March 28, 2024 • 23 mins
Superstar producer, Freddy Wexler, stops by the Mercedes Benz Interview Lounge to talk all about making a hit song with Billy Joel and his producing process.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From the Mercedes Benz Interview Lounge.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
You turn us all the time, listen to the show,
and let's do it whatever it is we do. I
haven't figured out what it is we do, but we
do play a lot of music. And of course, you know,
years from now, you remember, God, there was that morning
show I woke up with every day. I don't know
their names, but I know they played a lot of
great music and they made me laugh. Well, that's us.
That's a legacy. We leave behind the no name morning show,
but the music that's the soundtrack of your life. We
(00:24):
all we always get to interview the artists. We rarely
get to talk to the people who are firmly behind
the music that we play, the people who write it,
to people who produce it. That's why Freddy Wexler, we
had to get him in here. We have a great
story to tell with Freddy. How are you doing, Freddy?
Speaker 1 (00:40):
I'm great, I'm better now. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
He's sitting here and I couldn't. I couldn't make out
who he looks like. Do you know who he looks like? Yes,
it looks just like him.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Coat maybe no, maybe a little better looking, maybe less
weathered than Adrian. I'm kidding. He's a great guy. Okay, Well,
beyond the fact that we're talking about your looks, let's
talk about what's inside as well. Now, if you watch
the Grammys like we all did, there was a moment,
and the Grammys, the Grammys are always known for their moments.
(01:16):
One of the greatest moments this year was when Billy
Joel sat down with the piano in front of the
world and sang the song turned the lights back on
and Okay, great song without doubt, and it says so
many things. But the background behind the song and Freddie
Freddy Wexler's involvement in the song, there's the story that
changes the whole song. Talk about it. Talk about what
(01:40):
it was like that night watching your song, the song
that you worked with with other people being performed in
front of you.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Man, So it was the song, and it was also
the artist singing the song that was you know, made
it so special for me. Billy Joel is largely the
reason I became a songwriter. I used to close my
eyes when I was a kid and listen to his
music and pretend it was it was me. Imagine it
was me singing on stage. That was sort of like
the bar of songwriter that I wanted to be. So,
(02:08):
I mean, it was insane. I don't even I don't
know that I'll ever process the feeling of it, especially
because you know the story of Billy is thirty one
years ago he vowed he wouldn't write another pop song.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
He was done.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
So had I just been in the crowd watching one
of my idol sing a new song, that would have
been cool. The fact that I was part of it
was just in surreal.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Right right. And you're part of the writing team, of course,
and you produced the song. Yeah, so I'm gonna go
ahead and go out on a lemma. You may not agree,
but this is your song, okay, And to watch Billy
perform it, and you were a kid, you know, grew
up listening to Billy Joel on the radio, Like, God,
what's that like? So tell everyone the story. I know
you've told her to a million Wait the way you
(02:53):
finally met him, because it probably should never have happened. Yes, So.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
First of all, I will say it's I am you know.
Do you guys ever have a gut feeling about something.
Maybe you knew you'd be in radio, you knew it
wasn't even thought. I knew I would meet Billy Joel.
I just knew it, and I knew something cool what
it would happen. I didn't know how, I didn't know what.
I didn't know when, but I I had that feeling
(03:19):
and maybe I willed it to happen. But my wife
is really the one who who who made it happen,
so for my thirty fifth birthday, and she's very intuitive.
I think I was going through some kind of crossroads
in my own, you know, career, and she just knew,
like she decided to make it her mission to have
me meet Billy Joel. So anyway, she made it happen.
Billy was agreed to meet me. When we had lunch,
(03:42):
he ordered his food to go. It was clear he
had no intention of being there. It was like, oh yeah,
it was. It was clams on the half shell and
a blt to go, and I was like, wow, I
have six minutes. But we we realized we had we
had things in common. We uh And I asked him
at one point, I said, Hey, when you're writing songs,
(04:03):
do you ever imagine Did you ever imagine you were
someone else? Or were you always just Billy Joel, And
it was an odd question I guess to ask him.
I asked because I had started to do that that
became my process. And he looked at me and he said,
I always imagined I was someone else while writing. Maybe
I was McCartney in that moment. Maybe I was Ray
Charles that moment. And for a guy who'd probably been
(04:25):
asked a million questions to find a question he hadn't
been asked. Not because I was trying to be cool
or different, but I was just curious. That changed the
course of the lunch and it turned into a two
hour lunch. And that's so funny. It's the one detail
I don't remember. People are like, did he eat the sandwich?
I really am trying to think.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
The only thing I'm thinking about is should you eat clams?
That they've been sitting out that much?
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Oh my god?
Speaker 2 (04:52):
So who ended up paying.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
By the way, I think he ended up paying it?
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Okay?
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Well, but basically, yeah, yeah, they go there.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
You are sitting there with Billy Joel and almost probably
as surreal as the moment watching him performing your song
at the Grammys. I mean, these are these moments in
life where you sometimes they they're on the border of
not being real and so completely. You walked out of
that that lunch meeting with Billy Joel after two hours,
which was an hour and forty five minutes longer than
(05:26):
he wanted it to be in the beginning, probably what
was your mission? You walked out of there, walking all
cocky and stuff, thinking this is where we're going. Now,
what was the next step after that?
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Well, Elvis, it's even crazier because the lunch didn't end there.
So toward the end of the lunch, I said to him, look,
I don't believe that you can't write songs anymore, you
don't want to write songs anymore. And he just said,
all nonchalantly, you can believe whatever you want to believe.
And I said, okay, well, and I pick up my
cel phone. I said, you know, I walk around every
day and I hear these melloies in my head and
(05:58):
I sing them into this phone. I have these, you know,
this endless slew of voice notes that I've never finished.
Do you have anything like that? He said, unfinished songs
from from yes, you know, from the seventies, from the eighties.
He said, yeah, of course I do. And I don't
know what came over. Maybe you got to seize the moment.
I said, well, why don't you let me finish them?
And he looks at me and he says, I should
(06:18):
let you finish my songs. And I said, and he didn't.
It wasn't an arrogant way that he asked it. He
was just like, I should let you know. And I said, look,
I just think two things could happen. One, I could
do a terrible job, which is probably what will happen,
but then the unfinished songs will stay unfinished. But I said,
but there's also a chance that I do a decent job.
(06:38):
And even if you don't use what I do, maybe
it inspires you to finish one of these songs. And essentially,
in different words, he said, come to my house right
now and play me the best songs you've ever written,
said at the piano, whoa from that line.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
So you've already taken up two hours of Lord Billy's
day and now you're going to his house. God, I'm
gonna steal stuff from Billy Joel's house. Here we go.
So so he went to his house. Obviously there was
a piano involved. So what room did you go into?
Speaker 1 (07:08):
It was his living room, we were in sag Harbor.
I sit down at the piano and I play, and uh,
you know, he he, he was receptive. I think he
was surprised at least didn't hate it. And he' said
huh what else? Yeah, I played something else. And long
story short, a producer of mine used to say, too late,
(07:30):
because obviously I've told this not in a short way.
But a day later, a FedEx arrived and uh it
was Billy Joel's unfinished music. Good luck whoa lucka fed
X for Billy Joel, And oh.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
My god, I would have wet myself at that point,
my pants. I'm so I wet my pants five minutes
ago when I walked in. I would pee everyone's pants
at that point. Well and so, but by the way,
for you just turning us on, this is Freddy Wexler, who,
as we described earlier, has been in the business for
a while. I'm going to get into that too. You've
written some songs for some incredible artists. But this, this
(08:11):
union with Billy Joel, turned into this incredible moment at
the Grammys and now beyond. Now he's like finished my
song's kid, So he's getting a massage somewhere you.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Do the work, you know, but I think yet to remember,
Billy Joel has delivered so many incredible I mean, one
of the greatest songbooks in my opinion ever, I think
almost objectively ever, and he wrote one hundred percent of
every song. He has nothing to prove, he is nothing
that he needs to say, so I think it was
(08:42):
kind of like, all right, this kid's probably not gonna
shut up. He really wants to do this, what sure try?
And it was just cool because, you know, over a
year and a half, unbeknownst to anybody, Billy and I
were going back and forth writing, working on music which
he popped, music which you hadn't done in a really
really long time. So yeah, it was just uh and
(09:05):
and developing a friendship, a real friendship, you know, two
New Yorkers, both insecure New York songwriters. It was funny
when when we when I first played in those songs,
he said that one sounds like a hit record. That's
what he said. Really, he goes, yeah, I said, why
don't you put it out? And he said me, you
(09:26):
should put it out. I said, I don't want to
put it out. You put it out literally this is
he goes, I don't want to put it out. You
put it out, and we both laughed. I said, look
at us both saying, this sounds like a hit song,
but but no one wants to put it out.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
But what we see here, Freddy, is you actually are
part of way King Billy Joel up a little bit
to a part of his life that he had sort
of just kind of locked up in the closet. Right.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Yeah, I think it was just about fun. It was
just about at some point, I think he lost the
joy in making new music. And I think we we
had a little bit of fun and sometimes it's what
all you need.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Well, I know, but this was a mutual thing. I mean,
not only did he look at you and go, I
don't know who you are or why you're here, but
here's my music. Finish it. And then on the other hand,
look what you're doing for him at this point, I mean,
Billy Joel is in I'm not saying in neutral, but
he's not going to the office anymore. So to speak,
you brought him back. I think that's so cool. Hey, Gandhi,
what do you think?
Speaker 4 (10:21):
All right, So now you've got a taste of the
success and you're feeling it you're out there talking to people.
Do you still not want to be in front of
the things. You want to be behind the scenes, you don't
want to perform yourself.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
I mean, listen, I'm open to anything. I started as
an artist funnily enough, where a bunch of label heads
said you're going to be the next Billy Joel, which
obviously didn't happen. Let this happened.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
I think.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Any successes I've had in life, and there are a
lot of the failures, but the successes are when I
follow life wherever it goes. So I'm open to anything.
It's not my active plan to be an artist. In fact,
I would love to develop a new artist. So if
there are any amazing artists listening, DM me some awesome
music that excites me. But I'm open to wherever life
(11:09):
takes me.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
I'm so fascinated right now. So I know we're going
to go and talk about all the artists that he
actually wrote for. Who was the first big artist that
you wrote for.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
I believe it was Lil Wayne.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
Wow, Well you or did you bring it to him such.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
A This is a crazy story. I gotta do this,
like to charge this in ten seconds. I was Okay,
I was, do you remember Kevin Rudolph.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, let it rock, great song. Okay.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
So, so I was renting Kevin Rudolph's house in l A.
He said, no one ever. Okay, Okay, this is crazy.
So I was obsessed with creativity and the creative process.
I had signed a record deal which I told you're
the next Billy Joe Bubba. But it was a pretty
big record deal for a young guy. I got dropped.
(12:03):
I didn't spend any of the money. When I graduated
from college, I wanted to do this experiment. So I
invited eight people who had never met strangers to live
with me in a house in LA to like kind
of build like a little songwriting commune. Because I thought
my favorite songwriters, except for Billy Joel, generally wrote in
pairs Bernie and Elton, Ashford and Simpson, the Beatles, Oasis, whatever, right,
(12:26):
And so I was like, maybe if we all live together,
you know, there'll be a creative energy. So I find
Kevin somehow. I meet Kevin Ruff. He has this crazy house.
He's like, I don't want to be in l anymore.
I'm gonna go to New York. But I don't what
to do with my house. Ray j wants to rent it,
but I got a crazy security deposit here. I don't
want to lose the deposit, so I said, well, look,
I can't pay you at ray Je can pay, but
(12:47):
I promise you won't lose the security deposit. I won't
destroy the house. So he's like, okay, I rent the
house for like a tenth of the rent. These eight
strangers come in. It's a tenth of the rent. Is
still way more money than I should be spending at
the time. My dad, who's here today, call you and
he goes, what are you doing? Like, why are you
spending this kind of money? I said, Dad, All I
need is one song, one song to hit. This is
(13:08):
the classic artist mentality. I just need one song when
you're like broke spending all your money. At the lease
is up, there's like two weeks left to the lease.
Kevin Rudolf comes back to the house to check it out.
He says, so, what have you been working on? I said,
but this is this is and I play him this
one song. He goes, play that again, play that again,
play that again. That becomes my first cut. He sends
that to Lil Wayne two weeks before the lease is
(13:28):
up and I've made no money. And that was on
the carter for Wow Deluxe Deluxe dea.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
How did you feel, Wayne Kane, Lil Wayne? How'd you
feel when Freddy Wexler sent a song over to Was
it good?
Speaker 1 (13:49):
And by the way, full full circle story. Emil Haney
did the track is a legendary producer, did Lil Wayne,
and also Blana del Ray whatever, and he helped me
work on the Billy Joel track Wow.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
Well, other artists including Justin Bieber, Arianna of course, Selena,
Kanye Jonas Brothers, Demi Levado, Pink Post Malone who we
love them all, Celine Dion so, you know, but not
a stranger to music at that point. I mean, you
grew up working in the mailroom at Sony Music over
at five point fifty, right, yep. And did any of
(14:22):
that payoff working with all the the industry titans like
the Matola's and the inners of the world stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Oh definitely. I mean I think you know, when I
was really young, I had no intention of being in
the music business. That internship, yeah, it changed the game.
Five point fifty Madison Avenue was this iconic building.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
It was insane.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
It was insane, right, And it was during that internship
where something changed my life. I was I was approached
by a girl to record her demos after she'd heard
a song that I had recorded myself, and I said, okay,
you got to pay me an hourly rate, which no
one charges an hourly rate for music. But I didn't
know better and very quickly into recording her in the
(15:09):
laundry room of my parents apartment building, the laundry whatever.
I told my mom, this girl is going to be
really famous. My Mom's like, ah, you should go to
law school or something. I said, no, no, no, I'm telling you.
And then at my internship, I crashed this big meeting
and I said I found the next Madonna and they
were like, who are you? I said, I'm an intern. Anyway,
four months later that actual changed her name to Lady Gaga.
Speaker 4 (15:30):
You got a book.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
This is awesome stuff. Do you?
Speaker 4 (15:35):
Does your wife like hold this over your head now forever,
like look what I got for you?
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Now? She does and she is a forceiveness, she's the best.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
She's well And happy birthday, Lady Gaga. Today's day.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
I know that credit for your success, but happy birthday kid?
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Who are you kid? A little pimply faced guy, get
out of here, and thank god they were open minded
enough to let you stay an extra moment. Then they
all look at that. Yeah, well I know, but still
I know, but that gave her the courage that you
paid attention to her, gave her the courage to keep moving.
So you you're a part of that story. Freddy.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
If we look through your phone, do you have like
everyone's names listed, like Lil Wayne, Lady Gaga, Billy Joe,
or do you have like fake names for them so
nobody finds them in your phone?
Speaker 1 (16:19):
Maybe I should have faker names.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Yeah, here's my problem. I have fake names in my
phone and I can't remember who they are. I don't know. Well, look,
you know, so this brings us up to today, and
I know there's there's a whole whole, huge long road
ahead with you and all the adventures you have and
the people you're gonna work with and who are gonna
work with you. I love it. I want to play
(16:42):
turn the lights back on it, talk about this song specifically,
why this song at this moment is so important, like.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
What inspired the song?
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Or well, yeah, but see what I saw Billy Joel
singing this basically crooning to you that you're at that
table to Grammy's there was there's a connection between to
end the song in these lyrics and also the timing
of Billy being back on stage. You know, do I
even still have lights to turn on? Basically was the
question yeah in the song, but go ahead.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
I think the beauty of a song is that it
sort of finds you when you need it as a listener, right, Like,
different songs mean different things for different people. Why do
you know? And I think this song resonates because it
has a lot of different interpretations. So on the one hand,
it's did I wait too long to turn the lights
back on? You're speaking to your lover? Who you know?
(17:33):
I'm late?
Speaker 2 (17:33):
But what is it? I late?
Speaker 1 (17:35):
But I mean right now?
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (17:37):
But I see you now?
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Right?
Speaker 1 (17:38):
This idea of uh, you know, yeah, you could be
talking to a lover that you haven't kind of seen
for a while. You could be talking to your fans.
For Billy, did I wait too long to turn the
lights back on on you guys on my music? He
could be talking to the songwriting gods, you know, and
music itself. So I think it just it hit a
lot of different you know, chords for him. And yeah,
(17:59):
the fact that he's seventy four years old singing. Did
I wait too long to turn the lights back on
after thirty one years of not recording a pop song?
Just you couldn't have made that up.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
It wasn't.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
I didn't plan that exactly. Again, it just stars aligned
in a way.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
But so it's so true. You know, wherever you are
in life it's a joyful time or a very very
trying time and challenging time, the music just tends to
find you. It's like water. It kind of goes where
it wants to go right totally. And this is the
situation with this song, and anyone and everyone listening right now,
they're like, this guy's right. I needed that song and
it found me.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
I love that isn't so fascinating to me. You need
like a book, a podcast, you need everything.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
Can you be my agent? Can you carve?
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Yeah? Absolutely? Yeah, person of everything, Freddy.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
We're in. Let's go, We're in. Well, by the way,
I love you guys listened. I've listened to this show
since you don't even know. A friend texta v and said,
I know you got all these cool press things going on.
But I saw your in Z one hundred. That's good.
We rode the school bus together. I said, yeah, not best.
Are you kidding me?
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Crazy? And we're still here. We're like the Billy Joels
of radio is. Yes, as you should be. I wouldn't
take it that far, but thanks for the compliment. So
what's next, Freddy? What's next?
Speaker 3 (19:12):
What?
Speaker 2 (19:12):
I mean, what can you tell us that's on the horizon?
What are you working on or what's actually about to happen?
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Hmm. So I've I like to answer this question now
by saying what I hope to work on that feels safer. Okay,
So I don't say anything, but I hope to continue
working with the people that I've worked with, So people
like Billy Black, Pink and uh Leave, who's awesome jazz
(19:38):
artists if you guys haven't checked her out. Darren Starr,
who's an amazing show creator. He just called me to write.
I wrote the only original song for Emily in Paris
for Ashley Park, which which yeah, it's called monso Let.
It really kind of had a life of its own,
and so they've asked me to write the only original
song for the second season. So or third season whatever
(20:00):
see Thursdays, I'm sorry and the third season so, And
it's cool because they really made the song a big
part of the show. So working on that, And like
I said before, I'm looking actively looking to sign a
couple of artists and develop them. So if any of
you guys sing, you get in the studio or but
but yeah, but or anyone listening like I really, I
(20:21):
really want to put my heart and soul into helping
helping a couple of new artists.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
So you know, what's so great about you is And
we could go on for hours, but we'll let you
go because I know you and your dad today let's
let me take well, No, it's just your take on
music and in what we see it means to you
is to me fascinating. It truly is. I know that's
a very broad stroke thing to say to someone, but
(20:50):
I just I love how and you guys saw it
when he's lighting when he's talking about music and the project,
he lights up. I mean, you really do light it up.
So it's so great to have your passion in the
room and sharing it with everyone driving work right now
and people in the school of bus on the way
with their friends Elvis.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
I can I say one one last thing really quick
about Billy Absolutely, just reflecting on this whole process. I
think people are like, why do you think Billy stopped
writing or whatever? And I said, look, I don't know,
but I think Billy's such a genius. He's such a perfectionist.
He holds himself to the standard of like being Beethoven.
(21:25):
He's that good. And I think when you when you
do that for that long, it's it's hard, and at
a certain point maybe it stops being fun. And I
think for me, I try to remind people that songwriters
and artists who write, who write their music, their entire
livelihood depends upon them being inspired. Imagine that. Imagine waking
(21:48):
up and saying, I'm not inspired today, this week, this month,
this year. How do you make a living?
Speaker 2 (21:54):
Right?
Speaker 1 (21:55):
It's like if you're a lawyer and you're uninspired one day,
you don't say, I can't negotiate the deal, call me tomorrow.
So I just think sometimes it's important to I'm not
asking people, it's like cry for the songwriters. I'm just saying, like,
it is a weird job, right, And so working with
Billy made me really appreciate inspiration when it comes. It's
(22:18):
such an ephemeral, inexplicable force. I don't know where that
comes from. You can't force it, and I don't know
what I'm trying to say, but that's my takeaway from it.
It has to be fun. And you can't be so
hard on yourself if you're not inspired. If you're an artist,
if you're a songwriter, if you're an author, you know
it'll come when it comes, and you got to be
grateful when it happens. And it's very humbling, you know.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
I find it extremely extremely relatable what you're talking about,
not only to everyone in this room, but people listening.
You know, even though someone's driving to work where they're
basically making sausage today the same thing they did yesterday,
you still have to feel inspired to stay with it,
to pay the bills and keep going. So what you're
saying is very, very, very very crystal clear. Freddie Wexler,
thank you for coming in today. Thanks Gary, thanks for
(23:02):
giving us the world of Freddy. We were very quiet
over there. Let's play it. Turn the lights back on,
Billy Joel be soapping the dog
From the Mercedes Benz Interview Lounge.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
You turn us all the time, listen to the show,
and let's do it whatever it is we do. I
haven't figured out what it is we do, but we
do play a lot of music. And of course, you know,
years from now, you remember, God, there was that morning
show I woke up with every day. I don't know
their names, but I know they played a lot of
great music and they made me laugh. Well, that's us.
That's a legacy. We leave behind the no name morning show,
but the music that's the soundtrack of your life. We
(00:24):
all we always get to interview the artists. We rarely
get to talk to the people who are firmly behind
the music that we play, the people who write it,
to people who produce it. That's why Freddy Wexler, we
had to get him in here. We have a great
story to tell with Freddy. How are you doing, Freddy?
Speaker 1 (00:40):
I'm great, I'm better now. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
He's sitting here and I couldn't. I couldn't make out
who he looks like. Do you know who he looks like? Yes,
it looks just like him.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Coat maybe no, maybe a little better looking, maybe less
weathered than Adrian. I'm kidding. He's a great guy. Okay, Well,
beyond the fact that we're talking about your looks, let's
talk about what's inside as well. Now, if you watch
the Grammys like we all did, there was a moment,
and the Grammys, the Grammys are always known for their moments.
(01:16):
One of the greatest moments this year was when Billy
Joel sat down with the piano in front of the
world and sang the song turned the lights back on
and Okay, great song without doubt, and it says so
many things. But the background behind the song and Freddie
Freddy Wexler's involvement in the song, there's the story that
changes the whole song. Talk about it. Talk about what
(01:40):
it was like that night watching your song, the song
that you worked with with other people being performed in
front of you.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Man, So it was the song, and it was also
the artist singing the song that was you know, made
it so special for me. Billy Joel is largely the
reason I became a songwriter. I used to close my
eyes when I was a kid and listen to his
music and pretend it was it was me. Imagine it
was me singing on stage. That was sort of like
the bar of songwriter that I wanted to be. So,
(02:08):
I mean, it was insane. I don't even I don't
know that I'll ever process the feeling of it, especially
because you know the story of Billy is thirty one
years ago he vowed he wouldn't write another pop song.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
He was done.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
So had I just been in the crowd watching one
of my idol sing a new song, that would have
been cool. The fact that I was part of it
was just in surreal.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Right right. And you're part of the writing team, of course,
and you produced the song. Yeah, so I'm gonna go
ahead and go out on a lemma. You may not agree,
but this is your song, okay, And to watch Billy
perform it, and you were a kid, you know, grew
up listening to Billy Joel on the radio, Like, God,
what's that like? So tell everyone the story. I know
you've told her to a million Wait the way you
(02:53):
finally met him, because it probably should never have happened. Yes, So.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
First of all, I will say it's I am you know.
Do you guys ever have a gut feeling about something.
Maybe you knew you'd be in radio, you knew it
wasn't even thought. I knew I would meet Billy Joel.
I just knew it, and I knew something cool what
it would happen. I didn't know how, I didn't know what.
I didn't know when, but I I had that feeling
(03:19):
and maybe I willed it to happen. But my wife
is really the one who who who made it happen,
so for my thirty fifth birthday, and she's very intuitive.
I think I was going through some kind of crossroads
in my own, you know, career, and she just knew,
like she decided to make it her mission to have
me meet Billy Joel. So anyway, she made it happen.
Billy was agreed to meet me. When we had lunch,
(03:42):
he ordered his food to go. It was clear he
had no intention of being there. It was like, oh yeah,
it was. It was clams on the half shell and
a blt to go, and I was like, wow, I
have six minutes. But we we realized we had we
had things in common. We uh And I asked him
at one point, I said, Hey, when you're writing songs,
(04:03):
do you ever imagine Did you ever imagine you were
someone else? Or were you always just Billy Joel, And
it was an odd question I guess to ask him.
I asked because I had started to do that that
became my process. And he looked at me and he said,
I always imagined I was someone else while writing. Maybe
I was McCartney in that moment. Maybe I was Ray
Charles that moment. And for a guy who'd probably been
(04:25):
asked a million questions to find a question he hadn't
been asked. Not because I was trying to be cool
or different, but I was just curious. That changed the
course of the lunch and it turned into a two
hour lunch. And that's so funny. It's the one detail
I don't remember. People are like, did he eat the sandwich?
I really am trying to think.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
The only thing I'm thinking about is should you eat clams?
That they've been sitting out that much?
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Oh my god?
Speaker 2 (04:52):
So who ended up paying.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
By the way, I think he ended up paying it?
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Okay?
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Well, but basically, yeah, yeah, they go there.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
You are sitting there with Billy Joel and almost probably
as surreal as the moment watching him performing your song
at the Grammys. I mean, these are these moments in
life where you sometimes they they're on the border of
not being real and so completely. You walked out of
that that lunch meeting with Billy Joel after two hours,
which was an hour and forty five minutes longer than
(05:26):
he wanted it to be in the beginning, probably what
was your mission? You walked out of there, walking all
cocky and stuff, thinking this is where we're going. Now,
what was the next step after that?
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Well, Elvis, it's even crazier because the lunch didn't end there.
So toward the end of the lunch, I said to him, look,
I don't believe that you can't write songs anymore, you
don't want to write songs anymore. And he just said,
all nonchalantly, you can believe whatever you want to believe.
And I said, okay, well, and I pick up my
cel phone. I said, you know, I walk around every
day and I hear these melloies in my head and
(05:58):
I sing them into this phone. I have these, you know,
this endless slew of voice notes that I've never finished.
Do you have anything like that? He said, unfinished songs
from from yes, you know, from the seventies, from the eighties.
He said, yeah, of course I do. And I don't
know what came over. Maybe you got to seize the moment.
I said, well, why don't you let me finish them?
And he looks at me and he says, I should
(06:18):
let you finish my songs. And I said, and he didn't.
It wasn't an arrogant way that he asked it. He
was just like, I should let you know. And I said, look,
I just think two things could happen. One, I could
do a terrible job, which is probably what will happen,
but then the unfinished songs will stay unfinished. But I said,
but there's also a chance that I do a decent job.
(06:38):
And even if you don't use what I do, maybe
it inspires you to finish one of these songs. And essentially,
in different words, he said, come to my house right
now and play me the best songs you've ever written,
said at the piano, whoa from that line.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
So you've already taken up two hours of Lord Billy's
day and now you're going to his house. God, I'm
gonna steal stuff from Billy Joel's house. Here we go.
So so he went to his house. Obviously there was
a piano involved. So what room did you go into?
Speaker 1 (07:08):
It was his living room, we were in sag Harbor.
I sit down at the piano and I play, and uh,
you know, he he, he was receptive. I think he
was surprised at least didn't hate it. And he' said
huh what else? Yeah, I played something else. And long
story short, a producer of mine used to say, too late,
(07:30):
because obviously I've told this not in a short way.
But a day later, a FedEx arrived and uh it
was Billy Joel's unfinished music. Good luck whoa lucka fed
X for Billy Joel, And oh.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
My god, I would have wet myself at that point,
my pants. I'm so I wet my pants five minutes
ago when I walked in. I would pee everyone's pants
at that point. Well and so, but by the way,
for you just turning us on, this is Freddy Wexler, who,
as we described earlier, has been in the business for
a while. I'm going to get into that too. You've
written some songs for some incredible artists. But this, this
(08:11):
union with Billy Joel, turned into this incredible moment at
the Grammys and now beyond. Now he's like finished my
song's kid, So he's getting a massage somewhere you.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Do the work, you know, but I think yet to remember,
Billy Joel has delivered so many incredible I mean, one
of the greatest songbooks in my opinion ever, I think
almost objectively ever, and he wrote one hundred percent of
every song. He has nothing to prove, he is nothing
that he needs to say, so I think it was
(08:42):
kind of like, all right, this kid's probably not gonna
shut up. He really wants to do this, what sure try?
And it was just cool because, you know, over a
year and a half, unbeknownst to anybody, Billy and I
were going back and forth writing, working on music which
he popped, music which you hadn't done in a really
really long time. So yeah, it was just uh and
(09:05):
and developing a friendship, a real friendship, you know, two
New Yorkers, both insecure New York songwriters. It was funny
when when we when I first played in those songs,
he said that one sounds like a hit record. That's
what he said. Really, he goes, yeah, I said, why
don't you put it out? And he said me, you
(09:26):
should put it out. I said, I don't want to
put it out. You put it out literally this is
he goes, I don't want to put it out. You
put it out, and we both laughed. I said, look
at us both saying, this sounds like a hit song,
but but no one wants to put it out.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
But what we see here, Freddy, is you actually are
part of way King Billy Joel up a little bit
to a part of his life that he had sort
of just kind of locked up in the closet. Right.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Yeah, I think it was just about fun. It was
just about at some point, I think he lost the
joy in making new music. And I think we we
had a little bit of fun and sometimes it's what
all you need.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Well, I know, but this was a mutual thing. I mean,
not only did he look at you and go, I
don't know who you are or why you're here, but
here's my music. Finish it. And then on the other hand,
look what you're doing for him at this point, I mean,
Billy Joel is in I'm not saying in neutral, but
he's not going to the office anymore. So to speak,
you brought him back. I think that's so cool. Hey, Gandhi,
what do you think?
Speaker 4 (10:21):
All right, So now you've got a taste of the
success and you're feeling it you're out there talking to people.
Do you still not want to be in front of
the things. You want to be behind the scenes, you don't
want to perform yourself.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
I mean, listen, I'm open to anything. I started as
an artist funnily enough, where a bunch of label heads
said you're going to be the next Billy Joel, which
obviously didn't happen. Let this happened.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
I think.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Any successes I've had in life, and there are a
lot of the failures, but the successes are when I
follow life wherever it goes. So I'm open to anything.
It's not my active plan to be an artist. In fact,
I would love to develop a new artist. So if
there are any amazing artists listening, DM me some awesome
music that excites me. But I'm open to wherever life
(11:09):
takes me.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
I'm so fascinated right now. So I know we're going
to go and talk about all the artists that he
actually wrote for. Who was the first big artist that
you wrote for.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
I believe it was Lil Wayne.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
Wow, Well you or did you bring it to him such.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
A This is a crazy story. I gotta do this,
like to charge this in ten seconds. I was Okay,
I was, do you remember Kevin Rudolph.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, let it rock, great song. Okay.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
So, so I was renting Kevin Rudolph's house in l A.
He said, no one ever. Okay, Okay, this is crazy.
So I was obsessed with creativity and the creative process.
I had signed a record deal which I told you're
the next Billy Joe Bubba. But it was a pretty
big record deal for a young guy. I got dropped.
(12:03):
I didn't spend any of the money. When I graduated
from college, I wanted to do this experiment. So I
invited eight people who had never met strangers to live
with me in a house in LA to like kind
of build like a little songwriting commune. Because I thought
my favorite songwriters, except for Billy Joel, generally wrote in
pairs Bernie and Elton, Ashford and Simpson, the Beatles, Oasis, whatever, right,
(12:26):
And so I was like, maybe if we all live together,
you know, there'll be a creative energy. So I find
Kevin somehow. I meet Kevin Ruff. He has this crazy house.
He's like, I don't want to be in l anymore.
I'm gonna go to New York. But I don't what
to do with my house. Ray j wants to rent it,
but I got a crazy security deposit here. I don't
want to lose the deposit, so I said, well, look,
I can't pay you at ray Je can pay, but
(12:47):
I promise you won't lose the security deposit. I won't
destroy the house. So he's like, okay, I rent the
house for like a tenth of the rent. These eight
strangers come in. It's a tenth of the rent. Is
still way more money than I should be spending at
the time. My dad, who's here today, call you and
he goes, what are you doing? Like, why are you
spending this kind of money? I said, Dad, All I
need is one song, one song to hit. This is
(13:08):
the classic artist mentality. I just need one song when
you're like broke spending all your money. At the lease
is up, there's like two weeks left to the lease.
Kevin Rudolf comes back to the house to check it out.
He says, so, what have you been working on? I said,
but this is this is and I play him this
one song. He goes, play that again, play that again,
play that again. That becomes my first cut. He sends
that to Lil Wayne two weeks before the lease is
(13:28):
up and I've made no money. And that was on
the carter for Wow Deluxe Deluxe dea.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
How did you feel, Wayne Kane, Lil Wayne? How'd you
feel when Freddy Wexler sent a song over to Was
it good?
Speaker 1 (13:49):
And by the way, full full circle story. Emil Haney
did the track is a legendary producer, did Lil Wayne,
and also Blana del Ray whatever, and he helped me
work on the Billy Joel track Wow.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
Well, other artists including Justin Bieber, Arianna of course, Selena,
Kanye Jonas Brothers, Demi Levado, Pink Post Malone who we
love them all, Celine Dion so, you know, but not
a stranger to music at that point. I mean, you
grew up working in the mailroom at Sony Music over
at five point fifty, right, yep. And did any of
(14:22):
that payoff working with all the the industry titans like
the Matola's and the inners of the world stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Oh definitely. I mean I think you know, when I
was really young, I had no intention of being in
the music business. That internship, yeah, it changed the game.
Five point fifty Madison Avenue was this iconic building.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
It was insane.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
It was insane, right, And it was during that internship
where something changed my life. I was I was approached
by a girl to record her demos after she'd heard
a song that I had recorded myself, and I said, okay,
you got to pay me an hourly rate, which no
one charges an hourly rate for music. But I didn't
know better and very quickly into recording her in the
(15:09):
laundry room of my parents apartment building, the laundry whatever.
I told my mom, this girl is going to be
really famous. My Mom's like, ah, you should go to
law school or something. I said, no, no, no, I'm telling you.
And then at my internship, I crashed this big meeting
and I said I found the next Madonna and they
were like, who are you? I said, I'm an intern. Anyway,
four months later that actual changed her name to Lady Gaga.
Speaker 4 (15:30):
You got a book.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
This is awesome stuff. Do you?
Speaker 4 (15:35):
Does your wife like hold this over your head now forever,
like look what I got for you?
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Now? She does and she is a forceiveness, she's the best.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
She's well And happy birthday, Lady Gaga. Today's day.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
I know that credit for your success, but happy birthday kid?
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Who are you kid? A little pimply faced guy, get
out of here, and thank god they were open minded
enough to let you stay an extra moment. Then they
all look at that. Yeah, well I know, but still
I know, but that gave her the courage that you
paid attention to her, gave her the courage to keep moving.
So you you're a part of that story. Freddy.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
If we look through your phone, do you have like
everyone's names listed, like Lil Wayne, Lady Gaga, Billy Joe,
or do you have like fake names for them so
nobody finds them in your phone?
Speaker 1 (16:19):
Maybe I should have faker names.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Yeah, here's my problem. I have fake names in my
phone and I can't remember who they are. I don't know. Well, look,
you know, so this brings us up to today, and
I know there's there's a whole whole, huge long road
ahead with you and all the adventures you have and
the people you're gonna work with and who are gonna
work with you. I love it. I want to play
(16:42):
turn the lights back on it, talk about this song specifically,
why this song at this moment is so important, like.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
What inspired the song?
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Or well, yeah, but see what I saw Billy Joel
singing this basically crooning to you that you're at that
table to Grammy's there was there's a connection between to
end the song in these lyrics and also the timing
of Billy being back on stage. You know, do I
even still have lights to turn on? Basically was the
question yeah in the song, but go ahead.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
I think the beauty of a song is that it
sort of finds you when you need it as a listener, right, Like,
different songs mean different things for different people. Why do
you know? And I think this song resonates because it
has a lot of different interpretations. So on the one hand,
it's did I wait too long to turn the lights
back on? You're speaking to your lover? Who you know?
(17:33):
I'm late?
Speaker 2 (17:33):
But what is it? I late?
Speaker 1 (17:35):
But I mean right now?
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (17:37):
But I see you now?
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Right?
Speaker 1 (17:38):
This idea of uh, you know, yeah, you could be
talking to a lover that you haven't kind of seen
for a while. You could be talking to your fans.
For Billy, did I wait too long to turn the
lights back on on you guys on my music? He
could be talking to the songwriting gods, you know, and
music itself. So I think it just it hit a
lot of different you know, chords for him. And yeah,
(17:59):
the fact that he's seventy four years old singing. Did
I wait too long to turn the lights back on
after thirty one years of not recording a pop song?
Just you couldn't have made that up.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
It wasn't.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
I didn't plan that exactly. Again, it just stars aligned
in a way.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
But so it's so true. You know, wherever you are
in life it's a joyful time or a very very
trying time and challenging time, the music just tends to
find you. It's like water. It kind of goes where
it wants to go right totally. And this is the
situation with this song, and anyone and everyone listening right now,
they're like, this guy's right. I needed that song and
it found me.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
I love that isn't so fascinating to me. You need
like a book, a podcast, you need everything.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
Can you be my agent? Can you carve?
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Yeah? Absolutely? Yeah, person of everything, Freddy.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
We're in. Let's go, We're in. Well, by the way,
I love you guys listened. I've listened to this show
since you don't even know. A friend texta v and said,
I know you got all these cool press things going on.
But I saw your in Z one hundred. That's good.
We rode the school bus together. I said, yeah, not best.
Are you kidding me?
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Crazy? And we're still here. We're like the Billy Joels
of radio is. Yes, as you should be. I wouldn't
take it that far, but thanks for the compliment. So
what's next, Freddy? What's next?
Speaker 3 (19:12):
What?
Speaker 2 (19:12):
I mean, what can you tell us that's on the horizon?
What are you working on or what's actually about to happen?
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Hmm. So I've I like to answer this question now
by saying what I hope to work on that feels safer. Okay,
So I don't say anything, but I hope to continue
working with the people that I've worked with, So people
like Billy Black, Pink and uh Leave, who's awesome jazz
(19:38):
artists if you guys haven't checked her out. Darren Starr,
who's an amazing show creator. He just called me to write.
I wrote the only original song for Emily in Paris
for Ashley Park, which which yeah, it's called monso Let.
It really kind of had a life of its own,
and so they've asked me to write the only original
song for the second season. So or third season whatever
(20:00):
see Thursdays, I'm sorry and the third season so, And
it's cool because they really made the song a big
part of the show. So working on that, And like
I said before, I'm looking actively looking to sign a
couple of artists and develop them. So if any of
you guys sing, you get in the studio or but
but yeah, but or anyone listening like I really, I
(20:21):
really want to put my heart and soul into helping
helping a couple of new artists.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
So you know, what's so great about you is And
we could go on for hours, but we'll let you
go because I know you and your dad today let's
let me take well, No, it's just your take on
music and in what we see it means to you
is to me fascinating. It truly is. I know that's
a very broad stroke thing to say to someone, but
(20:50):
I just I love how and you guys saw it
when he's lighting when he's talking about music and the project,
he lights up. I mean, you really do light it up.
So it's so great to have your passion in the
room and sharing it with everyone driving work right now
and people in the school of bus on the way
with their friends Elvis.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
I can I say one one last thing really quick
about Billy Absolutely, just reflecting on this whole process. I
think people are like, why do you think Billy stopped
writing or whatever? And I said, look, I don't know,
but I think Billy's such a genius. He's such a perfectionist.
He holds himself to the standard of like being Beethoven.
(21:25):
He's that good. And I think when you when you
do that for that long, it's it's hard, and at
a certain point maybe it stops being fun. And I
think for me, I try to remind people that songwriters
and artists who write, who write their music, their entire
livelihood depends upon them being inspired. Imagine that. Imagine waking
(21:48):
up and saying, I'm not inspired today, this week, this month,
this year. How do you make a living?
Speaker 2 (21:54):
Right?
Speaker 1 (21:55):
It's like if you're a lawyer and you're uninspired one day,
you don't say, I can't negotiate the deal, call me tomorrow.
So I just think sometimes it's important to I'm not
asking people, it's like cry for the songwriters. I'm just saying, like,
it is a weird job, right, And so working with
Billy made me really appreciate inspiration when it comes. It's
(22:18):
such an ephemeral, inexplicable force. I don't know where that
comes from. You can't force it, and I don't know
what I'm trying to say, but that's my takeaway from it.
It has to be fun. And you can't be so
hard on yourself if you're not inspired. If you're an artist,
if you're a songwriter, if you're an author, you know
it'll come when it comes, and you got to be
grateful when it happens. And it's very humbling, you know.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
I find it extremely extremely relatable what you're talking about,
not only to everyone in this room, but people listening.
You know, even though someone's driving to work where they're
basically making sausage today the same thing they did yesterday,
you still have to feel inspired to stay with it,
to pay the bills and keep going. So what you're
saying is very, very, very very crystal clear. Freddie Wexler,
thank you for coming in today. Thanks Gary, thanks for
(23:02):
giving us the world of Freddy. We were very quiet
over there. Let's play it. Turn the lights back on,
Billy Joel be soapping the dog
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