboration or even some of his minuscule as a soundtrack song, one slight misstep that you made that you regret not doing, Like did you get an offer for Woodstock but you're like they ain't paying for me gas?

Nope or wood Stock. I was calling, uh Frank Freed in Chicago. The guy was helping me out there. Frank, we got to play Woodsuck. We're gonna Yeah, you don't want to play there. It's gonna be many, it's gonna be in the say and it's already booked, you know what, Frank, we gotta come on, Ah, you don't want to you know that was one uh Monterey Pop Festival was you know, we were talking about how the San Francisco guys really considered the La guys gangsters and criminals, which they were,

You did it and you're not own film.

Yeah right, no, wait, but Jannis is saying, your wife is saying, some Jess, there we go.

Jennis just found twelve minutes of us that that Penny Baker himself shot anyway, in spite of which shows you right, absolutely, yeah yeah. And you know Bill Graham was the same way. I mean, he illegally videotaped and recorded every show I ever did. There.

Oh, they're putting it out. Oh you said she said that. Janna said they're putting it out.

Oh yeah, well we've called them up and said, hey, you remember what we said. We didn't mean that sixty seven or whatever was.

Come on, you know, I can't believe this, but we're finally getting to nineteen seventy six. I know you got you get to Fly like an Eagle already. I promise you I'll end it right now. All right, I just had a get to Fly like wait, I'm here now now I'm so overwhelmed, I don't know what to ask about it.

Fly Like an Eagle was a song that was developed over two three years. And our gigs used to be we'd like, you know, go come to Detroit and play the Grandy ball Room, or be in Boston at the Tea Party year be you know, whoever it was. And a lot of what we did was like we'd play a couple hours, two three hours, and we'd have a mirror ball and you know, mirror ball is a great thing,

So yeah, come back to it because there was a slow I believe on Midnight Special in seventy three you did a version of Flat like Eagle. That's half the halftime, the slower version of it. So it's always been your repertoire. Yeah, like for me personally, like and this is this is the whole reason why you're here? Is the next question? I wait, you gotta understand, all right.

So my.

My my first day of school back in seventy six, which is weird because because my dad had both silt degrees and fly like an Eagle eight track in the car, it was far far drive from school. So like my memory of hearing fly like an Eagles on my dad's a track player in the car, and also with Bosqua as record, which you know, it's kind of weird that you two are paired together and we didn't know that

So I was listening to one of your records today before I came over. I think I understood that, Well, it's kind of like we could do. This is the same stuff we're.

Just yeah, just me, when I was a kid, it made me feel like I could fly.

Yeah, yeah, I'm trying to. That's that's great because that's exactly what the way it made me feel when I was playing it and discovering it and doing it, and it was so magical to do that, you know, And I I I had this this thought, you know when before I came over today, because I was listening to some things and I kind of went, yeah, this is this is like the same kind of work like this is these are these people, and I mean this is like what I'm doing, This is where where I am

Well, I want to talk about Manso City because freaking hip hop. Like when when you're creating Mancho City and the political rap that comes with it, it's like a year before the message. What what were you thinking?

Like were you.

As far as like, okay, well, hip hop is is? I was just going to be a thing because hip hip hop really wasn't a thing.

Here's what you can't understand. I was thinking about hip hop at all. I was just doing something.

So you didn't hear any Grandmaster Flash records like oh we could know. I was believe you too, because you know, I was just doing what I do and that's it wasn't new wave. It has it's sort of a new like when new wave came. Like were you aborted? Because I felt like if you didn't do Macho City, probably talking heads cause have attempted to do it. Who are your peers in that moment that.

I didn't have any peers because what what? What had happened was I had uh been sort of, I had. I had done Abercadabra, I'd played these shows, I'd been playing football stadiums. American Record Company said, Abricadabra sucks, We're not going to do anything with it, and sorry, and I said, okay, well, I'm canceling my United States tour. I'm going to Europe then, because I had a different deal with Phonogram from Capital. I went to Europe, and

Wait a minute, you let that.

Hamper you No, no, yeah, that was the final straw. But I had I had just been on the road from nineteen sixty five nineteen eighty three, and I just just I mean, I was really tired of the whole thing. And I didn't have any a manager, and I didn't have any plan. I just you know, whatever happened happened, and I worked when I worked it to my advantage as much as I could, and I was tired. I needed a break.

So were you wear that like amazing mojo not mojojo?

Yeah?

It let you like they were playing that on black radio up at Detroit, like in heavy rotation, like that song had legs on it.

No see, you know, like come no, I was living in a farm in Oregon.

That's a good answer.

It was good. And you know, that's that's the world I want to live in, where everybody where all cultures are intertwined, and people are all listening to each other, and the audience is diverse, and the music is diverse, and you know, in an odd sense, that's kind of what was cool about San Francisco is that it was diverse.

Okay. You know, like when someone tells you joke and then you get the punchline like five years later. Yeah, okay, that just happened to me. So I hate going back to the filmore. But you said, Rashaan Rolling Kirk.

Yeah, yeah, okay, Now we used to jam all the time.

This is what I gotta know. With these jazz pairings come into the film, Moore, were they truly open or did it just look good on the poster? Like looking on the poster, it's like, you know, air clapped in cream and I'm using hypothetical John Coltran in essence, did it really work that night? Or were there people that were just like, all right, let me know when the sunshine of your love guy comes home outside from smoke?

No?

No, no, it was like, were they truly open to.

You don't understand, man. It was an The whole building was different. It wasn't like when you go to work and tickets are sold and managers are there and pop stars are there and big video screens are on and people are in control and people are being wound up to be hysterical and ship like that. That's Rolling Stones English Ship. This was like warm and real and great. I used to go see Rolan Kirk on Sunday afternoon.

So with the song, with the song the Joker, you had this global hit basically right, and that was humongo humongous.

So and then.

Did you feel did something click at that point where you said, Okay, now I understand what's going to truly help me translate to the pop charts and have mega hits and then sort of start pumping out like once you had just said okay, wow, I found a unique sound here.

It was. It was different than that. When I left down. The Joker was my last album at Capitol Records. Nobody was talking to me about renewing my contract. It was the first album where I kicked all the producers and everybody. I was the first record I produced myself with just by my So The Joker was yeah. And I brought my band in for two days and cut all the tracks and sent them home and then spent fifteen days doing the vocal overdubs and all this stuff and mixing

You didn't want to strike while the iron was hot?

No, Well, I went. Two things happened. I went to the studio to Capitol to try and do something. I was exhausted. I was so burned out, man. They said, I can't. I haven't written anything, I can't think of anything. I'm wasting money here. Let's stop. So we stopped for a couple of weeks. Then I went up to Seattle and I booked a studio up there, flew the band up.

You know.

They were way ahead. And Paul, you know, told me about that, and so I went, I got to get two albums ahead. So I had all these singles and I was looking at them and I knew what FM rate is needed. I wasn't thinking about AM radio. I had to help build FM radio.

So you purposely did that, Yeah, okay.

Yeah, I mean I was making an album for you know, AM radio wouldn't touch me with a ten foot pole. You know. They did with The Joker, but you know, and they really did. I mean, when I came back from that tour the Joker was, I remember driving to do a gig in Oakland and putting the radio and just going through to see where it was on. And it was on four of the five top forty stations et CE. So what I was pissed off because it was none there's no joy in any of this. You know,

It was like.

But so I knew that I was writing something really great for FM radio, that I was writing something great for radio itself, that this was how radio needed to sound, that this was where it needed to go. It was the material they needed. And my you know, songwriting of my music was going on at the same time, and my understanding of how to make records had grown quite a bit. And I worked on it and worked on

We ended up like.

Dominating AM radio and FM radio at its height when it sold when I said, when both of them were at its most powerful. And so it was a great time to you know, my timing was right. Everything just my creative work came together at the right time, and the whole thing just went way, way up. I think we sold god thirteen million records and I don't know two and a half three years something like that, and

It's like nice, long good so essentially fly like an Eagle and I guess Book of Dreams. That's that group of songs that you're talking about. They were all sort of made it the same same Yeah, same same equipment, same techniques, maybe recording because I was really asking sonically, you know.

You know it's funny. It took seventeen hours to mix Fly Like an Eagle, and we did a quad mix to just went in the studios supper quad mix. Yeah.

You were really big on that, weren't you.

Oh yeah, I.

Didn't have QUI I mean I had the quad versions of some of these records, but I don't have the quad needles. Yeah, equipment to.

It never sounded any good, you know. But if you're in a Westwood room, like these are Westwood speakers here, and uh, you know this is prob. Maybe this is a Western room. It looks like one, and uh, you know, we could get the tape here and play it and it'd be going. But you know, like stockhausm Man Stockhausen built a circle. Two Jesus, don't put them together for a circle. But the floor in the middle brought the stairs.

I don't know if I want my music sneaking up from me from behind.

You know.

We're currently here at Electric Lady Studios in New York, home of Jimi Hendrix.

I never recorded here, ever been here at all.

No, I think this is my first time here. Wow, we brought him here, you did, Thank you very much for inviting me, And.

Well, I just guitars and stuff. You know you clearly like.

Them, so you know, I mean, Steve wanted to make sure you were somewhere special. Seriously, he was like, we can't we have to have Steve Miller in Electric Lader.

Yeah, it's only right, Okay, I would be remiss. And I know you're tired of telling him about your account of it. I want to ask about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Oh yeah, the year later, do you feel better about it?

Or what's the controversy? I'm sorry?

Brief me.

Well, I mean, are you are you not in it?

He's in it.

Yes, he's been inducted. I watched him getting dun Okay, yes, you were there with ut I was sitting next to David Burton dudekay, amazing. I totally forgot.

You red sticky fingers, right, yes, yeah, that's that's the problem with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

So I don't get that right. So half the staff is on, well what what.

What bothered me about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was and and I said all of this in the Billboard article the next day was Uh. There was no gathering, there was no party, there was no dinner, there was no anything from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at all. I wasn't introduced to any of the inductees, not introduced to one I was met at. I was told that no, I couldn't make any suggestions

No car to take you. I feel bad for Janice because I know there was a lot of motherfuckers that night, right? Was it a lot in that wrong?

You know? That's what. So the way I looked at it was like I could really helped this place. I could have really done a lot of good for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And they didn't even ask, They didn't even they weren't even interested. And I know that I'm in here because they want to make a television show. There are two good things that happened. One was, uh, the night ended Ice Cuban doctor Dre in the middle of them, right, this picture going, this is a cool picture.

Know you don't play that. Okay. My last question, and that's it. I promise your three, just your three, because I know you're passionate about music. Your three all time favorite albums, could you And I don't mean like Desert disc or whatever. Just kind of blue, okay, Miles Davis is kind of blue.

I'm not sure the name of the album. It's it's I think it's Bob Crossby and the Bobcats with a big noise from Monetta and honky Tonk trained and probably you know, a Jimmy Reid album. Those are you know, my those are those that's the music that just really rocked my soul.

Well, I gotta say I got more than what I'm barking for it because I thought it was just going to be the history of the Steve Miller band. But we got way more music.

I got more than I bargained for it too, I'm saying that.

Yeah, Like for me, my favorite type of interviews are either engineers or like artists that were there for historical like these historical beatings or you know, historical moments that you never even think about. But yeah, this is such a major major education. Before I signed off, is any other historical things happened to you that I don't know about?

That dude has jammed with literally every person.

Then I was just like, you.

Know, next time we'll talk about Otis writing a moderat.

Wait, wait we can, we can. We can go for two more minutes. We can go for two minutes.

If you're having any pains in your dairy, you should know to Jimmy jam was forced to do this for six hours and didn't even know it.

His butt was numb.

Yeah, okay, I will sign off now, but as an encore, yes, thank you for tuning the question, and now for our encore, the Otis Writing story by Steve Miller.

So, uh, Monterey Pop Festivals, right, and there's a lot of kind of like Johnny Rivers and Laura Nero and uh, it's kind of you know what, what's going on? Right? And all of a sudden, I'm backstage and I just hear this curve and I just jumped snapped just like that and said, I gotta go, gotta go, gotta go, running to the stage and got up on the stage and Spooker t and the MG's and they're just warming

I was just one more night when we have a boss Bill, I'm baby Bill Sugar Steve. It's like yea and fantigolo. Thank you, Steve Miller. Appreciate it is another extravaganza episode of Quest Love Supreme Love You.

It's a it's a great honor to be here. And I really appreciate who you are and what you do and and uh your intellectual curiosity and I want to play some music with you. I think we should go to the studio and we should like start with something and just take it somewhere.

You just don't let them, don't let them use space and troll. Don't let him use space.

From bringing my echoplex and mike from your mouth to Steve, because if we've grown up together, we would be doing this together. I know we would have. Yeah, thank you you have that's awesome, all right, So Steve, we got our Yeah.

Next album sounds good, Timothy and is that you and.

The state of course that's you. Of course even the Smithsonian comes to visit. All right, Thank you very much, Steve, Bill, I appreciate it. The next go around, this was Quest.

Thank you, Kay, Peace, Love and Happiness.

Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic episode was produced by the team at Mandora. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.