March 22, 2022 • 54 mins
Creed Bratton finally sets the record straight about his wild stories in a game of “Fact or Fiction”, being attacked by wild dogs in Libya, and his life in the metaverse as Cryptocreed with his new series of Non-"Sponge"able Tokens.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now. Of course, when I was back as a kid,
I spoke like this because that was that was the
Western time until I came on the office and I
realized I better get a different kind of voice to
to relay myself to these people here like that. Yeah,
so I was I was told I was a cowboy
up up to the office. Basically just dropped dropped the
twig like that. Actually, this is gonna lead me in.
(00:21):
We're gonna play a little game later on. But it
relates to what he just said, which I know is well,
it's maybe not true. It's bullshit. Hi, I'm Creed Bratton
and I played Creed Bratton on the Office. I'm also
a lot of different names to creditors, but I don't
(00:44):
want to get into that right now. Oh boy, folks,
strap on your hats. It's gonna be a Wendy one today.
It's me Brian Gardner, your host, here for a spanking
new episode of Off the Beat. Today. As you just heard,
(01:07):
I'm bringing back the one and only Creed Bratton, or
as you might know him, Creed Bratton from the Office,
or maybe you know him as Crypto Creed straight from
the Metaverse. We're going to talk about that and so
much more. I thought it was about time that we
dug a little deeper into this man, the man behind
(01:30):
the myth. I mean, who is Creed Bratton? What has
he done? What hasn't he done? Actually is more accurate.
We're going to get to the bottom of that. Well.
For the most part, Creed has lived a thousand lives,
and he has lived them all. Well, let me just
(01:52):
say that. So we're gonna go all the way back
to his early days being surrounded by creativity and music
here in sunny California. But we're also going to talk
about the time when he woke up covered in well
in bird poop and being attacked by wild dogs. There
was maybe two separate events. It's very hard to keep track. Also,
(02:14):
we're going to play a new game, my favorite new game,
Creed Bratton fact or fiction. He'll let us know. I
think he'll be surprised by some of the answers here.
He is a true joy, an American treasure, and a
great friend of mine. That's right, Creed Bratton. Here he
is for your listening to light, Bubble and Squeak. I
(02:43):
love it, Bubble and squeak, Bubble and Squeaker, cookie every
month left over from the nat Pole. There he is.
(03:06):
What's happening? What's up, Bra? How's it going? Good? Good?
Good to see you. Man. Now wait a second, now,
wait a second, familiar, I'm at your studio. I mean
you're You're in my studio and I'm not there. This
doesn't seem right. Yeah, it's it's okay, though, it's okay.
That's not it's weird. It's weird. It's weird. It's weird. Yeah,
(03:29):
what are you doing? What are you doing in my chair?
Don't adjust my chair. I'm not adjusting your chair. I
may be leaving a little little skid marks, though. You know,
why are we going there immediately? Why would I go
there right off the bat? Save that for later for
the dessert dessert line. Uh, it's so good to see you,
(03:50):
even though to see you and I'm in your space.
Get over it, just get over all right, It's all right, okay, good.
I saw that you just burned yourself on the internet.
Did you see that. That's pretty funny. We're gonna talk
about that. I'm very excited to talk about that and
how you felt that the dummy resembled you or not.
I thought it was a doppelganger, actually doppelganger. Really yeah,
(04:14):
it looks very similar. I thought. Did you know it
was supposed to be completely off? You know, that's the idea.
That's just the hilarity of it. You know, Okay, all right,
we're gonna talk about that. But you know, we we
talked on the earlier podcast, The Office Deep Dive about
William Charles Schneider Sneer, Yes, Schneider, But I wanted to
(04:38):
go a little more in depth to start out back
to your your childhood. You were born in California, right,
Los Angeles, Los Angeles. How do you think that that
affected your growth or development being a California boy. No,
like anything else, it's a it's a car culture. It's
show business, Ellie. But but that's that's being said. I didn't.
(05:02):
I was two years old when I left. We went
up to course school, California below Yosemite. So I grew
up in a little town of three hundred people. I
had a horse and there's a thousand acres I rode
around on. I went fishing and had had one of
those cowboy lifes, you know. I went four and at
four hour, two hours to school, two hours back on
a bus for four years. Really get The only school
(05:24):
that was up there they had to get to was
run by Edison company called Sierra Joint Union High School.
So we traveled two hours there and we were exhausted,
and we go to school and uh then bring him home.
It was always dark when I got off the bus,
Come home and have dinner, go to bed, and go
back to school the next day. Wow. Now you say
the school was California Edison. Now was that because of worker?
(05:47):
Did they start to school because of workers that were
because exactly right, Brian, they had workers who were building
the Edison damn, the damns and stuff like that up
in that area. And so we had a lot of money.
That school had a lot of it. We had always
brand new uniforms for sports of really great pools and auditoriums,
all new band uniforms, brand new instruments, which it was.
(06:09):
Everything was provided. When they'd sit there and you look
out your window, there'd be a deer or rabbit, you know, somebody.
You see a fox running across the lawn right outside
the school. It was pretty pretty amazing. Yeah. Wow, And
so did you this is not a joke. Did you
live like a cowboy life like wilderness e or I
mean you said you rode horses and we had a
(06:32):
little ranch and the people up there were we had
cowboy hats. Now, of course, when I was back as
a kid, I spoke like this because that was that
was the Western time. Until I came on the office
and I realized I better get a different kind of
voice to to relay myself to these people here like that. Yeah,
so I was. I was told I was a cowboy
up to up to the office basically just dropped dropped
(06:53):
the twang like that. Actually this is gonna lead me in.
We're gonna play a little game later on. But it
relates to what he just said, which I know is
well it's maybe not true. Ship now you you you
you stuttered as a child, I did, Oh, yeah, big time.
(07:14):
I was. I was. I was traumatized as a child.
I don't go we don't need to go in that.
My therapist needs. That's her work to do. But I
stuttered so bad at one time. I can remember the moment.
The answer was Kit Carson, and I looked around and
because she said, anybody the name of this name name
got it looked at nobody put the hand and went.
(07:34):
I knew what it was, you know, being sharp. So
I went and I said, yeah, chuck. She said, Chucky, chucky,
she said, And I went, and it's it's not. It's funny,
but it's not. Because I was crying, was traumatized. I
couldn't talk, and I just got up and they pulled
me out of class and I was out of school.
And they finally got it at somebody to come by
(07:57):
the school because they could afford to. And she had
me in class by just me and her, and she
talked and she had me attempt to stutter. She says,
try to stutter, And so I went through the mechanisms
of trying to emulate what I thought I sounded like.
Within a week, I was over it. And that time
(08:19):
I meet people like Andy Green, the guy that who
did the one of the office books. You know, he's
a stutter, and I talked. I discussed this with him
quite a bit too. You know. Um, I think sometimes
your mind is moving too fast for you, or you
are just basically I think it was traumatized as a child,
and you're you're you're afraid to to articulate because you're
(08:41):
going to get repercussions from from speaking your mind. It's yeah,
that's what it is that makes it gives you funny too. Yeah, well,
how how old were you at this time? I was, gosh,
probably eight nine in there in that something I get,
(09:03):
it's all. It's hard for me remember that stuff. But yeah,
and occasionally I would be on doing film or something
like that. It hasn't happened in a long time, but
once in a while I will see, I will see
coming about three lines away, possible world word that I
will stutter on, and so I will try to already
(09:24):
start correcting the word I was thinking about to get
to another statement, so I don't have to stutter. So
that that always keeps you on your toes mentally interesting. Wow,
so you're what did your parents do? My mom was
a housewife. My father, who was a lieutenant colonel in
the Air Force. He died when I was two, but
(09:47):
my mother remarried and she married a guy who was
a grocer, ran a managed a grocery store. She ended
up working for for a post office up there, so
she worked for the post office. He ran a grocery
store right in. Your grandfather was was an art director.
Is that my grandfather on my father's side was Gustaf
(10:08):
Adolf Schneider, And according to what I've told, I can't
seem to find the record on it, but everybody that
I've ever talked to says he was the art director
for Douglas Fairbacks Jr. I think Sinbad was one of
those who a pirate movie one of the one of
the big movies that he did, and he invented. Remember, Brian,
if you've ever seen those old um silent films, we
(10:29):
see the background the fences go and the scenery goes
back in the background, rolling like goes it goes around
like this out of roller. That's that's with his bit.
That's what the thing that he came up with, you know,
That's what I was doing. Can't finding documentation the revolvement said,
but I've heard they told me that since of a
little kid. So I'm gonna go with that, because why
(10:50):
would they tell me that if they were just making
up to impress a five year old kid. I don't
know why would they do that. I'm not thinking to
be impressed with it anyway, you know, right, So you
left l A when you were to not were you
close with your with your grandfather. I mean, did you
did you feel No? No, I didn't even know him,
(11:11):
and I didn't in my on my mother's side, that grandfather,
he was kind of a taciturn individual. So he showed
me how to play guitar. But it wasn't a lot
of there were a lot of warmth, let's say, as
a child. Yeah, so you weren't in the entertainment industry
at all. Your family had no, No, my grandparents had
a semi My grandparents, Dot and Charles had a semi
(11:32):
professional band called the Happy Timers in Long Beach, and
when I come down for the summer, it's been with them.
I'd see them do gigs and stuff, and I watched
them rehearse and stuff. So I heard all the Hank
Williams and the you know, the Texas playboys and people
like that. And I grew up on that Western Swing.
I heard a lot of Western Swing when I was
a kid, and he showed me my first chords on
(11:54):
a guitar. But of course I played trumpet since I
was a young young age and until up till I
went to college. But I think after my last my
senior year in high school, I stopped playing trumpet and
picked up a guitar. I've been I've been playing both
for a quarter a while. That time this was I
was eighteen, I still playing trumpet. So I started when
(12:16):
I was thirteen seventeen. I started working professionally up at
this place called the Falls with this group called the
tor Case and we would do you know, oh Donna,
Donna and Vicky Vallens and uh Ruby and the Originals
and you know things like that. We do all the stands.
See a minor F and G. That's all that. That's
(12:38):
basically all there was in the fifties. That's all you
had to know those four chords? What was it? What
are the four chords? C, A minor F and G. Bye, Brian,
Do you get your guitar see a minor F and
G in variations that will get you through the fifties? Yeah,
I'm not as I'm not as skilled as you see an,
(13:00):
I don't know. I can't any musician out there and go,
but they know what attracted you to music? Then? Was
it that experience or watching your grandparents do shows or
what what made you make the choice to get into music?
Uh trumpet? I just I just my mother played mandolin.
She was an expert, expert mandelin player. Stepdad played drums.
(13:23):
I heard. I knew my father had heard when I
when I became older enough to be cognizant of this fact.
He was supposed to be a very very good banjo player.
And but my mother was something that she would sit
there and play the man like this, and she put
her head back like this and just well, I'd be
sitting there going wow, but take her away. She was euphoric.
It was euphoric, and I loved hearing her play that.
(13:45):
So they started me out on tuba. You can meade
this little guy play to play tuba. Hated it. Finch horn,
the other reversed the tiny little thing. So I was
puckering on alum or something worked out and then finally
the trumpet piece, Thank you bro, you know you know.
Then then the then the the mouthpiece on the trumpet
(14:06):
fit fit right, and I like the sound. I like
the brassy, brassy sound it made. But guitar, I've ordered
a silver tone guitar from Sears and Robot. It came
that it wasn't really wasn't a buckboard within horse. It
actually was a truck that drove up this dirt road
towards to the rents, and they brought it out and
I took it out and I plugged the case. Was
(14:28):
the case that came in had a speaker in it.
So you take your cord, put in your guitar and
you plug it into you plug your guitar case had
to plug. You plug it into the wall, and then
you plug your guitar chord into the case. And then
I hit, I would I'd love link raise rumble, just
this chord, basic thing, link, raised rumble. I hit. I
(14:51):
turned it all the way up and hit this ecord
whang and it came through and just filled my visceral area,
you know that with that, just bomb hard with that
and I went and that was it. I was done.
That's all I wanted to do was play that guitar
and hear that and have that sound because soothed calmed me,
had calmed me down. It was wonderful. How old are
(15:12):
you at this point, gosh, fourteen fifteen? Did you start
taking lessons or were you No? No, I learned my ear.
I would listen to records and I just sit there
and listen to the records and just keep going over
and over and over with everybody because there was no Google.
There's nobody up there in the mountains to teach you anything.
So I just I got a chord book with chords,
and I listened to the thing, and I finally figured
(15:33):
it out, you know, just song by song, and I
figured and I was able to play piano. My mother
had an organ in there, and I was able to
sit down and go and play the blues and I
started figuring. I figured out the chords. Once I got
him on the guitar, I figured about on the piano,
and I could sit there and play like the basic
stuff on the piano too. But I'm not I write
on the piano, but I'm not that fast. Look I
have on guitar. Listen this is You don't seem to
(16:15):
think that this is is strange or interesting. But in
the last five minutes you've talked in terms of your family.
You've talked about mandolin, drums, You had a piano lying
around your parents, your grandparents were playing music that you
would go and listen to. And then you pick up
a guitar, and that gives you a visceral feeling. I mean,
you were inundated with music from a really early age.
(16:37):
That's that is not how I grew up. No, And
I thought when I got to school, I thought that
everybody knew how to play music. I didn't. I just
thought it was what everybody did, that you could probably
hear something and played by here by her and figure
it out. But I realized that not everyone was musical.
It took me a while to get get that, you know. Yeah,
So I didn't think it was a big deal when
(16:57):
I was doing it, but later on I I accept
the fact that not everyone could do it. Yeah, right,
when did you make the decision that this was something
that wasn't just a hobby, wasn't just something that gave
you a good feeling, but something that you wanted to pursue,
like to be a performer for a career. You know what.
I have to say, It was probably my I want
(17:20):
year wondering what year when it's with the with the
Beatles on Ed Sullivan had to be. Yeah, I was
gonna say sixty six three something in there that I'm
at Sacramento State and they're on a swim scholarship, and
it was it was a drama major, That's what I was.
(17:41):
So where I was there for and one day, I'm
walking out in the quadrant and I hear screaming and
I go up to the there's a sorority there and
there's nobody around, and I'm becoming from from the library something.
And I walked in and the doors opened, and I
you know, and I just said, well, I didn't know anybody,
didn't know any girls that I kind of walked in
and I see all these girls around this TV and
(18:01):
the Beatles, and they're screaming and yelling. And I walk
up and I look at these girls. I look at
the Beatles and I go, oh, my god. That talking
about a something. You know, it's still like a gaspalt
image or a paradigm shift in your consciousness. Trust me,
my friend, that was the one. And I just went, oh, okay,
(18:23):
this this is power, because you know, when you when
you had girls come up to you after the after gigs,
when I was like seventeen eighteen, you know, and you
had your you had all the girls from l A
coming up there to these little challenging you're playing guitar,
It was okay. But this Beatle thing, that's a whole
other level. And I think you, okay, maybe a creed
needs to look into Well, I wasn't create yet. I
was still Chuck. But Chuck Chuck into I was still Chuck.
(18:46):
Chuck needs to look into this. This this this might
bear appraising some some to some degree. Did you speak
to Chuck in the third person like you speak to
Creed and the person was that was like, I don't
you know how you guys have messed me up ever
since that thing? You know, it's very funny. I do.
(19:09):
I did on I talked to talk to him about
when people, So I'm talking to people, I say, it's
the character or me or the actor, you know, comment
in on one of the others. It gets confusing being me,
you know, it is very very confusing being you keeping
all the stories straight. So you pick up music because
of the girls in the sorority. It's always it's always
(19:29):
the girls, Brian and the love and by the way,
the love of the music. I love music. When I'm
playing guitar and I write a great a song that
I really love, I'm inspired, I'm lifted up. There's a
euphoria that occurs, you know, it's it still does. I'm
seventy nine and I just wrote a song recently, and
I got through the song and I'm just man some wonder.
(19:51):
It's still a wonderful thing. I still don't know where
they come from, how it works. They just come and
you write them down. It's amazing. I've seen you have
that experience songs that you know you're singing that you
wrote long, long ago. But there's a euphoria that happens,
something almost chemical, spiritual, that happens inside you when you
(20:16):
get lost creating something. Well you you know it. We
all all artists know this. You know, that's that's when
you're it comes from outside. Saturday, I was at my
granddaughter Isabella's birthday and we went bowling and then they
went laser tagging. You know. So my son said, you're
going to be on this team here, you know, the
(20:38):
green team, and I'll be on the red team. And
when you and the kids and to be there and stuff.
So you know, with me, when I when when when
I when something happens, I just you know, oh yet
do the comic face with Greg Dan was always loved
you know, he loves me. So when the first time
I got shot, all the kids looked and they laft
(21:00):
and they laughed and left, and I talked about the
joy that gave me. Well, the red team was laughing
and the Green team laughed so much my own team
started shooting me just to see my my reaction. They
wouldn't even let me have the recharge, and you know
they kept shootings. Right, that's awesome. But you you went
(21:23):
to school for drama, so you were interested in acting
then early on, or at least, I mean I had
the same the same guy that taught Tom Hanks. He
went to Sacramento State and saying the same drama coach. Yeah,
it was a good school. It was a good school.
It wasn't a great school, but for drama, they had
a really good program there. Right when did your music
career start to take off? Oh? What it would be?
(21:46):
The grassroots? I had spent with their young the Torques
up there that I played bands, the Leanders to school
college to make money on the weekends. And then in Europe,
I was with the young Californians two years, traveling around Europe,
hitching across North Africa, through the up to Romanian Bulgaria,
(22:06):
through East Germany, all over the place too, Scandy nave
I did at all? How did you traveled in Europe before? No?
I just hitchhiked all over we hitch I hitchhike for
two years with my guitar on my back. How was that?
How so you haven't traveled. I've never been there before. Amazing,
but I had. I got on a Swiss freighter and
I arrived with twenty five dollars in my pocket, which
(22:29):
was gone in a short period of time. You know,
I got drunk with these locals, with my friend Mickey
Miguel was there, had me brought a guitar with me.
Some local hands me a guitar and I started singing
that bwine comes out. We're dancing around next thing I know.
And this is honest to God. This is not a criticism,
honest to God, truth, Brian. I wake up the next
morning in the sun set in my face and I'm
(22:50):
gonna that that horrible taste of my mouth. And I
looked down and I'm in the St. Mark's Square with
pigeon ship all over my clothes, ghostly, and yeah, yeah,
that was that was Welcome to Europe. That was my
first day in Venice. And uh then we hit stake
up to Copenhag. It's you know, I'm gonna write, I'm
gonna write my book. Rain Rylson won't let me get
(23:12):
out of this life without doing my book, so I'll
do it. But yeah, I played all over the place,
and then in Israel I was working on this movie
called My first film, Cast a Giant Shadow with Frank Sinatra,
Youule Brenner, John Wayne All these People was a big,
big movie, Mills Shabelson and we did a we we
we took off from work and we did this folk
(23:34):
festival and this guy, Warren Ittner comes back and said, hey,
you know, you play guitar, and we should think about something.
So he gave me his number, and when I got
to l A, which is the first time I've been
in l A except for Long Beach since I was
a little kid, I called him up and within one
week and one week we put a band together and
playing the topless bar out in the valley and it
(23:55):
had and this is no joke, the girl, a girl
you know with totally totally paste did the worly bird thing. Yeah.
I just did the worly bird. If you can see it,
you can, they can't see they just hearing right, No,
they okay, But so I had the worly bird things,
you know, and I'm there, and the she was on
(24:15):
a swing, so we would we'd be singing like this,
and she swings, so I'd have to be the microphone.
I'd go and she'd swing by, and I come back
in and sing on the micro and then pull away
like this when she was on this, that was that's
that's welcome to the show biz. That's what that's. It's unbelievable.
It's true. It's absolutely true. Now, wait, there's so much
(24:37):
swun packer. You're traveling around Europe hitchhiking with a guitar
on your back, and you end up in Israel and
with two other guys we meet. There's two other guys,
Greg and Lee. Okay, and there were all the young
Californias were trio and worked at harmonies place. Well, we
couldn't hitchhike together because no just pick us up, so
we had to separate to get you know, sometimes we're
(24:59):
like can algery. I spent two nights sleeping on the
side of the road in the dirt, in my sleeping bag.
You know, wild dogs attacking me. I know that's not
that's not. Yes, hey, I'll take a lie detective test.
Wild dogs are attacking the dirt and Algery I slept
on the dirt and alger but the obolutely that's wrong.
(25:21):
The wild dogs attacked us after a show in Libya
at the Wadan Hotel. We were in Libya and we're
just going and we're going to meet these people from
the Mobile Oil. We're gonna take us, fly us out
in the We went five hundred miles on the Sahara
Desert to play for the Mobile Oil. And we're on
the we're on the way after one of our shows
working at this club and these wild dogs and we
(25:42):
went back to back and we were banging using our
guitarists and instruments and kicking at these wild dogs. They
were attacking us. That's an honest to god truth. These
are stray dogs or these are like they're stray feral
dogs gadding up in. It's wild feral dogs. Wow. I
would have been scared. I would been scary that because
(26:07):
they got big power, they got big powerful jaws. Okay,
but wait a second, I'm trying to paint the picture.
You're getting attacked by wild dogs. You're asleep, and that's separate.
That's first, as Algeria understand, I'm sleeping Algeria. Yeah, and
then you're getting attacked by wild dogs in Libya and
then you end up in Israel. But how do you
(26:30):
end up in a Frank Sinatra movie in Israel when
you're just hitch? Is this just like, hey, guys, you
want to be in a show? What is happening? We
went all the way across to Egypt, and I think
we played for uh NASA's daughter. Nasa daughter daughters came
to a TV show and she and we played. We
entertained her on this TV show and I went behind
(26:52):
the three m machines that were recording. Instead of little
caps on the back of the wires, they had just
they were just the wires were just stuck together professional
given the wars for twist to the back, we went,
oh my god. Anyway, so we got there. We went
to the head. We were going all the way down
(27:14):
to South Africa. That was our plan. We were gonna
be all the way down and that would have been crazy.
We've probably gotten eaten for sure by bigger animals and
wild dogs. But the Congolese were running guns at the
time in the Sudan at that time in nineteen sixty four.
They wouldn't let us through. It wouldn't stamp our passport
and let us in, so we went back and we
(27:35):
got a boat to Bay Route. We played at this
place called the kit Cat Club, which was a brothel
and then the people, like the people for the Sheiks
from Kuwait would come there and the white rolls royces
with the gold stuff on the front, and it was
a front for a for a brothel. But we play
in this cabaret in front and by the way, by
(27:55):
Rout was such a beautiful city at that time. We
broke my heart when I saw the war happen to it.
It was Paris on the Mediterranean. It was amazing, the
coolest people, amazing food, gorgeous city. And then we went
to uh Syria and then into Jordan's and then to
mantelbomb Gates to go into Israel, and we came in
(28:16):
there and we got an impresario and we started playing
clubs up in town, up and down the coast of Israel,
occer in places like that. So I'm body surfing one
day in the Outlow Surf and I met Michael Douglas,
and Michael Douglas was working there because his father was there.
He was He's one of the A d s. He
was like our age, you know, and we hit it
off and he and I said, we're having problems now,
(28:39):
but we can't get out of here because we won't
we don't have enough money to take a boat or fly,
and they won't let us go back through with with
the Israeli stamp back through the Arab countries. We were stuck.
And he said, wait a second, he said, let me
talk to the people, and he, Michael Douglas, made it possible,
his friend, because we've got became friends. So he got
(28:59):
us working and we worked as grips and stuff we
did all kinds of errands were just right for shorts,
no shirts, hammers. We ran around, did all the work
you could. You know. I got a picture I'll send
it to you of us singing with Kirk Douglas on set. Yeah, unbelievable. Yeah. Yeah.
So you were working as a as grips and doing
(29:20):
basically doing any kind of base on odd jobs on
this movie just to make money, yea, so that you
could get out of Israel, so we could get out
of Israel. And that worked. You got out clearly at
some point, obviously clearly clearly, right, Yeah, so what you
ended up taking a boat to wear? Well, I this
is pretty long, dog. I gotta I gotta write this book. Yeah.
(29:41):
I fell in love with the director's daughter, Mel Shield's
daughter Lynn, So we went off to the Greek Islands.
We went to Rhodes and crete and uh uh, and
we stayed back two weeks, run around on scooters, you know,
just doing doing what lung lovers do, you know? And
then she went back to school. And then I had
I got my draft notice in um Cairo and I
(30:05):
had to go apply for the draft. I got to
go sign up for the draft in Berlin, and I
had months away, so I was on deadline then to
get to there before they come and arrest me because
I was out of college. And so I said, well,
I gotta do it. I gotta do it. And I
hitchhiked all the way there and then and then first
and I went in there and they came outside and
said you your father was an officer in the in
(30:28):
the military. Yeah, your only son. Yep, you have broken
ear drum. And they got an elbow in in sports,
said yep, get out of here. There were seemed angry
with me too. I went, I went, I was just like,
oh my god, I was just like I was over
the moon. You couldn't even imagine I was so did
not We knew the story in Vietnam by this time.
(30:49):
We knew it was not an honorable It wasn't an
honorable war. Let's be let's face it. And uh, I
just I kind of knew this was a bad, bad
thing for me to do, but I felt obligated because
my father was in and uh, this is what a
guy did. You had you couldn't you didn't shirk your
your duty. I was an American. I was proud of that.
But then I didn't have to go. I was obviously
(31:10):
relieved too. Buddy, you're gonna will imagine. Wow, eventually you
come back to the States. Eventually come back to the
States and you start sing with the grassroots. You formed
the grassroots? Yep, well, well the grassroots were formed. But
we I Warren and Rob and Ricky and I, yes,
(31:31):
we took over. They did one Pflann album song called
where Were You When I Needed You that they had recorded,
and the group the Better Ones from the Bay Group,
they came and started playing. They didn't want to do it,
so they had this semi hit song. They needed a
band and we were playing down right next to the
whiskey at the London Fog. So our manager said, you know,
he heard about this, and he submitted our demo tape
(31:54):
a song called Beating around the Bush that Warren and
I wrote. That's what she said. I don't because that's stretch. Stretch,
that's a stretch. It's all right, no, no, no, it's okay.
I'm I'm in your chair, So just be careful what
you say. And so this this becomes your first real success, right,
(32:15):
I mean like big success. Oh yeah, big success. Yeah,
you know, number one records and gold, gold records and
stuff like that. Sure, absolutely, it was a big It
was a huge. And you can imagine me come from
this little tiny town, never having a pot to piste
and all of a sudden, I'm gonna Porsche, living out
in Malibu and flying around and playing shows doing you know,
(32:36):
it's playing all these amazing artists doing the big, big
shows stuff on stage. You know, it was pretty heavy stuff.
I don't know if it's any heavier than the office,
but it was pretty heavy. Why why did you leave
the grassroots? I left because I think you know the
story of my dropping acid at the film wore I'm
sure you know this is a famous story. I've heard this.
I don't know if it's true or not. It's true,
(32:57):
it's absolutely true, absolutely true. And uh, and when I
do my book, there's so much stuff this is I'm
just I'm just scratching at the surface. This goes, this
is in depth, stuff that happened. I'm gonna put say
away at the end of everything I say, I'm gonna
put in little marks on stuff that I may or
may not have said, but I'm gonna mark all. And
most people sell these stories are not true. I will
(33:18):
take a lot of detector tests and ascertain they're true.
You know, I don't. I don't have to make this
stuff up. This stuff happened, Ryan. They don't need to
make up stuff because it's all so good. Anyway, I
dropped acid, uh, and I couldn't play and UH dropped
my pants on stage, just walked off naked and waved
(33:41):
the audience, and we had to come back and make
the show up the next week. Bill Graham hated me
from that moment on, and I didn't really have a
lot of sense of humor about that kind of stuff,
So it was kind of the uh it was time
was running out for Creed and it was and that's
the reason I left the group. They didn't want me
to go. That was not the case at all. I
(34:03):
was getting frustrated because we get back from tour and
the Wrecking Crew, which I played with for the first
couple of albums, Warren and I did, They've recorded stuff,
they want us to put vocals on it. And I said,
come on, man, this is I'm playing live. Let's let
me just play the guitar. I've done it before. There's
no problem there. So that's that's That was the the
(34:25):
catalyst that made me. I just finally said when they
find if you're not happy, and I said I'm not happy.
It was it was both. It was a mutual agreement.
They if you're unhappy, and I said I'm not. So
I took a settlement, which was more than I ever thought.
Then I went off lived out in Malibu for a
while and went off to Europe for a while. And
then as soon as I got uh got divorced, I
(34:46):
went I realized that I had to get back into
stuff that I was good at. Besides, because I trying
to get solo career going nothing, what's going on? So
I went and studied the Meister method in l A
with Charles Conrad for about a year and a half
and and I worked. I did a play at the
Odyssey Theater with Bow Bridges directing, and uh, Jenny Sullivan
and John Crosby. This very very famous agent, major agent
(35:10):
manager in l A at the time, saw me and
signed me up. And then I worked. I worked for
a couple of years with him, just getting me gigs
and uh. And then next thing I studied, stayed in class,
work did all kinds of odd jobs. And I was
in class the week before when I was on Bernie
Mac and Ken Kappas came on. Boom said I wanted
(35:34):
to be on the show because my gut level, I said,
I want to do this. Put me in the background,
and I realized, you guys already cast. I had to
do something. So I wrote my own talking head, gave
it to great and everyone said, you don't do that,
You don't do stuff like that. He said, why not?
I did it work because it was funny that the
(35:54):
Gauds they did that. The thing was funny. That's why
(36:17):
what's your what's your favorite thing? About working as an
actor as opposed to maybe a musician or anything else.
What do you enjoy the most? I think, and I
think you you'll totally relate to. This is the family,
the camaraderie, that the participation. We're all in there making
this product, and we're all given and taken to to
(36:37):
make the final finest piece of work we can. When
you're up on stage, it's all me. But but when
you're in a player or something like this, you're you're
working in with a group of people. And I love that,
you know me, I I just I was like everybody else.
I just love going to work and doing what we did.
There was so much and look at us. We're all
still family, the whole cast still, you know. And yeah,
(37:00):
you know if we've talked about here and elsewhere, like
you know, so many people that you don't see who
are also a part of it. You know, there's a
hundred and twenty people or whatever, and all those people too,
and the crew. The crew. I still see Matt Son,
camera guy. I go hike with him still all the time. Yeah,
I know, I know he's the best. Let me ask you,
(37:22):
let's see if this makes any sense. If you know
what I mean, what is your most embarrassing acting credit?
Do you have one? So many to choose from bright
and mine? So mine. I don't know why I started
thinking about this this morning. Actually, Mine, what you told me?
Yours first, and I'll tell you mine. I'll tell you mine,
(37:44):
which is actually not It's not that it's terrible. It
was a short film and it was basically there are
a couple of other people who are in it, but
it's basically me and the actor Kevin rom who's amazing,
you know, in Madman monkst like fifteen other shows. But
it's called Moosecock. Oh and and so I always hope
(38:13):
you were the title character. Go when when doing you know,
doing a Q and A or something. There is undoubtedly
someone is gonna talk to me about how much they
appreciate my work in Moosecock. And they keep saying yes,
bringing up Moosecock, and it's yes, So that's mine. It's
just it has just has to do with the name
(38:34):
of it. You're lucky direct to have that story. You
have a story, You have a story like that, you know, Okay,
I when I was on the office, I got it.
They give me to give us all time up to
do stuff. I went and I did Terry with John
c Riley and it did all. It went to Sundance
and we get all the swag and I'm really really
happy with my part. And I thought, Okay, here I go,
(38:56):
here I go, and no one saw it. No one's on. Now.
That wasn't embarrassing. That wasn't was an embarrassing. Then later
I got to set a script for this movie called
The Ghastly Love of Johnny X, and the guy Paul
Brunel was doing a script funny kind of a sci
fi musical, semi kind of a horror thing, you know,
(39:20):
in a way weird way, but funny tongue in cheek,
and he was using all the black the last of
the black and white quote of Chroma X film the film,
and he got the larry last bit of it. We're
shooting in short ends for this whole film. We worked
our ass and he had shot it with the first crew,
and then he came back I think four to six
years later with the same group of people that added
(39:42):
some other characters like myself, and I came in as
this dead alien. The alien who had come from another planet,
became a rock star and had died and then his
son comes in with the resurrection suit and brings back
to life. I think it's like Rocky Picture Rocky Horror
Picture show. I think it's fun. As soon as I wait,
waited and waited to see what's gonna have seen, people
(40:03):
are going to see it. And it came out. And
the year it came out, it came in the trades
the lowest grossing movie of that year. It was made
tack a thousand, seventeen hundred dollars. It's like my heart
just saying, that's so, if you want embarrassing, there's embarrassing
(40:23):
right there. Yeah. Paul Williams was in it. Hysterically funny,
so much fun stuff, so much tongue in cheek stuff,
you know. And I I was just talking about chewing
up the scenery and I was just having so much fun. Um,
I've invented a new game. Yes, we're gonna play the
first time I've ever played Moosecock. No, it's not Mooscock.
(40:44):
It's called Creed Broughton Factor Fiction. If I had theme music,
actually I should have you in the future, right the
theme music for Factor Fiction. This is Factor Fiction with
Creed Broughton. I already have like seven other questions from today.
Are you doing this? What you're doing this with other
people too? Well, I don't know. I just I just
invented it because it seemed appropriate for you. But yeah, no,
(41:08):
I'll do it with other people. This is gonna go
so well, we'll do it with other people. Okay, we
know this already. And because this is the thing, if
you've been listening for the last forty five minutes, things
that Creed says, you're never exactly sure if it's fact
or if it's fiction. And he likes it that way,
but this is our own life. I've got him connected
(41:28):
to a lie detector. I don't, but we're gonna pretend
that I do. You could, we could, and we're gonna
we're gonna determine whether things from the office, things that
have been said are fact or are they fiction. And
let me ask you a question, quick, Bryant. Just create
the actor or the human being or create the character. No,
(41:49):
this is the human being. Well, because because Creed Bratton
is Creed Bratton to some extent, and and and many
stories about your life we're into and it's called Creed.
I mean, the character is called Creed Bratton and your
Creed Bratton and maybe stories from the office were from
your life or at least versions true or yeah, exactly
(42:12):
are they that writers would take variation to hear me
talk mumbling to myself, they followed me around the right stuff? Okay,
that's okay, all right? Factor fiction? Were you a radio
DJ and the seventies that went by the name wacky
Weed creed false? False? Okay? Fiction? You mean this is
(42:32):
called factor of fiction, so that's fiction, factor fiction? Okay fiction?
Did you play yourself in the office on a given day?
There was certainly, um a futuristic aspect of it if
he was on state on drugs, So it's it's I
(42:53):
can't really say factor because it was when I wrote that,
when I wrote the Guy, which they based that on,
that it's talking hid that I made. He was very exactly.
I think I've talked to you about this on the
show before. He was me on steroids with the like
a crack tuning fork. I think was the analogy I
gave you on your show. So it's certainly doesn't he
(43:14):
wasn't introspective as I am. But but yeah, but you know,
it intends on what what's going on at the time. Yeah,
you know what we're gonna call that. We're gonna call
that faction. I like that. I used to admit that. Fact.
That's a fact. That's a faction. Okay, that's fact. Do
you do you know how to scuba dive? Fact? Fact?
(43:35):
Do you know how to scuba dive? Okay? I love snorkeling.
I've never learned to scuba dive. That's a fact about
I can't anymore. I used to. I used to have
you used to so I used to have the think
the whole thing and do it. Yeah. Have you ever
worked in an office? False fiction? You've never worked in
an office? That you know how rare that is. That's
(43:55):
incredibly rare. That. Yeah, that you never did? Well, you
know now we know you came from, you know, wearing
cowboy hats on the farm, cowboy hats and stuff, riding
to horses and yeah. Have you ever been in any
form of or led a cult? No? I thought you
(44:19):
might say you had been in on a version of
one to do it. But but you're you're a friend.
I'm not gonna I'm not gonna bullshit yet. Okay, alright, perfect,
Have you ever actually dressed up for Halloween. Yes, of
course you had a fact generally go as myself now,
but yeah, that's what I do. Um, I've actually admitted
(44:41):
this game for this very question. Have you ever snorted
something off of a strippers body part at the Playboy
Mansion with Jim Morrison? Faction snorted. I've definitely snorted some
(45:01):
stuff there, but not with Jim. No, okay, not with Jim. Okay,
all right, that was my all time favorite. You're throwing
that out and then the room stops cold. That reminds
me of the time I was at the Playboy Mansion
with him. What did he just say? Um, can you
use a computer? Rudimentary? You know? I can? I'm actually
(45:23):
not that well. These people here would open the portal
and and Propagate would say no, But I can. I
can do I can. I can answer my I can
answer emails, let's say, you know, and maybe send a photo.
Or I can pick musical files and hear stuff. Okay,
musical files. That's close. Being able to answer an email
(45:46):
is not necessarily being able to use a computer. Just
for the record, Okay, I can. I can take download files,
play something on my computer and then send it back
to somebody. How about them apples without looking around or
asking anyone who might be there. Do you know what
n f T stands for? Non fungible tokens? Perfect? But
(46:10):
when I first heard it, I thought they were talking
about sponges, non spongebo non spongeable tokens. And then they
said something else, and then my mind, you know me,
and then I don't But I don't hear it correctly.
I don't like am I just dyslectic mentally? So I
heard and then I heard fungus, and I thought it
was something to do with mushrooms, and it's now but
(46:33):
but now they finally explained to me what it is.
And now now I'm embracing the metaverse. You know, this
is a great thing for me to be. Cryptocrete is
at home now in this betaverse. Speaking of fungible have
you ever put wacky mushrooms on a pizza? I've done
my share of mushrooms, but not on a pizza. Wouldn't
I wouldn't be a little bit. I'd be over and
(46:54):
I'll be over indulgent. You know, are you the scrand
and strangler? You know, when I was at that trial
for Toby, and I can't just come from the Halloween party,
and I had covered in blood, and I went back
in the back room at the courtyard, and I saw
(47:15):
the courthouse and I saw that he was at there testifying,
and there was the photographers stare and the Bereefs family,
the Breeze, the family of the people that he killed.
And you know, Brian, they never noticed me, never paid
any attention. Let's just say they got the wrong guy. Okay,
that's fair enough. There you go, Factor Fixtion. There that
(47:37):
was it. You've conquered the music world. You've conquered that game.
You've conquered and acted about that, and you've taken the
TV world by storm, as they say. Now you're moving
on to non fungible tokens the metal verse. I saw
the burning video. How how fun was that? So and
(48:00):
so much so much fun, you know. And and by
the way that I got burnt to a little bit
during that thing you did. Yeah, I got burnt, but
we got They bought me some alabara and it's healed
up pretty good. Now. How does burning flesh smell like
mushroom pizza? That's very good? Um? Why the n f
(48:21):
T world, I mean, I you're perfect for it. Number
one so let me just say that, thank you, thank you.
But well, you know who I am? You know I am? Yeah, Well,
it's age, it's age. There's like you know, they're putting
on the shoes getting out of bed, the creaky than
like the sounds like God, the crack of the bones
in the morning when you're waking up and now. But
in the metaverse, I'm just free. I'm just that can
(48:44):
fly and go to through universes. It's just it's a
freedom that I that I love to experience. Brian, I
loved the video. I can't wait to see the actual thing.
Although what I'm gonna have to pay? What am I
gonna have to pay? No? You are You've You've already
been sent one. Don't worry. I've been I've been sent Yes,
(49:05):
what is it? What is it worth? Now? Can I
sell it already? You could sell it right now and
probably really, you know, pay off your mortgage. It's gonna
be sucking, should be. Maybe you know what we've talked about.
You're worried about saying, fuck the idea. We should not
be concerned about it. First of all, Okay, okay, you
(49:26):
know me, I'm a little bit b botanical and doesn't matter. Yeah, exactly,
Alien chicken. Why alien Chicken? Um, well, I don't if
I ever sent you the album, I think I probably
did tell me about it. I used to have this
fantasy about chickens, and I thought, because you I love chicken,
you know, chicken and chicken salads and chicken sandwiches and chicken.
(49:49):
Impost chicken who doesn't live chicken? And I one day
I was thinking about aliens, and I'm thinking, I wonder
if the chickens and alien chickens taste better? Are different?
So I started thinking about alien chicken, and just I
had to call my company Alien Chicken Ink. And so
then the album tell me about it. You see me
there being interviewed by one of my big chickens. He's there.
(50:09):
He's a reporter for Rolling Stone. He's interviewing me. So
that's always been my company. And when we decided to
do uh uh talking with Lynn who worked with you
and now me on then the she uh, she's well,
just the ALIENI and chicken be cryptocreede alien chicken because
it's already there. So that's what that's that's where it is, man,
it's there. It's their congratulations. Oh man, thank you and
(50:34):
thank you so much for having me on. Man, it's
good to say. And there's the only time I get
to see you was on this little screen. But you know,
go down I gotta get down south and visit you know,
one of these days, you do, I say, our next reunion.
I think we got to convince Rain to host and
maybe take a ride on the zonkey. I hear he's
(50:54):
got like an albino peacock. Now he's got this farm.
It'll remind of your of your youth. Have you've been
in to smooth place? You know? I have just passed by, couldn't.
Walter his son who was born on the show. He's fifteen. Now, Brian,
I'm there. I'm playing one of my songs. You know,
(51:17):
he asked me. I brought my guitar and I'm jamming.
Walter is playing solid guitar, jamming alongside of me, and
it's like it's mine mind boggling. You know, a great kid.
It's a great kid. The two of you need to
do a song. I think that's a good idea. Yeah, no,
I'll I'll collaborate with anybody, you know, I love that's
(51:37):
some of the best work sometimes, you know, you're working
on your tenth album right, when is this we're gonna
working on my tent working. I don't know, it's I've
just got into my third song, just on my third song. Okay,
so I wasn't out there in the metaverse, I'd probably
getting more work done. Well, you're you're here, you're there,
(51:59):
you're rewhere everywhere. But what what what? What are you
working on it? Because I'm sorry, folks out there, I
know this is but but I need to find catchup,
be friend, to find what the hell he's doing now,
do you know what I'm I am so enjoying these
conversations that I'm having with people right now. Truly, I
am loving, loving doing this and hearing stories like from you,
(52:20):
which I know some but still not all, and sharing Yeah,
these stories and experiences with people. I'm just enjoying it
so so much. I get it, I get I say,
I feel it. It's just kind of great. Great. Yeah,
well we're long overdue, my friend, I know. Virtual hug,
big virtual hug, biggest virtual hug. I love I love you,
(52:44):
thank you so much. I love you. Thank you for
the n f T. I'm gonna go pay off my mortgage,
but I probably won't because I want to keep it.
I want it's gonna get worth it'll be worth more.
Don't want to get rid of it enough save it's kidding.
I want to own a piece of you. Yeah, I'm
I'm not the whole are horror highest bidder? Okay, see
(53:04):
we can we can cut that out. I know. Yeah,
please do Creed, my friend. I cannot wait to go
(53:26):
ride a zookey with you. Thanks for stopping by my
old stomping grounds. Always great to talk to you. Don't
do anything to my chair. Thanks to everyone else for
tuning in. Don't forget to follow us on the old
Instagram at Off the Beat to stay up to date
with the latest and greatest. And if you've been liking
(53:47):
what you've been hearing, why not leave a review for
us on Apple Podcasts or comment directly to me. I
promise I am listening. Next week, I'm going to be
back with a well with a person of many talents.
You'll see, have a great week. Off the Beat is
(54:14):
hosted an executive produced by me Brian Baumgartner, alongside our
executive producer Langley. Our producers are Diego Tapia, Liz Hayes,
Emily Carr and Hannah Harris. Our talent producer is Ryan
Papa Zachary. Our theme song Bubble and Squeak performed by
my great friend Creed Bratton, and the episode was mixed
(54:36):
by Seth o'landski
Now. Of course, when I was back as a kid,
I spoke like this because that was that was the
Western time until I came on the office and I
realized I better get a different kind of voice to
to relay myself to these people here like that. Yeah,
so I was I was told I was a cowboy
up up to the office. Basically just dropped dropped the
twig like that. Actually, this is gonna lead me in.
(00:21):
We're gonna play a little game later on. But it
relates to what he just said, which I know is well,
it's maybe not true. It's bullshit. Hi, I'm Creed Bratton
and I played Creed Bratton on the Office. I'm also
a lot of different names to creditors, but I don't
(00:44):
want to get into that right now. Oh boy, folks,
strap on your hats. It's gonna be a Wendy one today.
It's me Brian Gardner, your host, here for a spanking
new episode of Off the Beat. Today. As you just heard,
(01:07):
I'm bringing back the one and only Creed Bratton, or
as you might know him, Creed Bratton from the Office,
or maybe you know him as Crypto Creed straight from
the Metaverse. We're going to talk about that and so
much more. I thought it was about time that we
dug a little deeper into this man, the man behind
(01:30):
the myth. I mean, who is Creed Bratton? What has
he done? What hasn't he done? Actually is more accurate.
We're going to get to the bottom of that. Well.
For the most part, Creed has lived a thousand lives,
and he has lived them all. Well, let me just
(01:52):
say that. So we're gonna go all the way back
to his early days being surrounded by creativity and music
here in sunny California. But we're also going to talk
about the time when he woke up covered in well
in bird poop and being attacked by wild dogs. There
was maybe two separate events. It's very hard to keep track. Also,
(02:14):
we're going to play a new game, my favorite new game,
Creed Bratton fact or fiction. He'll let us know. I
think he'll be surprised by some of the answers here.
He is a true joy, an American treasure, and a
great friend of mine. That's right, Creed Bratton. Here he
is for your listening to light, Bubble and Squeak. I
(02:43):
love it, Bubble and squeak, Bubble and Squeaker, cookie every
month left over from the nat Pole. There he is.
(03:06):
What's happening? What's up, Bra? How's it going? Good? Good?
Good to see you. Man. Now wait a second, now,
wait a second, familiar, I'm at your studio. I mean
you're You're in my studio and I'm not there. This
doesn't seem right. Yeah, it's it's okay, though, it's okay.
That's not it's weird. It's weird. It's weird. It's weird. Yeah,
(03:29):
what are you doing? What are you doing in my chair?
Don't adjust my chair. I'm not adjusting your chair. I
may be leaving a little little skid marks, though. You know,
why are we going there immediately? Why would I go
there right off the bat? Save that for later for
the dessert dessert line. Uh, it's so good to see you,
(03:50):
even though to see you and I'm in your space.
Get over it, just get over all right, It's all right, okay, good.
I saw that you just burned yourself on the internet.
Did you see that. That's pretty funny. We're gonna talk
about that. I'm very excited to talk about that and
how you felt that the dummy resembled you or not.
I thought it was a doppelganger, actually doppelganger. Really yeah,
(04:14):
it looks very similar. I thought. Did you know it
was supposed to be completely off? You know, that's the idea.
That's just the hilarity of it. You know, Okay, all right,
we're gonna talk about that. But you know, we we
talked on the earlier podcast, The Office Deep Dive about
William Charles Schneider Sneer, Yes, Schneider, But I wanted to
(04:38):
go a little more in depth to start out back
to your your childhood. You were born in California, right,
Los Angeles, Los Angeles. How do you think that that
affected your growth or development being a California boy. No,
like anything else, it's a it's a car culture. It's
show business, Ellie. But but that's that's being said. I didn't.
(05:02):
I was two years old when I left. We went
up to course school, California below Yosemite. So I grew
up in a little town of three hundred people. I
had a horse and there's a thousand acres I rode
around on. I went fishing and had had one of
those cowboy lifes, you know. I went four and at
four hour, two hours to school, two hours back on
a bus for four years. Really get The only school
(05:24):
that was up there they had to get to was
run by Edison company called Sierra Joint Union High School.
So we traveled two hours there and we were exhausted,
and we go to school and uh then bring him home.
It was always dark when I got off the bus,
Come home and have dinner, go to bed, and go
back to school the next day. Wow. Now you say
the school was California Edison. Now was that because of worker?
(05:47):
Did they start to school because of workers that were
because exactly right, Brian, they had workers who were building
the Edison damn, the damns and stuff like that up
in that area. And so we had a lot of money.
That school had a lot of it. We had always
brand new uniforms for sports of really great pools and auditoriums,
all new band uniforms, brand new instruments, which it was.
(06:09):
Everything was provided. When they'd sit there and you look
out your window, there'd be a deer or rabbit, you know, somebody.
You see a fox running across the lawn right outside
the school. It was pretty pretty amazing. Yeah. Wow, And
so did you this is not a joke. Did you
live like a cowboy life like wilderness e or I
mean you said you rode horses and we had a
(06:32):
little ranch and the people up there were we had
cowboy hats. Now, of course, when I was back as
a kid, I spoke like this because that was that
was the Western time. Until I came on the office
and I realized I better get a different kind of
voice to to relay myself to these people here like that. Yeah,
so I was. I was told I was a cowboy
up to up to the office basically just dropped dropped
(06:53):
the twang like that. Actually this is gonna lead me in.
We're gonna play a little game later on. But it
relates to what he just said, which I know is
well it's maybe not true. Ship now you you you
you stuttered as a child, I did, Oh, yeah, big time.
(07:14):
I was. I was. I was traumatized as a child.
I don't go we don't need to go in that.
My therapist needs. That's her work to do. But I
stuttered so bad at one time. I can remember the moment.
The answer was Kit Carson, and I looked around and
because she said, anybody the name of this name name
got it looked at nobody put the hand and went.
(07:34):
I knew what it was, you know, being sharp. So
I went and I said, yeah, chuck. She said, Chucky, chucky,
she said, And I went, and it's it's not. It's funny,
but it's not. Because I was crying, was traumatized. I
couldn't talk, and I just got up and they pulled
me out of class and I was out of school.
And they finally got it at somebody to come by
(07:57):
the school because they could afford to. And she had
me in class by just me and her, and she
talked and she had me attempt to stutter. She says,
try to stutter, And so I went through the mechanisms
of trying to emulate what I thought I sounded like.
Within a week, I was over it. And that time
(08:19):
I meet people like Andy Green, the guy that who
did the one of the office books. You know, he's
a stutter, and I talked. I discussed this with him
quite a bit too. You know. Um, I think sometimes
your mind is moving too fast for you, or you
are just basically I think it was traumatized as a child,
and you're you're you're afraid to to articulate because you're
(08:41):
going to get repercussions from from speaking your mind. It's yeah,
that's what it is that makes it gives you funny too. Yeah, well,
how how old were you at this time? I was, gosh,
probably eight nine in there in that something I get,
(09:03):
it's all. It's hard for me remember that stuff. But yeah,
and occasionally I would be on doing film or something
like that. It hasn't happened in a long time, but
once in a while I will see, I will see
coming about three lines away, possible world word that I
will stutter on, and so I will try to already
(09:24):
start correcting the word I was thinking about to get
to another statement, so I don't have to stutter. So
that that always keeps you on your toes mentally interesting. Wow,
so you're what did your parents do? My mom was
a housewife. My father, who was a lieutenant colonel in
the Air Force. He died when I was two, but
(09:47):
my mother remarried and she married a guy who was
a grocer, ran a managed a grocery store. She ended
up working for for a post office up there, so
she worked for the post office. He ran a grocery
store right in. Your grandfather was was an art director.
Is that my grandfather on my father's side was Gustaf
(10:08):
Adolf Schneider, And according to what I've told, I can't
seem to find the record on it, but everybody that
I've ever talked to says he was the art director
for Douglas Fairbacks Jr. I think Sinbad was one of
those who a pirate movie one of the one of
the big movies that he did, and he invented. Remember, Brian,
if you've ever seen those old um silent films, we
(10:29):
see the background the fences go and the scenery goes
back in the background, rolling like goes it goes around
like this out of roller. That's that's with his bit.
That's what the thing that he came up with, you know,
That's what I was doing. Can't finding documentation the revolvement said,
but I've heard they told me that since of a
little kid. So I'm gonna go with that, because why
(10:50):
would they tell me that if they were just making
up to impress a five year old kid. I don't
know why would they do that. I'm not thinking to
be impressed with it anyway, you know, right, So you
left l A when you were to not were you
close with your with your grandfather. I mean, did you
did you feel No? No, I didn't even know him,
(11:11):
and I didn't in my on my mother's side, that grandfather,
he was kind of a taciturn individual. So he showed
me how to play guitar. But it wasn't a lot
of there were a lot of warmth, let's say, as
a child. Yeah, so you weren't in the entertainment industry
at all. Your family had no, No, my grandparents had
a semi My grandparents, Dot and Charles had a semi
(11:32):
professional band called the Happy Timers in Long Beach, and
when I come down for the summer, it's been with them.
I'd see them do gigs and stuff, and I watched
them rehearse and stuff. So I heard all the Hank
Williams and the you know, the Texas playboys and people
like that. And I grew up on that Western Swing.
I heard a lot of Western Swing when I was
a kid, and he showed me my first chords on
(11:54):
a guitar. But of course I played trumpet since I
was a young young age and until up till I
went to college. But I think after my last my
senior year in high school, I stopped playing trumpet and
picked up a guitar. I've been I've been playing both
for a quarter a while. That time this was I
was eighteen, I still playing trumpet. So I started when
(12:16):
I was thirteen seventeen. I started working professionally up at
this place called the Falls with this group called the
tor Case and we would do you know, oh Donna,
Donna and Vicky Vallens and uh Ruby and the Originals
and you know things like that. We do all the stands.
See a minor F and G. That's all that. That's
(12:38):
basically all there was in the fifties. That's all you
had to know those four chords? What was it? What
are the four chords? C, A minor F and G. Bye, Brian,
Do you get your guitar see a minor F and
G in variations that will get you through the fifties? Yeah,
I'm not as I'm not as skilled as you see an,
(13:00):
I don't know. I can't any musician out there and go,
but they know what attracted you to music? Then? Was
it that experience or watching your grandparents do shows or
what what made you make the choice to get into music?
Uh trumpet? I just I just my mother played mandolin.
She was an expert, expert mandelin player. Stepdad played drums.
(13:23):
I heard. I knew my father had heard when I
when I became older enough to be cognizant of this fact.
He was supposed to be a very very good banjo player.
And but my mother was something that she would sit
there and play the man like this, and she put
her head back like this and just well, I'd be
sitting there going wow, but take her away. She was euphoric.
It was euphoric, and I loved hearing her play that.
(13:45):
So they started me out on tuba. You can meade
this little guy play to play tuba. Hated it. Finch horn,
the other reversed the tiny little thing. So I was
puckering on alum or something worked out and then finally
the trumpet piece, Thank you bro, you know you know.
Then then the then the the mouthpiece on the trumpet
(14:06):
fit fit right, and I like the sound. I like
the brassy, brassy sound it made. But guitar, I've ordered
a silver tone guitar from Sears and Robot. It came
that it wasn't really wasn't a buckboard within horse. It
actually was a truck that drove up this dirt road
towards to the rents, and they brought it out and
I took it out and I plugged the case. Was
(14:28):
the case that came in had a speaker in it.
So you take your cord, put in your guitar and
you plug it into you plug your guitar case had
to plug. You plug it into the wall, and then
you plug your guitar chord into the case. And then
I hit, I would I'd love link raise rumble, just
this chord, basic thing, link, raised rumble. I hit. I
(14:51):
turned it all the way up and hit this ecord
whang and it came through and just filled my visceral area,
you know that with that, just bomb hard with that
and I went and that was it. I was done.
That's all I wanted to do was play that guitar
and hear that and have that sound because soothed calmed me,
had calmed me down. It was wonderful. How old are
(15:12):
you at this point, gosh, fourteen fifteen? Did you start
taking lessons or were you No? No, I learned my ear.
I would listen to records and I just sit there
and listen to the records and just keep going over
and over and over with everybody because there was no Google.
There's nobody up there in the mountains to teach you anything.
So I just I got a chord book with chords,
and I listened to the thing, and I finally figured
(15:33):
it out, you know, just song by song, and I
figured and I was able to play piano. My mother
had an organ in there, and I was able to
sit down and go and play the blues and I
started figuring. I figured out the chords. Once I got
him on the guitar, I figured about on the piano,
and I could sit there and play like the basic
stuff on the piano too. But I'm not I write
on the piano, but I'm not that fast. Look I
have on guitar. Listen this is You don't seem to
(16:15):
think that this is is strange or interesting. But in
the last five minutes you've talked in terms of your family.
You've talked about mandolin, drums, You had a piano lying
around your parents, your grandparents were playing music that you
would go and listen to. And then you pick up
a guitar, and that gives you a visceral feeling. I mean,
you were inundated with music from a really early age.
(16:37):
That's that is not how I grew up. No, And
I thought when I got to school, I thought that
everybody knew how to play music. I didn't. I just
thought it was what everybody did, that you could probably
hear something and played by here by her and figure
it out. But I realized that not everyone was musical.
It took me a while to get get that, you know. Yeah,
So I didn't think it was a big deal when
(16:57):
I was doing it, but later on I I accept
the fact that not everyone could do it. Yeah, right,
when did you make the decision that this was something
that wasn't just a hobby, wasn't just something that gave
you a good feeling, but something that you wanted to pursue,
like to be a performer for a career. You know what.
I have to say, It was probably my I want
(17:20):
year wondering what year when it's with the with the
Beatles on Ed Sullivan had to be. Yeah, I was
gonna say sixty six three something in there that I'm
at Sacramento State and they're on a swim scholarship, and
it was it was a drama major, That's what I was.
(17:41):
So where I was there for and one day, I'm
walking out in the quadrant and I hear screaming and
I go up to the there's a sorority there and
there's nobody around, and I'm becoming from from the library something.
And I walked in and the doors opened, and I
you know, and I just said, well, I didn't know anybody,
didn't know any girls that I kind of walked in
and I see all these girls around this TV and
(18:01):
the Beatles, and they're screaming and yelling. And I walk
up and I look at these girls. I look at
the Beatles and I go, oh, my god. That talking
about a something. You know, it's still like a gaspalt
image or a paradigm shift in your consciousness. Trust me,
my friend, that was the one. And I just went, oh, okay,
(18:23):
this this is power, because you know, when you when
you had girls come up to you after the after gigs,
when I was like seventeen eighteen, you know, and you
had your you had all the girls from l A
coming up there to these little challenging you're playing guitar,
It was okay. But this Beatle thing, that's a whole
other level. And I think you, okay, maybe a creed
needs to look into Well, I wasn't create yet. I
was still Chuck. But Chuck Chuck into I was still Chuck.
(18:46):
Chuck needs to look into this. This this this might
bear appraising some some to some degree. Did you speak
to Chuck in the third person like you speak to
Creed and the person was that was like, I don't
you know how you guys have messed me up ever
since that thing? You know, it's very funny. I do.
(19:09):
I did on I talked to talk to him about
when people, So I'm talking to people, I say, it's
the character or me or the actor, you know, comment
in on one of the others. It gets confusing being me,
you know, it is very very confusing being you keeping
all the stories straight. So you pick up music because
of the girls in the sorority. It's always it's always
(19:29):
the girls, Brian and the love and by the way,
the love of the music. I love music. When I'm
playing guitar and I write a great a song that
I really love, I'm inspired, I'm lifted up. There's a
euphoria that occurs, you know, it's it still does. I'm
seventy nine and I just wrote a song recently, and
I got through the song and I'm just man some wonder.
(19:51):
It's still a wonderful thing. I still don't know where
they come from, how it works. They just come and
you write them down. It's amazing. I've seen you have
that experience songs that you know you're singing that you
wrote long, long ago. But there's a euphoria that happens,
something almost chemical, spiritual, that happens inside you when you
(20:16):
get lost creating something. Well you you know it. We
all all artists know this. You know, that's that's when
you're it comes from outside. Saturday, I was at my
granddaughter Isabella's birthday and we went bowling and then they
went laser tagging. You know. So my son said, you're
going to be on this team here, you know, the
(20:38):
green team, and I'll be on the red team. And
when you and the kids and to be there and stuff.
So you know, with me, when I when when when
I when something happens, I just you know, oh yet
do the comic face with Greg Dan was always loved
you know, he loves me. So when the first time
I got shot, all the kids looked and they laft
(21:00):
and they laughed and left, and I talked about the
joy that gave me. Well, the red team was laughing
and the Green team laughed so much my own team
started shooting me just to see my my reaction. They
wouldn't even let me have the recharge, and you know
they kept shootings. Right, that's awesome. But you you went
(21:23):
to school for drama, so you were interested in acting
then early on, or at least, I mean I had
the same the same guy that taught Tom Hanks. He
went to Sacramento State and saying the same drama coach. Yeah,
it was a good school. It was a good school.
It wasn't a great school, but for drama, they had
a really good program there. Right when did your music
career start to take off? Oh? What it would be?
(21:46):
The grassroots? I had spent with their young the Torques
up there that I played bands, the Leanders to school
college to make money on the weekends. And then in Europe,
I was with the young Californians two years, traveling around Europe,
hitching across North Africa, through the up to Romanian Bulgaria,
(22:06):
through East Germany, all over the place too, Scandy nave
I did at all? How did you traveled in Europe before? No?
I just hitchhiked all over we hitch I hitchhike for
two years with my guitar on my back. How was that?
How so you haven't traveled. I've never been there before. Amazing,
but I had. I got on a Swiss freighter and
I arrived with twenty five dollars in my pocket, which
(22:29):
was gone in a short period of time. You know,
I got drunk with these locals, with my friend Mickey
Miguel was there, had me brought a guitar with me.
Some local hands me a guitar and I started singing
that bwine comes out. We're dancing around next thing I know.
And this is honest to God. This is not a criticism,
honest to God, truth, Brian. I wake up the next
morning in the sun set in my face and I'm
(22:50):
gonna that that horrible taste of my mouth. And I
looked down and I'm in the St. Mark's Square with
pigeon ship all over my clothes, ghostly, and yeah, yeah,
that was that was Welcome to Europe. That was my
first day in Venice. And uh then we hit stake
up to Copenhag. It's you know, I'm gonna write, I'm
gonna write my book. Rain Rylson won't let me get
(23:12):
out of this life without doing my book, so I'll
do it. But yeah, I played all over the place,
and then in Israel I was working on this movie
called My first film, Cast a Giant Shadow with Frank Sinatra,
Youule Brenner, John Wayne All these People was a big,
big movie, Mills Shabelson and we did a we we
we took off from work and we did this folk
(23:34):
festival and this guy, Warren Ittner comes back and said, hey,
you know, you play guitar, and we should think about something.
So he gave me his number, and when I got
to l A, which is the first time I've been
in l A except for Long Beach since I was
a little kid, I called him up and within one
week and one week we put a band together and
playing the topless bar out in the valley and it
(23:55):
had and this is no joke, the girl, a girl
you know with totally totally paste did the worly bird thing. Yeah.
I just did the worly bird. If you can see it,
you can, they can't see they just hearing right, No,
they okay, But so I had the worly bird things,
you know, and I'm there, and the she was on
(24:15):
a swing, so we would we'd be singing like this,
and she swings, so I'd have to be the microphone.
I'd go and she'd swing by, and I come back
in and sing on the micro and then pull away
like this when she was on this, that was that's
that's welcome to the show biz. That's what that's. It's unbelievable.
It's true. It's absolutely true. Now, wait, there's so much
(24:37):
swun packer. You're traveling around Europe hitchhiking with a guitar
on your back, and you end up in Israel and
with two other guys we meet. There's two other guys,
Greg and Lee. Okay, and there were all the young
Californias were trio and worked at harmonies place. Well, we
couldn't hitchhike together because no just pick us up, so
we had to separate to get you know, sometimes we're
(24:59):
like can algery. I spent two nights sleeping on the
side of the road in the dirt, in my sleeping bag.
You know, wild dogs attacking me. I know that's not
that's not. Yes, hey, I'll take a lie detective test.
Wild dogs are attacking the dirt and Algery I slept
on the dirt and alger but the obolutely that's wrong.
(25:21):
The wild dogs attacked us after a show in Libya
at the Wadan Hotel. We were in Libya and we're
just going and we're going to meet these people from
the Mobile Oil. We're gonna take us, fly us out
in the We went five hundred miles on the Sahara
Desert to play for the Mobile Oil. And we're on
the we're on the way after one of our shows
working at this club and these wild dogs and we
(25:42):
went back to back and we were banging using our
guitarists and instruments and kicking at these wild dogs. They
were attacking us. That's an honest to god truth. These
are stray dogs or these are like they're stray feral
dogs gadding up in. It's wild feral dogs. Wow. I
would have been scared. I would been scary that because
(26:07):
they got big power, they got big powerful jaws. Okay,
but wait a second, I'm trying to paint the picture.
You're getting attacked by wild dogs. You're asleep, and that's separate.
That's first, as Algeria understand, I'm sleeping Algeria. Yeah, and
then you're getting attacked by wild dogs in Libya and
then you end up in Israel. But how do you
(26:30):
end up in a Frank Sinatra movie in Israel when
you're just hitch? Is this just like, hey, guys, you
want to be in a show? What is happening? We
went all the way across to Egypt, and I think
we played for uh NASA's daughter. Nasa daughter daughters came
to a TV show and she and we played. We
entertained her on this TV show and I went behind
(26:52):
the three m machines that were recording. Instead of little
caps on the back of the wires, they had just
they were just the wires were just stuck together professional
given the wars for twist to the back, we went,
oh my god. Anyway, so we got there. We went
to the head. We were going all the way down
(27:14):
to South Africa. That was our plan. We were gonna
be all the way down and that would have been crazy.
We've probably gotten eaten for sure by bigger animals and
wild dogs. But the Congolese were running guns at the
time in the Sudan at that time in nineteen sixty four.
They wouldn't let us through. It wouldn't stamp our passport
and let us in, so we went back and we
(27:35):
got a boat to Bay Route. We played at this
place called the kit Cat Club, which was a brothel
and then the people, like the people for the Sheiks
from Kuwait would come there and the white rolls royces
with the gold stuff on the front, and it was
a front for a for a brothel. But we play
in this cabaret in front and by the way, by
(27:55):
Rout was such a beautiful city at that time. We
broke my heart when I saw the war happen to it.
It was Paris on the Mediterranean. It was amazing, the
coolest people, amazing food, gorgeous city. And then we went
to uh Syria and then into Jordan's and then to
mantelbomb Gates to go into Israel, and we came in
(28:16):
there and we got an impresario and we started playing
clubs up in town, up and down the coast of Israel,
occer in places like that. So I'm body surfing one
day in the Outlow Surf and I met Michael Douglas,
and Michael Douglas was working there because his father was there.
He was He's one of the A d s. He
was like our age, you know, and we hit it
off and he and I said, we're having problems now,
(28:39):
but we can't get out of here because we won't
we don't have enough money to take a boat or fly,
and they won't let us go back through with with
the Israeli stamp back through the Arab countries. We were stuck.
And he said, wait a second, he said, let me
talk to the people, and he, Michael Douglas, made it possible,
his friend, because we've got became friends. So he got
(28:59):
us working and we worked as grips and stuff we
did all kinds of errands were just right for shorts,
no shirts, hammers. We ran around, did all the work
you could. You know. I got a picture I'll send
it to you of us singing with Kirk Douglas on set. Yeah, unbelievable. Yeah. Yeah.
So you were working as a as grips and doing
(29:20):
basically doing any kind of base on odd jobs on
this movie just to make money, yea, so that you
could get out of Israel, so we could get out
of Israel. And that worked. You got out clearly at
some point, obviously clearly clearly, right, Yeah, so what you
ended up taking a boat to wear? Well, I this
is pretty long, dog. I gotta I gotta write this book. Yeah.
(29:41):
I fell in love with the director's daughter, Mel Shield's
daughter Lynn, So we went off to the Greek Islands.
We went to Rhodes and crete and uh uh, and
we stayed back two weeks, run around on scooters, you know,
just doing doing what lung lovers do, you know? And
then she went back to school. And then I had
I got my draft notice in um Cairo and I
(30:05):
had to go apply for the draft. I got to
go sign up for the draft in Berlin, and I
had months away, so I was on deadline then to
get to there before they come and arrest me because
I was out of college. And so I said, well,
I gotta do it. I gotta do it. And I
hitchhiked all the way there and then and then first
and I went in there and they came outside and
said you your father was an officer in the in
(30:28):
the military. Yeah, your only son. Yep, you have broken
ear drum. And they got an elbow in in sports,
said yep, get out of here. There were seemed angry
with me too. I went, I went, I was just like,
oh my god, I was just like I was over
the moon. You couldn't even imagine I was so did
not We knew the story in Vietnam by this time.
(30:49):
We knew it was not an honorable It wasn't an
honorable war. Let's be let's face it. And uh, I
just I kind of knew this was a bad, bad
thing for me to do, but I felt obligated because
my father was in and uh, this is what a
guy did. You had you couldn't you didn't shirk your
your duty. I was an American. I was proud of that.
But then I didn't have to go. I was obviously
(31:10):
relieved too. Buddy, you're gonna will imagine. Wow, eventually you
come back to the States. Eventually come back to the
States and you start sing with the grassroots. You formed
the grassroots? Yep, well, well the grassroots were formed. But
we I Warren and Rob and Ricky and I, yes,
(31:31):
we took over. They did one Pflann album song called
where Were You When I Needed You that they had recorded,
and the group the Better Ones from the Bay Group,
they came and started playing. They didn't want to do it,
so they had this semi hit song. They needed a
band and we were playing down right next to the
whiskey at the London Fog. So our manager said, you know,
he heard about this, and he submitted our demo tape
(31:54):
a song called Beating around the Bush that Warren and
I wrote. That's what she said. I don't because that's stretch. Stretch,
that's a stretch. It's all right, no, no, no, it's okay.
I'm I'm in your chair, So just be careful what
you say. And so this this becomes your first real success, right,
(32:15):
I mean like big success. Oh yeah, big success. Yeah,
you know, number one records and gold, gold records and
stuff like that. Sure, absolutely, it was a big It
was a huge. And you can imagine me come from
this little tiny town, never having a pot to piste
and all of a sudden, I'm gonna Porsche, living out
in Malibu and flying around and playing shows doing you know,
(32:36):
it's playing all these amazing artists doing the big, big
shows stuff on stage. You know, it was pretty heavy stuff.
I don't know if it's any heavier than the office,
but it was pretty heavy. Why why did you leave
the grassroots? I left because I think you know the
story of my dropping acid at the film wore I'm
sure you know this is a famous story. I've heard this.
I don't know if it's true or not. It's true,
(32:57):
it's absolutely true, absolutely true. And uh, and when I
do my book, there's so much stuff this is I'm
just I'm just scratching at the surface. This goes, this
is in depth, stuff that happened. I'm gonna put say
away at the end of everything I say, I'm gonna
put in little marks on stuff that I may or
may not have said, but I'm gonna mark all. And
most people sell these stories are not true. I will
(33:18):
take a lot of detector tests and ascertain they're true.
You know, I don't. I don't have to make this
stuff up. This stuff happened, Ryan. They don't need to
make up stuff because it's all so good. Anyway, I
dropped acid, uh, and I couldn't play and UH dropped
my pants on stage, just walked off naked and waved
(33:41):
the audience, and we had to come back and make
the show up the next week. Bill Graham hated me
from that moment on, and I didn't really have a
lot of sense of humor about that kind of stuff,
So it was kind of the uh it was time
was running out for Creed and it was and that's
the reason I left the group. They didn't want me
to go. That was not the case at all. I
(34:03):
was getting frustrated because we get back from tour and
the Wrecking Crew, which I played with for the first
couple of albums, Warren and I did, They've recorded stuff,
they want us to put vocals on it. And I said,
come on, man, this is I'm playing live. Let's let
me just play the guitar. I've done it before. There's
no problem there. So that's that's That was the the
(34:25):
catalyst that made me. I just finally said when they
find if you're not happy, and I said I'm not happy.
It was it was both. It was a mutual agreement.
They if you're unhappy, and I said I'm not. So
I took a settlement, which was more than I ever thought.
Then I went off lived out in Malibu for a
while and went off to Europe for a while. And
then as soon as I got uh got divorced, I
(34:46):
went I realized that I had to get back into
stuff that I was good at. Besides, because I trying
to get solo career going nothing, what's going on? So
I went and studied the Meister method in l A
with Charles Conrad for about a year and a half
and and I worked. I did a play at the
Odyssey Theater with Bow Bridges directing, and uh, Jenny Sullivan
and John Crosby. This very very famous agent, major agent
(35:10):
manager in l A at the time, saw me and
signed me up. And then I worked. I worked for
a couple of years with him, just getting me gigs
and uh. And then next thing I studied, stayed in class,
work did all kinds of odd jobs. And I was
in class the week before when I was on Bernie
Mac and Ken Kappas came on. Boom said I wanted
(35:34):
to be on the show because my gut level, I said,
I want to do this. Put me in the background,
and I realized, you guys already cast. I had to
do something. So I wrote my own talking head, gave
it to great and everyone said, you don't do that,
You don't do stuff like that. He said, why not?
I did it work because it was funny that the
(35:54):
Gauds they did that. The thing was funny. That's why
(36:17):
what's your what's your favorite thing? About working as an
actor as opposed to maybe a musician or anything else.
What do you enjoy the most? I think, and I
think you you'll totally relate to. This is the family,
the camaraderie, that the participation. We're all in there making
this product, and we're all given and taken to to
(36:37):
make the final finest piece of work we can. When
you're up on stage, it's all me. But but when
you're in a player or something like this, you're you're
working in with a group of people. And I love that,
you know me, I I just I was like everybody else.
I just love going to work and doing what we did.
There was so much and look at us. We're all
still family, the whole cast still, you know. And yeah,
(37:00):
you know if we've talked about here and elsewhere, like
you know, so many people that you don't see who
are also a part of it. You know, there's a
hundred and twenty people or whatever, and all those people too,
and the crew. The crew. I still see Matt Son,
camera guy. I go hike with him still all the time. Yeah,
I know, I know he's the best. Let me ask you,
(37:22):
let's see if this makes any sense. If you know
what I mean, what is your most embarrassing acting credit?
Do you have one? So many to choose from bright
and mine? So mine. I don't know why I started
thinking about this this morning. Actually, Mine, what you told me?
Yours first, and I'll tell you mine. I'll tell you mine,
(37:44):
which is actually not It's not that it's terrible. It
was a short film and it was basically there are
a couple of other people who are in it, but
it's basically me and the actor Kevin rom who's amazing,
you know, in Madman monkst like fifteen other shows. But
it's called Moosecock. Oh and and so I always hope
(38:13):
you were the title character. Go when when doing you know,
doing a Q and A or something. There is undoubtedly
someone is gonna talk to me about how much they
appreciate my work in Moosecock. And they keep saying yes,
bringing up Moosecock, and it's yes, So that's mine. It's
just it has just has to do with the name
(38:34):
of it. You're lucky direct to have that story. You
have a story, You have a story like that, you know, Okay,
I when I was on the office, I got it.
They give me to give us all time up to
do stuff. I went and I did Terry with John
c Riley and it did all. It went to Sundance
and we get all the swag and I'm really really
happy with my part. And I thought, Okay, here I go,
(38:56):
here I go, and no one saw it. No one's on. Now.
That wasn't embarrassing. That wasn't was an embarrassing. Then later
I got to set a script for this movie called
The Ghastly Love of Johnny X, and the guy Paul
Brunel was doing a script funny kind of a sci
fi musical, semi kind of a horror thing, you know,
(39:20):
in a way weird way, but funny tongue in cheek,
and he was using all the black the last of
the black and white quote of Chroma X film the film,
and he got the larry last bit of it. We're
shooting in short ends for this whole film. We worked
our ass and he had shot it with the first crew,
and then he came back I think four to six
years later with the same group of people that added
(39:42):
some other characters like myself, and I came in as
this dead alien. The alien who had come from another planet,
became a rock star and had died and then his
son comes in with the resurrection suit and brings back
to life. I think it's like Rocky Picture Rocky Horror
Picture show. I think it's fun. As soon as I wait,
waited and waited to see what's gonna have seen, people
(40:03):
are going to see it. And it came out. And
the year it came out, it came in the trades
the lowest grossing movie of that year. It was made
tack a thousand, seventeen hundred dollars. It's like my heart
just saying, that's so, if you want embarrassing, there's embarrassing
(40:23):
right there. Yeah. Paul Williams was in it. Hysterically funny,
so much fun stuff, so much tongue in cheek stuff,
you know. And I I was just talking about chewing
up the scenery and I was just having so much fun. Um,
I've invented a new game. Yes, we're gonna play the
first time I've ever played Moosecock. No, it's not Mooscock.
(40:44):
It's called Creed Broughton Factor Fiction. If I had theme music,
actually I should have you in the future, right the
theme music for Factor Fiction. This is Factor Fiction with
Creed Broughton. I already have like seven other questions from today.
Are you doing this? What you're doing this with other
people too? Well, I don't know. I just I just
invented it because it seemed appropriate for you. But yeah, no,
(41:08):
I'll do it with other people. This is gonna go
so well, we'll do it with other people. Okay, we
know this already. And because this is the thing, if
you've been listening for the last forty five minutes, things
that Creed says, you're never exactly sure if it's fact
or if it's fiction. And he likes it that way,
but this is our own life. I've got him connected
(41:28):
to a lie detector. I don't, but we're gonna pretend
that I do. You could, we could, and we're gonna
we're gonna determine whether things from the office, things that
have been said are fact or are they fiction. And
let me ask you a question, quick, Bryant. Just create
the actor or the human being or create the character. No,
(41:49):
this is the human being. Well, because because Creed Bratton
is Creed Bratton to some extent, and and and many
stories about your life we're into and it's called Creed.
I mean, the character is called Creed Bratton and your
Creed Bratton and maybe stories from the office were from
your life or at least versions true or yeah, exactly
(42:12):
are they that writers would take variation to hear me
talk mumbling to myself, they followed me around the right stuff? Okay,
that's okay, all right? Factor fiction? Were you a radio
DJ and the seventies that went by the name wacky
Weed creed false? False? Okay? Fiction? You mean this is
(42:32):
called factor of fiction, so that's fiction, factor fiction? Okay fiction?
Did you play yourself in the office on a given day?
There was certainly, um a futuristic aspect of it if
he was on state on drugs, So it's it's I
(42:53):
can't really say factor because it was when I wrote that,
when I wrote the Guy, which they based that on,
that it's talking hid that I made. He was very exactly.
I think I've talked to you about this on the
show before. He was me on steroids with the like
a crack tuning fork. I think was the analogy I
gave you on your show. So it's certainly doesn't he
(43:14):
wasn't introspective as I am. But but yeah, but you know,
it intends on what what's going on at the time. Yeah,
you know what we're gonna call that. We're gonna call
that faction. I like that. I used to admit that. Fact.
That's a fact. That's a faction. Okay, that's fact. Do
you do you know how to scuba dive? Fact? Fact?
(43:35):
Do you know how to scuba dive? Okay? I love snorkeling.
I've never learned to scuba dive. That's a fact about
I can't anymore. I used to. I used to have
you used to so I used to have the think
the whole thing and do it. Yeah. Have you ever
worked in an office? False fiction? You've never worked in
an office? That you know how rare that is. That's
(43:55):
incredibly rare. That. Yeah, that you never did? Well, you
know now we know you came from, you know, wearing
cowboy hats on the farm, cowboy hats and stuff, riding
to horses and yeah. Have you ever been in any
form of or led a cult? No? I thought you
(44:19):
might say you had been in on a version of
one to do it. But but you're you're a friend.
I'm not gonna I'm not gonna bullshit yet. Okay, alright, perfect,
Have you ever actually dressed up for Halloween. Yes, of
course you had a fact generally go as myself now,
but yeah, that's what I do. Um, I've actually admitted
(44:41):
this game for this very question. Have you ever snorted
something off of a strippers body part at the Playboy
Mansion with Jim Morrison? Faction snorted. I've definitely snorted some
(45:01):
stuff there, but not with Jim. No, okay, not with Jim. Okay,
all right, that was my all time favorite. You're throwing
that out and then the room stops cold. That reminds
me of the time I was at the Playboy Mansion
with him. What did he just say? Um, can you
use a computer? Rudimentary? You know? I can? I'm actually
(45:23):
not that well. These people here would open the portal
and and Propagate would say no, But I can. I
can do I can. I can answer my I can
answer emails, let's say, you know, and maybe send a photo.
Or I can pick musical files and hear stuff. Okay,
musical files. That's close. Being able to answer an email
(45:46):
is not necessarily being able to use a computer. Just
for the record, Okay, I can. I can take download files,
play something on my computer and then send it back
to somebody. How about them apples without looking around or
asking anyone who might be there. Do you know what
n f T stands for? Non fungible tokens? Perfect? But
(46:10):
when I first heard it, I thought they were talking
about sponges, non spongebo non spongeable tokens. And then they
said something else, and then my mind, you know me,
and then I don't But I don't hear it correctly.
I don't like am I just dyslectic mentally? So I
heard and then I heard fungus, and I thought it
was something to do with mushrooms, and it's now but
(46:33):
but now they finally explained to me what it is.
And now now I'm embracing the metaverse. You know, this
is a great thing for me to be. Cryptocrete is
at home now in this betaverse. Speaking of fungible have
you ever put wacky mushrooms on a pizza? I've done
my share of mushrooms, but not on a pizza. Wouldn't
I wouldn't be a little bit. I'd be over and
(46:54):
I'll be over indulgent. You know, are you the scrand
and strangler? You know, when I was at that trial
for Toby, and I can't just come from the Halloween party,
and I had covered in blood, and I went back
in the back room at the courtyard, and I saw
(47:15):
the courthouse and I saw that he was at there testifying,
and there was the photographers stare and the Bereefs family,
the Breeze, the family of the people that he killed.
And you know, Brian, they never noticed me, never paid
any attention. Let's just say they got the wrong guy. Okay,
that's fair enough. There you go, Factor Fixtion. There that
(47:37):
was it. You've conquered the music world. You've conquered that game.
You've conquered and acted about that, and you've taken the
TV world by storm, as they say. Now you're moving
on to non fungible tokens the metal verse. I saw
the burning video. How how fun was that? So and
(48:00):
so much so much fun, you know. And and by
the way that I got burnt to a little bit
during that thing you did. Yeah, I got burnt, but
we got They bought me some alabara and it's healed
up pretty good. Now. How does burning flesh smell like
mushroom pizza? That's very good? Um? Why the n f
(48:21):
T world, I mean, I you're perfect for it. Number
one so let me just say that, thank you, thank you.
But well, you know who I am? You know I am? Yeah, Well,
it's age, it's age. There's like you know, they're putting
on the shoes getting out of bed, the creaky than
like the sounds like God, the crack of the bones
in the morning when you're waking up and now. But
in the metaverse, I'm just free. I'm just that can
(48:44):
fly and go to through universes. It's just it's a
freedom that I that I love to experience. Brian, I
loved the video. I can't wait to see the actual thing.
Although what I'm gonna have to pay? What am I
gonna have to pay? No? You are You've You've already
been sent one. Don't worry. I've been I've been sent Yes,
(49:05):
what is it? What is it worth? Now? Can I
sell it already? You could sell it right now and
probably really, you know, pay off your mortgage. It's gonna
be sucking, should be. Maybe you know what we've talked about.
You're worried about saying, fuck the idea. We should not
be concerned about it. First of all, Okay, okay, you
(49:26):
know me, I'm a little bit b botanical and doesn't matter. Yeah, exactly,
Alien chicken. Why alien Chicken? Um, well, I don't if
I ever sent you the album, I think I probably
did tell me about it. I used to have this
fantasy about chickens, and I thought, because you I love chicken,
you know, chicken and chicken salads and chicken sandwiches and chicken.
(49:49):
Impost chicken who doesn't live chicken? And I one day
I was thinking about aliens, and I'm thinking, I wonder
if the chickens and alien chickens taste better? Are different?
So I started thinking about alien chicken, and just I
had to call my company Alien Chicken Ink. And so
then the album tell me about it. You see me
there being interviewed by one of my big chickens. He's there.
(50:09):
He's a reporter for Rolling Stone. He's interviewing me. So
that's always been my company. And when we decided to
do uh uh talking with Lynn who worked with you
and now me on then the she uh, she's well,
just the ALIENI and chicken be cryptocreede alien chicken because
it's already there. So that's what that's that's where it is, man,
it's there. It's their congratulations. Oh man, thank you and
(50:34):
thank you so much for having me on. Man, it's
good to say. And there's the only time I get
to see you was on this little screen. But you know,
go down I gotta get down south and visit you know,
one of these days, you do, I say, our next reunion.
I think we got to convince Rain to host and
maybe take a ride on the zonkey. I hear he's
(50:54):
got like an albino peacock. Now he's got this farm.
It'll remind of your of your youth. Have you've been
in to smooth place? You know? I have just passed by, couldn't.
Walter his son who was born on the show. He's fifteen. Now, Brian,
I'm there. I'm playing one of my songs. You know,
(51:17):
he asked me. I brought my guitar and I'm jamming.
Walter is playing solid guitar, jamming alongside of me, and
it's like it's mine mind boggling. You know, a great kid.
It's a great kid. The two of you need to
do a song. I think that's a good idea. Yeah, no,
I'll I'll collaborate with anybody, you know, I love that's
(51:37):
some of the best work sometimes, you know, you're working
on your tenth album right, when is this we're gonna
working on my tent working. I don't know, it's I've
just got into my third song, just on my third song. Okay,
so I wasn't out there in the metaverse, I'd probably
getting more work done. Well, you're you're here, you're there,
(51:59):
you're rewhere everywhere. But what what what? What are you
working on it? Because I'm sorry, folks out there, I
know this is but but I need to find catchup,
be friend, to find what the hell he's doing now,
do you know what I'm I am so enjoying these
conversations that I'm having with people right now. Truly, I
am loving, loving doing this and hearing stories like from you,
(52:20):
which I know some but still not all, and sharing Yeah,
these stories and experiences with people. I'm just enjoying it
so so much. I get it, I get I say,
I feel it. It's just kind of great. Great. Yeah,
well we're long overdue, my friend, I know. Virtual hug,
big virtual hug, biggest virtual hug. I love I love you,
(52:44):
thank you so much. I love you. Thank you for
the n f T. I'm gonna go pay off my mortgage,
but I probably won't because I want to keep it.
I want it's gonna get worth it'll be worth more.
Don't want to get rid of it enough save it's kidding.
I want to own a piece of you. Yeah, I'm
I'm not the whole are horror highest bidder? Okay, see
(53:04):
we can we can cut that out. I know. Yeah,
please do Creed, my friend. I cannot wait to go
(53:26):
ride a zookey with you. Thanks for stopping by my
old stomping grounds. Always great to talk to you. Don't
do anything to my chair. Thanks to everyone else for
tuning in. Don't forget to follow us on the old
Instagram at Off the Beat to stay up to date
with the latest and greatest. And if you've been liking
(53:47):
what you've been hearing, why not leave a review for
us on Apple Podcasts or comment directly to me. I
promise I am listening. Next week, I'm going to be
back with a well with a person of many talents.
You'll see, have a great week. Off the Beat is
(54:14):
hosted an executive produced by me Brian Baumgartner, alongside our
executive producer Langley. Our producers are Diego Tapia, Liz Hayes,
Emily Carr and Hannah Harris. Our talent producer is Ryan
Papa Zachary. Our theme song Bubble and Squeak performed by
my great friend Creed Bratton, and the episode was mixed
(54:36):
by Seth o'landski
Host
Brian Baumgartner
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