Bruce Hornsby

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Quess Love Supreme is a production of I Heart Radio.
Ladies and Gentlemen. What's Up? This is another episode of
Coess Love Supreme. I'm your host, Quess Love Jenkins. We're
with Team Supreme today. Shook a Steve in the house
love Hello, Quarantine Steve? Uh, quarantine Jo? What's up? Man?

(00:24):
How are you doing? Holding it down? Okay it's astrick
or just definitive it holding it? Send me calling down?
Everything's good? Uh? Working on the music for the street.
All's well, okay, I gotta keep the streets happy. And
uh Frantaolo, I'm good brother, I'm good man doing the

(00:45):
work as well. I can't complain cool cool all right.
Mark Yesterday is a Grammy Award winning singer, songwriter, and
producer composer. He has actually come to us in many
forms over the past, for real, for real, either as
a soloists or fronting one of his many projects. It
sounds like quest low either. Remember the range the Noisemakers

(01:10):
at one point Ambrosia and Ambrosia. Yes, not really, but okay,
we'll take it. We'll take it. Um you know not,
wait a minute, you know what? And I often do this.
I'm not interrupting my own intro. Yes or no, I'm
all right, I'm a Soul Train collogist. Is that you

(01:31):
want soul Train with Sheena Easton? That's hilarious. You've nailed me. Yes, Yes,
I just gods from downtown. No, I didn't even know.
I think like I have all the episodes and I
keep them on loop. And like three weeks ago she

(01:51):
was on doing Sugar Walls and I was like, wait
a minute, and that was okay, okay, okay, Well, yeah,
there's a funny story about it. Look, I played with
her for two years and uh, and sure we did
so trained and I up there looking like a complete clown.
Most likely that I haven't seen that for years. But

(02:13):
I'll tell you what, as a as a parent of
a Division one basketball player who's now a pro in Germany,
I used that to uh for a great benefit. He was.
He played Max Son Keith played at l s U
and he was live on national TV is junior year
maybe against TESSAs San l on ESPN one, and he

(02:34):
had a pretty rough game. And we're back at the hotel,
the Cook Hotel on L s U campus, and he's
just bumming. He's really down and I said, you know what,
I'm gonna change your mood right now. Go to YouTube
and look up China Easton Strut and Nichina Eastern Sugar
Walls featuring me looking like a complete idiot. And so
he looked at his dad just sort of undulating around

(02:57):
with sun glasses on, and it just just fell out,
and his mood chains just like I predicted. And so,
you know what, whatever works to help your kids get
through the tough times. My clown dish appearances in Sina
videos worked well, I assure you. Exaggerating LEAs and Joe anyway,

(03:18):
and say I forgot were still in the intro? Yeah,
who's on the show? Hold? I never did a lot
of second We didn't even talk about his work with Dejonette,
Jack Desonette and my high school mate Christi McBride. Yes,
Philadelphia schoolmates. Yes, yeah, not to mention, Um, you know
your your musicianship, your DNA is all over our favorites

(03:41):
by Bonnie Rate, uh, Don Henley, so many projects. This
intro is gonna be forever at least. Uh he played
with Squeeze what yep when I don't know on Wikipedia?
Just to be accurate, I played on one I played
on one of their records, a great record of walk
a Straight Line. It's a beauty, beautiful but you know

(04:03):
that one. It's a it's a great not a hit,
but it's a beautiful song. Squeeze head. What album is
it on? It's so called play Early midnightties. Uh and
I played accordion. Yeah, let me just say the two
words that we can start the episode. Bruce Hornsby the
Quest left Creak. Thanks anyway, we yeah, we often not

(04:28):
fall in the rabbit holes even before we get the
name of the artist who cares. It's fine, Bruce Hornsby
Eastern Veterans. So right now you're celebrating the release of
your twenty second record, correct, that's that's true, sir. So,
So without my knowledge of your your your deadhead years,

(04:48):
can I can I assume that the fact that you
have about I believe it is twenty six live albums,
that's the less and that you learned from playing with
the Grateful Dead. Well, okay, people always ask me, what
how did playing with the Dead change your musicianship, change

(05:08):
your approach, et cetera. I was always an improvising musician.
I went to school. I was one of those music
school geeks. I started off at Berkeley for two semesters,
but then I went to University of Miami. Sun Tan,
you known to a lot of people for your paid
vacation for rich nordern kids. Uh, Northern white kids anyway. Uh.

(05:31):
I came out with that background, and so the improvisational
aspect of the Dead was not anything that was sort
of epithanal for me, epiphanic. It was what what I
got out of them, mostly, uh was inspiration on the
songwriting level. People don't realize that they have fully fifty

(05:52):
truly great songs. Half of them sound like they could
have been written a hundred years ago or plus old
folk music a d well of of influence there. So
so I love them. I missed Garcia. He was quite
a guy. He was a rock during the years. Oh yes,
the last spot I played with him just for twenty

(06:15):
months or so. I played about a hundred shows with
them from eight from the n to ninety two. We'd
opened for them before that. Okay, oh he played the
ninety two Okay, Yeah, But then I was sitting with
them when they were geographically close to me up through
ninety five, right up to his dead Okay, So, yeah,
I went to one Garcia show I think in Houston

(06:36):
when U Brandford Marcellus was Yes, my guy. Yes, Brandford
and I played together with the Dead quite often. Uh
it's his birthdays coming up here pretty soon, fellas, So
maybe you should shout his ass out. Are you on
without a net? The Dead? La? No, that's Branford's on that, Okay.

(07:00):
To to to respond to the twenties six live albums
to which you're referring, Uh, that's albums. I mean they're
just available online there. No, there's no CDs made of those.
But frankly, we're like a lot of bands. I write
the songs, we record the songs, and then we learned
how to play the songs. So consequently the live thing

(07:22):
expands everything that we started with on the original record,
and so so quite often live is the best way
to hear us because it's very loose, it's very free.
Branford sits in with us quite often because he knows
that we're winging it like crazy because I don't know
what I'm gonna do. So if I don't know what
I'm gonna do with the band, guys, definitely done and
it makes it great fun is it. Is there a

(07:42):
pressure for you to make a memory each and every night,
knowing that some of these fans we'll follow you like
there there to me is no more loyal fan base
then you know, anything associated with the dead, Yes, that
means within it. So yeah, that's having that affects your

(08:03):
actual the way that you put orange shows. I think
I probably started taking a little more out than I
had been doing. You know, I was always improvising, but
I got a lot free, or much to the chagrin
of a lot of my fans. You know, when you
come out having these big hit radio songs, you acquire
an audience that I call sort of a soft core one,

(08:25):
people who are only there to hear the songs. They know,
yeah that's right. And so I was never that guy.
So I've it's been my self appointed job to pistol
those people off for many a year. And so I've
been nasty letters abound in my world for thirty two years.
Now you're saying that you go on shows without playing

(08:48):
maldern Rain or the way it is or well not
many I've been. I've become a lot more kind about
it in my senescence here in my sixties, But there
have been shows. But the many times that I didn't
do that was when I felt the audience was so jacked,
so responsive, so deeply involved in what we were doing
without playing those old war horses, that I could get

(09:12):
away with it. And it wasn't a problem. Of course,
I still get a couple of nasty letters from people
who again are softcore fans, and they would just come
to hear those five or six songs that they know.
But so, yeah, now it's really gotten bad because my
last two records have really gone. I'm a modern classical
music devotee, and so that a stringent, a tonal, chromatic,

(09:37):
doe decaphonic sound has been filtering into my music much
too many fans chagrin. I apologize to them. That is
actually the That is the first time we've ever heard
the word decafin it used on Quest and that is amazing.
I'm happy to be a first to give you all
the first here. Yeah, I thought you played one downtown

(10:00):
and uh, there was a lot of feedback and it
was in the key of F. So they played everything
in the key of F and and for that it
was fucking hilarious because every song was just in F,
no matter what, in what, they took everything into F
and so because he kept out feeding back and so like,
so as not to be a total they played everything

(10:22):
in F and it was hilarious. Well, look, if you're
a musician of any worth, you should be able to
transpose instantly. You can't. You're not gonna play with me,
And so, uh, what's that, Bruce. We share a guitar player, Doug.
Doug darry Berry, who used to be a noisemaker many
years ago, is a Sesame Streets guitar player. So well,

(10:45):
not not that many years ago, Doug. Doug was with
me for fift years and uh, I've made a change
about maybe six five or six years ago. But Doug,
it's a great asset, a great utilitarian sort of an
orchestral guitar player. It's a great It's a great New
York guitar player named John Levinthal, most well known for
the Shawn Colvin Great records. And uh, Levinthal had played

(11:09):
on my sixth record, Spirit Trail and ninety eight and
I wanted somebody to to give me eleventh alien sound,
and so I got Doug and he did a great
job for me. I started hearing another sound in my head.
So alas, I made a change. But I loved Doug
and he did a great job for us, like I said,
for fifteen years. So your musical roots, I know that

(11:33):
you started out in Virginia. What what city were you
born in? I was born in Richmond, and uh I live.
I grew up in Willisburg, fifteen miles down the road,
and I still this is where I am now. I
moved back after ten years in in l A. I
moved back back in nineteen ninety. So I've been here
for back here for thirty years and we're in Yeah,

(11:57):
you can have that ship. I went there once. They
took us on the trip there like third grade one time,
and like that was it? Nohow there are get the
sponte the the one we did like one those six
in part live. Oh uh yeah, so how did you

(12:19):
how did you go over? How did they are? A song? Break?
You off with nice worth about four minutes and then
the rest of the show was like, Okay, they're just
they're just out there a little. They were like where's
Mr Cheeks? That we're done? So yeah, yeah, I can
relate about what about Colonial Williams Williams. They still well,

(12:44):
we made it our self appointed job as local townies
to pelt tourists and local college of women married students
with water balloons and uh so we would ride through
town and just wear an ass out. Jesus. Yeah, our
karma was probably not so good, then hopefully improved. But

(13:08):
we actually got stopped by the cops and take it
to the police station our senior year in high school. Uh,
some young well appointed young college women mary grad student. Uh,
we just pelted him and he flagged the cops down
and we were through. So that's but yeah, that was
as exciting as it got in the little last town

(13:30):
of Willisburg, which I love. Obviously I moved back here,
but yes, Williensburg is my town. Yeah we got Karen. Okay,
I'm right down the street. Yeah, I'm in North North
Carolina born and raised. So where where I'm in? Raleigh?
And I saw your son he went to Ashville, right,
he went, Yes, Yes, he's in the mountains. Yes you

(13:52):
saw him play NC State? Yeah? Man, Yeah, he put
twenty three on any state and then they recruited him.
Mark Gottfrey recruited him, but he picked l s U
and it worked. Out great for him. But yeah, probably
is a good old town. We like playing that museum
the outdoor. Yeah, yeah, it's nice. It's really nice. And

(14:14):
you know Branford lived in Durham. Yeah, man, Branford, so
Brandford he actually I'm I graduated from North kind of
Central and Branford taught there. He was the artist and
residents for years and uh, he's just super cool dude, man, Yeah,
the best. He's also a fellow prankster with me. So
I could talk about that, but I'll I won't do
it because he may not approve. We'll see. What was

(14:38):
your first musical memory. Well, it's not a memory when
someone's recorded you at a at age three or four.
You know, you don't, at least I don't remember that.
But since the tapes around then, you feel like you
remembered it. There's a tape of me singing hound Dog
at age about three and a half or four. Yeah,

(15:00):
crock and all the time, you know all that business. Uh,
and some other songs too, with the Wind and the
Rain and her Hair by Pat Boon. Our parents were
turning us on to this stuff. So yeah, sadly, alas
I probably heard Pat Boone's two dy fruity and not
little Richard as sad as that sounds. I that's that's

(15:22):
that was what was happening in my house. But y
or was it just you? Yes, I'm the emotionally disturbed
middle child, and so yes, I have an older brother
and a younger brother, and uh I it's it's interesting
since I was in the middle, I was really close
with each of them, and they were friendly always, but

(15:45):
not like not not like a relationship that I had
with each of them. My older brother was the original
dead head in our family, Bobby Hornsby, and I used
in my freshman year of college, I was little Brucey
playing Fender Rhodes and singing lead in a dead cover
band called Bobby High Test and the Octane Kids. So
that was Bobby Hornsby and my younger brother ended up

(16:07):
writing a lot of songs would be later in the
aforementioned Mandolin Rain is a co write with my younger brother,
John Valley Road School, about a song about a young
girl who gets knocked up, as they used to say,
put in the family way, and they sent her away
to the school for unwed mothers a while, A strange
way to have a hit. The top five song that one.

(16:29):
So he yeah, so he wrote that with me. He
wrote songs for several years, but now he's out of it.
But yeah, there I was. I was. I'm the middle guy,
the middle little student. I was a jock as a kid,
though I was into music a little bit, but I
mostly wanted to who. Yeah, I was gonna say, your
your relationship with basketball. I'm a Philadelphia and so yeah, Um,

(16:50):
it has been noted how your involvement uh in the
life of Allen Iverson. Uh, some could say it at
least saved his life. At the time, it's too curious,
like what was it about him? Because the thing is
that I'm not one, I'm not a sports guy. But
I'm still trying to understand the mentality of college sports

(17:15):
fans and how they see that just as important as
professional sports. And but what was it at the time
that means you want to get involved in this situation? Well,
I think addressing first the college versus pro thing. You've
got a whole lot of people, For instance, in the
southern part of the United States, where say, in basketball,
they're only maybe they're only outside of Florida. There's only

(17:38):
the Atlanta Hawks in the New Orleans Pelicans. So for
mostly for this this vast area college sports is king.
That's one reason why the SEC, I think is so
huge because in the SEC too, so those are the
only games in town. Uh. And that having said that,
what what did you actually just asked me? Other? What

(18:00):
and what made you personally get involved with Alan iverson situation? Okay? Okay?
So well, Chuck as we call him, Bubba Chuck, that
was Chuck was his name, uh In locally, at least
in the hood of Hampton. When they when he got
sent to jail, graffiti all over Hampton said free Chuck.
I just got chills thinking of going down and seeing

(18:21):
all this because he was a beloved figure. Even as
a kid, people just knew he was special. There's an
AU program in our area, legendary program called the Blue
Williams League Builliams Summer League, and Chuck was a star
in that. And then he played at Bethel High School
and he led his team. He was a fantastic football player.
To he was just special athlete. He got he got

(18:43):
over two offers uh in football as well, and so
so he was just as good at football as he
was in basketball. Well, it's arguable. Who can say he
was just fantastic at both? So you know, what do
you say greater or greater? He was just great in both?
What was he was a quarterback? Yeah, and he was
so fast and he had all that juke, all those

(19:04):
all those change in direction. You know, he'd go this
way and then go to the just he was crossing
people on the football field. So the story goes that
I went to see him played at Fort Eustace. We
have a very great military presence, huge military presence in
our area. One of the bases is Fort used to stay.
At a Christmas tournament, Chuck was playing. Bethel High School

(19:25):
was playing. So I went to see the game and
Ann Irison, his mom, came up to me and, oh,
I don't know, asked me to sign something, and so
I told him, yeah, yeah, we loved, we loved Chuck,
et cetera. And uh So, then after his junior year
where he led his team to the state championship in
football and then in basketball, he was in a bowling

(19:47):
alley in pocosin Virginia, a little an area of Newport
News or Hampton, I guess, and uh a brawl broke
out and he and a bunch of others. U were
arrested for brawling in a bowling alley and also mayzing
by mob. So he was He and three or four

(20:08):
of his friends were convicted and sent to jail. And
I thought it was a travesty, miscarriage of justice. So
we're I'm proud to say that we in Virginia elected
the first black governor in America, Doug Wilder. And he
was and he was the governor then, and I had
done some work for him, some events for him, so
I started lobbying him through his chief of staff. He

(20:30):
was a friend of mine, and I don't know, I
was just one of many, probably uh to do this,
but but but Wilder. Around Christmas time of say ninety two, Wilder,
Doug Wilder pardoned Alan. Now he should have pardoned everybody.
And about two weeks later the hubbub was so intense
that finally he did let everybody go, so as not

(20:52):
to show favoritism to the local favorite son, Killer Hooper,
you know, killer Jock. So no, About two months later,
I get call out of the blue from his high
school coach, a guy named Mike Bailey, and he says, hey, Bruce,
Alan knows about what you did. Oh you know. Also,
I just become friends with our mutual guy, Spike Lee.

(21:13):
And so Spike and the first thing I did was
Spike at ninety two, he made a video for for me.
Branford was in it because he played on the record
a song about the first interracial romance in my town
of Williamsburg and all the consternation that caused with the
local sort of conservative government crowd. Anyway, we're in we're

(21:34):
in editing. And I told him about Chuck and uh, oh,
that's right, I told him earlier about it. Anyway, I
forget the exact timeline, but this guy caused me and
so so I had gotten Spike when when when Chuck
was in jail, I said, Spike, you know you want
this kid I told you about when now he's in jail.
And Spike said, yes, I've seen it on ESPN know

(21:55):
all about it. I said, will you do me a
favor and send him just pat care package from Spike Lee.
It might pick him up when he's at the City
Farm in Newport News. And so Spike did that. Anyway,
the sky calls, he said, well, Ellen knows what you've done.
What you've done, and he'd like to thank you. I said, well,
you guys, come up and we'll play some ball, and

(22:17):
he said, well, that's what he would like to do.
So we ended up doing that and uh, becoming friends
through that for for for forever. Wow, now is there
any truth you Oh? No, okay, you beat and it's
not just one game. It was three. But you know,

(22:43):
I'm just setting the record straight. I don't need to
talk ship. I don't care about living about making that
some moment. I never bring it up. I never talked
about it, but look, it's out. Look it just happened.
Maybe I caught him rusty because he had obviously not
been playing a whole lot of ball for the past
four months. But I had one of those days where

(23:05):
I just couldn't miss, you know, I just was just
just net just netting my ass off, and and we
were playing a game. Maybe he was not aware of
this game. It's perfect for him. Really. It helps the
smaller guy, and he's a little small shorter than me. Uh,
it's it's the way the pros play. You start the
top of the key and you can either pick a

(23:25):
two dribble or three dribble maximum, which basically means the
big guy can't just back in, back in, back into
the racket, throws up a little last land, a pitiful
land hook, and and do that all the time. So
you've gotta make a move, you gotta you know, you've
gotta commit and shoot the ball. So that's that's what
we played. Of course, he dunked on my head about

(23:46):
five times. I mean, you know, he's a free he
was a freaky athlete. Anyway, there are lots of witnesses
and I could name them all for you, so including
including his high school cook. But you know what, hell
with it. I don't care. I love I love Chuck
and uh, you know, maybe maybe he let me. You
have to ask him. Yeah, there's the um there's uh,

(24:09):
there's a friend of Farrell's who um I guess went
to high school with with Alan and um, like one
night they were at a party for the Neptunes and
you know it's like they were in the nightclub and
you know, the guy was trying to bring up like
old high school times and you know Alan was like, oh, yeah,
way back at that, like really not trying to tell

(24:31):
basketball when you're in the nightclub situation. Well, this guy
like insists, like whatever high school game they played, like
boy he walked or something, or like he did some files.
I don't know what happened. But the next thing I know,
Farrell told me, tells me that this guy grabs his
basketball and he's outside in the parking lot and it's

(24:54):
pouring down rain and he's playing against Alan Iverson's rolls
voice like he's just in front of the Rolls Royce
like trying to cross as if that Rolls Royce is
Alan Iverson, like for no reason at all, just oh,
he was out there alone, playing out there alone, just
like trying to cross the whole roice like it was

(25:19):
part like Alan was nowhere. You know. It was just
one of those moments that's sad. Really, yeah, it was
um so for you, what was your what was the
moment that really drew you into your music career right now? Like, well,
what what was the moment that made me say, I

(25:41):
mean as younger, Yeah, exactly, there made me say, okay,
the hell with the standard uh routine, I'm casting my
lot with the viewers those that moment you're so you're
asking about, Okay, Well, I went to one year of
real college. I was a bit of a school hopper.
I went to three colleges, University of Richmond the one
sort of lost year that maybe, and then Berkeley and Miami.

(26:04):
So that was a year that made me realize, Okay, this,
this is what I need to do. But I was
such a late starter because I had been a jock
as a kid and that's what I cared about. But
I started playing piano in eleventh grade and so kind
of late stage seven started playing piano and eleventh grade, yeah,
I had a lot of catching up to do, and

(26:26):
yes started how that's just well, okay, so how because
I mean, you're really good, so I would just think
that I can't we have started that late. Yeah, that's crazy. Well, look,
it's all about it's all about putting in the time,
as anyone knows, as you know I when I once
I got into it, I got deeply involved. And when

(26:47):
I went to college, I practiced for several years for
from five to eight hours every day. So if you're
willing to do that every day, Christmas Day, New Year's Day,
then you're gonna catch up a little bit. All of
Oh I do feel like I love classical music, but
my technique because I was such a late starter, it's

(27:07):
it's commonly said that if you want to be a
classical virtue or a concert pianist, you have to start
at age three, four or five six, you know, no late,
no later than that, because the demands are so intense.
And I really feel that, to be honest, I always
going men, bitch you sorry, as you know, to myself
and and so so that's that's the regret. But hey,

(27:31):
everyone's life path is different. I was just a guy
who like like playing sports first and so got into
this later. So yeah, but I got deeply into it
and went to music school and and got a lot
out of that too. So that's so that's my story.
Just started started late, but I couldn't stop. I just
I just had to do it at all times. I

(27:53):
was Berkeley because I wanted to practice four hours a day,
and they had a limited number of practice rooms. So
if you wanted to practice four artist to day, you
had to wait about six and a half hours to
do that because they kick you out. There was a
quick a line of sign up sheet in the line,
they kick you out it for two hours for you know,
for good reason, I guess, because there's got a lot
of people waiting yeah, that's right. So and also, since

(28:15):
I was late to start, I felt I needed to.
I had amassed all this information, you know, this theoretical
knowledge at Berkeley, heart, teep taking, harmony, etcetera, and I
thought I needed some time to really really assimilate and
deal with this and really ingested. So I lived in
a farmhouse outside of Willensburg, and that was when I

(28:37):
started my eight hours hours day regiment. I played this
little cocktail piano bar and at night to make a
buck and shed on this old upright. And then I
went to Miami. From there were you learning and just
by ear? Or were you reading at that time? Well?
I started playing by ear because it came fairly naturally
to me. I started because of two two guys, my

(29:00):
older butter, went to New England prep school, and we
were just local Virginia hooples who listened to the top
four station in the soul station. We didn't get the
underground stuff, you know, the stations were back then you
could hear Miles Davis next to Hendricks, next to Joni Mitchell,
you know whatever. And uh and so so he turned

(29:22):
me on too. I know this sounds crazy to think
that this could be sort of underground. But Elton John's
second record, Tumble Week Connection, his least most the one
record he probably almost ever made that had no hit
on it. It's one of the best ones. It's a deep,
beautiful record, and it got me into playing. And then
he turned me onto Joe Cocker, Mad Dogs and Englishman
with the great Leon Russell playing piano. So Leon and Elton.

(29:46):
Leon's a soul man. He came straight out of you
guys familiar with ka Church of God in Christ, deep
deep gospel music roots. I mean, it's just the music
that comes out of their Like you hear those old
Sam's cooking the soul Stirrs records, all that stuff that
Leon played, that goo goo goo goo goa ConA go

(30:10):
do all that stuff. You're hearing that in the background
of what Sam's cooking. The soul starers are singing that
killer gospel. That's where that came. Yeah, that's all right gospel,
that's right gospel quartets. And so between Elton and Leon,
I was hooked, and so I was. I was learning
those by ear. But my mom, my grandfather was a
musician for a living in Richmond, and he was the

(30:33):
supervisor of music in the public schools, the pubic school system,
and then uh he uh was also the the the
theater organist at the local mosque. If you went to
the State j c's convention, you'd he'd be out the
guy over in the corner playing Last Turkey and the Straw,
some old pre convinctional ship. But uh so, anyway, she look,

(30:58):
my mom looked at me and she saw my hands
just looked terrible. I was probably playing like this, And
he said, you know what, you you maybe sounding okay,
but you look rough. You gotta start taking lessons. And
so then I started to learn to read and learned
sort of the the jazz language, the two fives, et cetera,
all the color tones and all that. So that my

(31:21):
mom was good for me. And so, uh that sounds
that happened real quick. What year where you at Berkeley
And were there any other notable students that were there
at the time that it was in the year that
you went. Yeah, Well, I've always heard it's a it's

(31:41):
a badge of dishonor to actually graduate from Berkeley because
you only go for a little bit. Yeah, I mean
you ain't getting a g Yeah, you don't have a
gigs right. That means you're sad, you know. So okay,
I went for summer and fall of seventy four, but
I was in the accelerated program. So I crammed two

(32:02):
years into two semesters. Uh, and let me see anybody
who was there who really emerged. Pat Matheny was there,
but he had come from Miami. He had been a
student at Miami, but he was so bad he became
a teacher like instantly. And but he was playing with
Gary Burton when I was at Berkeley. And so I
saw an amazing concert at the Sanders Theater in Harvard

(32:25):
with Keith Jarrett opening on solo piano, imagine that. And
then Gary Burton's great Quartet with Pat and Mick Goodrick
and maybe Bob Moses. So it was a fertile scene
in Boston. You know, they had the Jazz Workshop in
Paul's Ball. You could go. I would go. I had
enough money to go see here, say Bill Evans or

(32:47):
Horror Silver one of the week nights. But I would
go and listen through the the wall on Boylston Avenue,
Boyson Street, just to hear more So it was amazing
to be able to hear all these people, all these
legend Cannonball, Adelie Miles, on and on and on. Was
it How heavy was the competition there? Because I knew,

(33:11):
especially now, like if we're anywhere near that campus in Boston,
like or at least this is the musicians I see
now looking on YouTube or whatever. I feel like there's
such a not a cutthroat with a need to out
floss each other into in terms of like you know,
over play and ye, is that the story of Berkeley?

(33:32):
Just like, yeah, try to Yeah, I really wasn't good
enough to be perfectly honest with you. I really wasn't
good enough to really emerge into the scene where I
was hearing the great guys. I was fairly mid level,
and so I don't remember, and I also don't remember
anyone emerging to have a great career. Now. When I

(33:55):
went to Miami, that's different. Okay, When I was at Miami,
it was sort of the less out our stages of
the golden era of university to Miami right when I
hit When I got there, Pat Pat had been there,
Jocko had been teaching near Jocko Pastorius. Uh he held
a job. Yeah, yeah, well it was a personally it

(34:17):
was private lessons I'm sure it was lusty. I can't
make it today. Listen, you know that that kind of thing.
But the Dixie Dregs, you guys know they those guys were, uh,
Steve Morse sort of like I don't know, like virtue
a rock and roll bluegrass or something that Steve Morris
was a crazy that the virtuosity level was high. Uh.

(34:40):
But then uh, Carmen Lundy, Rob Watson, but he's known
as Bobby Watson now uh and uh and and Carmen's
little brother, Kurt Lundy. I played in Carmen's band that
was sort of a writer of pads. As if you
were emerging as one of the better players in the
hierarchy of the school, you got to play in Carmen

(35:01):
Lundy's band. You guys know Carmen, right, you guys know, Yeah, Okay,
so she's had a nice career as a jazz singer.
And uh yeah, Bobby Watson, Carmen, Pat Well, Pat maffeeny
of course. Uh. And you're looking at it more serious
jazz sort of road or just yeah, you're going for

(35:23):
the road. Whatever it took you. Well, I was just
going with the inspiration. But it was pretty tale tale
at that time. I would go to the record store
and I'd buy an orn Net Coleman record and a
Joni Mitchell record, and I'd always find myself listening to
the Joni Ritch Mitchell record more. You know, I get
a roberta Flak record and a Hubert Laws record, say

(35:45):
and uh the flute player and so so yeah, yeah,
it's it's fantastic and so. But I always I thought
to myself, well, I think I really like this jazz music.
It's a it's a great intellectual pursuit. But I think
my heart was in in in songs and songs with words.

(36:06):
And so when I got out of Miami, we put
together a band up in Virginia and started down the
long road. Eight years later, I got signed to our
SA Records at age thirties. So it was let's back
that up six years eighty two. You you, and you
joined Ambrosia and know what I didn't that's a that's

(36:29):
a fallacy on Wikipedia whatever. Oh so you had nothing
to do with No, No, they were great friends of mine. Okay,
I was discovered the aforementioned band. If we put together
in Virginia after Miami, after I graduated, we were playing
around the local area, and we where we're playing bars
and lounges where you're you know, you're expected to play

(36:50):
shake your booty and brick house and that's all that stuff.
So we gradually acquired an audience who would come to
these lounges to hear my songs. So we were big
fans of Mike McDonald of the Doomie Brothers, and so
they were coming through town and uh so we knew
where they were staying because the same people that booked

(37:10):
the big concerts at Hampton Coliseum booked our little ship
as gigs at the at the Steak and Ale. So
we walked in. My drummer and I were both sort
of big guys. I'm big bony asked out, but my
drummer is a big, strong guy. And we walked in
and found Mike McDonald in the lobby. We went up
to him and said, hey, Mike with the baddest motherfucker's
in this town and we're playing right over here and

(37:32):
you should come here. So he says, well, I will
if I can. I'm going to the movies. But so
sure enough he came right now everyone could do a
Mike McDonald depression you've had him on the show. We
actually had him. He was doing a depression of himself.

(37:55):
Well he's a beautiful guy, as you know, he's just
the sweetest person, so self a sing humbled. Anyway, he
came and we were just raging at it, and he
invited us over to the long story short, he kind
of he sort of discovered us and helped us meet
some people in l A. And that's what got me
out to l A. About a year and a half later,

(38:18):
we a lot of us moved to California. Did you
ever end up working with Michael McDonald after that on
projects or anything. No, But our claim to fame was
at Mike McDonald and the the Doobie Brothers were playing
some PBS special and uh live thing and he was
wearing a Bruce Hornsby band T shirt and so that
was of course, that was a huge thing for us.

(38:41):
We thought that was beautiful. We slept on his floor
for ten nights, my drummer John Molo and on, and
at that time he was singing on everybody's record under
the l A Sun and uh so he would take
our admittedly very mediocre demo tape around and try to
turn people onto it and that, but to no avail again.

(39:02):
Years later I got signed. Oh but yeah, right, this
is from moving to l A. What year did you
move to l A? Graduated seventy seven from U M
and then two and a half years around the local
scene from Virginia Beach to Richmond with Wiensberg in the middle,
and then moved to UH to l A. Well, obviously

(39:24):
I know what prompted to move to l AH. But
you know, well we you you got. We got on
this because you asked me about Ambrosia. So okay. So
the opening act for the Derby Butters and on that
tour was Ambrosia. And so they came to the gig
two and we became friends with them. And when we
we we went to l A later that summer, we

(39:46):
slept on some of those guys floors, and so they
became friends with us. And then about eighty three three four,
they had made a record called Rhode Island and very
adventurous sort of prog rock record because a lot of
everyone knows the hits make a Wish Baby and how

(40:07):
much you feel yet, but really their their heart lay
in in the uh, the more progressive but bit. You
know that that kind of thing, and I liked that too.
So they made a record called Rhode Island, and uh,
I wasn't on it, but I wasn't doing much then,

(40:28):
and they said, hey, why don't you come being a video?
So now I'm outing myself again. I know that I
know what you're up to here, because now you're you're
making me admits to another laughable performance on a video
that is unfortunately out in the world. But you know
what do I care? I look hilarious again. So okay,

(40:49):
I started. I started off as a video pitiful and
so that's all I did with him. I was just
in that video. The Rhode Island record didn't really do
much commercially, and so they kind of broke up the band.
And but right around that time, I was starting to
get my own thing going, and soon enough I finally
got my chance. So what was what was pounding the

(41:11):
pavement like in Los Angeles between night and eight six
when you finally got your deal? You have? What was
what was the steps of not the steps of heartbreak,
but I mean, what was it like back then? Well,

(41:32):
you'll have you'll I'll have to set the scene by
remembering the pop music trend of the time, the early eighties,
we're just chock a block with new wave music guys
and skinny ties and the kind of hair cut buzz
whatever they had groups like well, I didn't have. I

(41:53):
didn't have any of that. I looked just like some
schmendric who you know, sold sold coffee somewhere. I mean,
I just was totally not this. The pictures of me
are pretty funny. What about pictures of me now are
probably pretty funny too, But anyway, Uh, that's uh so
I was really I'm trying to take the picture that

(42:14):
I was really a fish out of water stylistically, you know,
for that I was wrong for the times. But then
maybe I kind of caught a wave in this way.
Maybe that's why I got signed. I don't think about
it much, but in the pop trends tended to were start.
We're starting to move away from from this uh sort
of brit pop new wave thing, and l A had

(42:36):
its own new way, uh groups like X and the Blasters,
but it started moving into more of an Americana Bruce Springsteen,
John Mellen Camp, Tom Petty thing. So my music was
sort of tangentially related to that stylistically, and so maybe that,
but I was playing all this piano and so it

(42:59):
was a little for and I don't know, I've got
I'm proud to say the guy who signed me was
the rhythm guitar player for the Zombies back in the sixties.
So just the best British Man, Paul Atkinson, with that
great resume and uh he just and I tell this
to people all the time, the least as for a

(43:19):
sort of a cautionary tale of what not to do.
The least commercial tape I ever made was the one
that got me signed, and the one that was the
truest to my sort of artistic heart. At the time.
I'm just soloing on piano, just stuff that's not done,
and Paul Atkinson basically couldn't take the tape out of

(43:40):
his car, So you're just trying to move somebody in
a deep way. And that's what this tape did. It
was my sort of screw you to the mainstream record business.
I thought it was gonna come out in some small
label like Windham Hill or something, but you have Okay,
I get it. This kind of sorry, it's kind of

(44:00):
interesting that Paul Atkinson signed you Have. He's from the Zombies.
Which was a keyboard centric band. Yeah, Rod Argent exactly, Yeah,
he might have had a taste for that, an affinity
for a keyboard or uh dominated pop yet. So anyway,
that's what happened, And then we met our first record,

(44:22):
and uh, it was a total fluke. The Way It
Is was thought to be a B side. There's lots
of stories like this, This is not rare, uh, Rod
Stewart's Maggie May, for instance, one of the iconic that
was thought to be a B side as well. So
you're saying the Way It Is was kind of an
afterthought like here, well was the TI I titled the
record that the record our first record was called The

(44:42):
Way It Is? But again, a song about racism with
two not one, the two improvised piano solos is not
the formula for pop radio, you know, it's at all.
But it broke on the BBC BBC Radio one Broken England,
then throughout Europe, then throughout the rest of the world,
and then here and so I was really lucky man.

(45:05):
I broke on a song that, at least for me,
had felt like it had a little more gravitas than
the standard record that you were hearing on hit radio then,
and so yeah, I was gonna it's a I'd call
it a wonderful accident, a great fluke. I want to
ask you before we even get to the actual crafting
of the way it is. I just gotta know, how

(45:27):
did you avoid Like eighties six would have been a
very tempting year patch wise for you to fall into
Yamaha d X seven itis with those like fake road
sounds and whatnot. Yeah, I didn't. I hate such a
strong piano player, Like, how did you avoid falling into that?

(45:50):
Because literally every other hit was just peppered with the
d X seven fake Rhodes bell sound? How did you
avoid that? I thought it was the horror. I thought
it was horrible. I was not. I just I didn't
want to make that sound, and and look, a's what
I do. It's what I did. And so again I

(46:10):
made this tape with no regard to that. That's why
I says, at least commercial attempt to tape that I
ever that I made. And uh so so it was
again it was it was honest, and it was maybe fresh,
and so it's easy to Monday morning quarterback to me,
it was just a wonderful accident. Yeah, that was a record, man,

(46:31):
the way it is, and I don't know, you know,
you said it was a B side and it was
kind of a thing that kind of went off. That
was one of the first records. I remember it kind
of being marketed as like a serious song, so to speak,
and just as a kid like I just remember just
kind of the bookends of my elementary school education, like

(46:52):
the way it is, and we didn't start the fire,
like I remember my teacher like making us right about
those songs, like oh interest, wow, the way it is,
like okay, so what do you think this is about?
What do you think you know? And and and it
just always resonated with me. And I think even the
Mirrort one about you know, the d X seven, that
kind of plastic keyboard kind of sound. It was out

(47:13):
of the time. One of the things that always stick
out to me that you were actually playing a real
piano and I mean I was, I mean, god, I
was probably like seven eight whatever when this, but I
but I remember it vividly, and that was just always
one of my favorite songs. And you know, all the
time it's exampled and everything. I mean, it was just
I just always thought that was just a gorgeous song
about with fast car like Tracy Chapman, did you like

(47:34):
that when that? Yeah? But do you do you think
growing up in Richmond sort of prompted you to craft
the song and the way that you did, because again,
I mean people really weren't especially with uh, I mean

(47:55):
barely with with hip hop. I mean hip hop really wouldn't.
I wasn't starting to get in your face for real,
for real until right, so I meant to even bring
up something as topical or whatnot. Uh do you think
that's this experience experiences in Richmond, Virginia, or or like

(48:18):
what prompted that? Well, I think it's just growing up
in a small town. Yes, Williensburg, which is fifty miles
from Richmond, so a small more of a small town
feeling in Williamsburg. And uh, look, it's just uh, it's
just based on my upbringing. Uh. I was the only
white dude on the basketball team in high school and
that was just the best experience for me. My old

(48:41):
teammates are still my hanging pals in town. Here. We
we go out and talk ship and have a laugh
and get something. For years now. It's just beautiful And
so I'll shout out, Lawrence Jones, Keith drew It, Phoebe Martin,
Alonso Dandridge alt Acts, and I could keep naming them, so, uh,

(49:03):
those are my guys. Uh And so it was a
very intense time. I came in just after integration, just
after the first couple of years, but there was it
was still sort of a fraud scene and it was
definitely attention in the air. And uh, but I don't know,

(49:26):
I embraced it. They embraced me, My teammates, My teammates
embraced me, and uh and and spin ever thus so
uh so I I just wrote that song based on
my my upbringing in Williamsburg. I was curious to know
what was it like working with Huey Lewis as a producer, Like,
what was I mean, we knew him as an artist,

(49:46):
but what was he like kind of behind the boards
and in working in that capacity. Well. He he produced
three songs on the record, one of which I changed
completely after the record. The original version of the record
has a band version of this song on the River
Runs Low. I just thought it wasn't doing the song justice,
so I stripped it all down and they made it
a keyboard vocal record. Huey is one of the great guys,

(50:12):
and uh he was. He was a big cheerleader for me,
kind of like Mike McDonald had been. We were making
a demo for Epic Records and eighty four and Huey
had sports at the time, which was just he was
all everything around the world. And he called up and said, Hi,
this is Huey. Lewis signed the Range. I was hiding
behind the name of the range. We were just in

(50:33):
the Range. Then uh R c A asked me to
just be Bruce Hornsby. So I compromised on Bruce Hornsby
and the Range. But uh, it didn't help us. We
didn't get signed by Epic. But that just shows you
Hughey's uh real intense feeling for what I was doing.
And as a producer, we just had a great time
in the studio and we did a song about this

(50:55):
old horror house, this old horror house in the countryside
in Willisburg. Uh called down the Road tonight and he
he produced, He produced that song. He should have cut himself.
He'd have had a hit with it. I think, yeah,
I could imagine Hugh and Lewis thinging about whole houses
that totally better than I. Yes, I think you're right

(51:18):
more better suited with with the with the shock of
or you know, I don't know if it shocks you
to have your first single totally come out the out
the box, um as across the board hit pressure wise,
what was that like? Uh? To be like, how did
your life change as far as the results and you know,

(51:42):
of having that hit single and then suddenly being ubiquitous
because it's not like you had a hit single. I
mean this song is you know, it's lasting. Yeah, when
you said shock, I thought you gonna ask me pople
have my shock a song? Yet? Yeah? Yeah, we got
to be there everything. Every time I come to and

(52:03):
play with you guys, your keyboard players, somebody in your
bands is can we play love Me Still? So I'll
get which I yeah, I have good a good story
about you and that song on Failon. But that's that's
about about nine years later. So obviously this is a
full dose of pop stardom. That's you know, smacking me

(52:25):
in the head. And to be honest, I was pretty
bad at it, mostly because when you're when you're making,
when you're having success at top forty, at least in
America and absolutely in Europe. It's sometimes even sillier over there,
with all the lip syncing shows you have to be on.
But I would yeah, exactly right, you said at the

(52:46):
top of the pops, and the like uh in your
in Holland, Germany all around, so I would be saying
I was being Cleveland because the the record company will
send me there too, sit at a at a table
signing autographs. So here I am, and next to me

(53:07):
is Tiffany, and next to me is Debbie Gibson on
the other side, and then there's new kids kids on
the block, and I'm going, man, what's wrong with this picture?
It's me? And so it just didn't fit. I just
I didn't know how to handle. I should have just
taken the pits out of it, as the Brits would say,
and just made it into a big joke. But then

(53:29):
people have gotten mad at me, and I'd be drawing
stupid things signing different names. I started. I just did
that every Yeah, well I did that for a little while,
but I got tired of suffering the slings and arrows
of disgruntled fans who would uh go, oh, come on, man,
take it seriously, we really like you, you know, and

(53:51):
sell it and you go, you know what, I'm the
dick here, and so sorry, you're right, you're right. But
but basically it was I was not a good fit
for that thing. And so the second record we made
was very much of a piece with the first record. Stylistically,
I wanted to cement this sound, which was basically a

(54:11):
Lyn drum machine, piano, an O b X or Juno
pad boom book vocals boom, and so I did this
again for that reason. And then I instantly started getting
letters from fans well how dare you change? And I
thought to myself, well, you know what, motherfucker, you haven't

(54:32):
seen anything yet, you know, you just just wait. And
so then I started taking it out and my third record,
I had Wayne Shorter on the record and and Baila
Fleck and uh oh, Charlie Hayden Nig said wow, way
to go. Uh and so then the letters really started cutting.

(54:54):
But but I so I just never looked back because
I never I never trusted hit radio anyway. I knew
is sort of ephemeral and not going to be around
for me. Because I again, my hit off the second
record was the song this aforementioned song Valley Road and
I'm really blowing. I'm playing like McCoy tyn or quartal
harmony in the left hand seven and give the gum,

(55:15):
you know, just emphatic, demonstrative stuff. And it's on the radio.
My my musician friends could not believe what I was
getting away with. And I didn't get away with it
for long, just those two times and kind and then
that was. It's kind of weird for me because al right,
so I'm slightly older than Fante. So in my mind though,

(55:37):
I think, even to this day, if I asked myself,
I still consider Henley's Ended the Innocence kind of like
your fourth single. Yeah, well it's still in drumming that,
you know, all the regaining. Yeah, Like I still feel
like it's it's I never considered a Don Henley song,

(55:59):
like to me, that's like your song and it's your
and you're not the DNA print. I don't want to
sound like a suit like the suit on the A
and R guy. But you know, you could have you
could have just served them up, like how you could
have served at least nineteen of them like hotcakes? Like

(56:19):
why did you? Well, you asked me, Uh, if I
felt pressure to come up with hits or something like
that us and I didn't really answer it, but I
can do it now. Uh, because I had this big
hit with a song that no one thought was anything.
I really felt that no one at the record company

(56:42):
felt they knew what a Bruce Hornsby hit was supposed
to sound like. So I took that as a total
license to be free and uh and and write write
songs about interracial romances and and uh the girl who
got pregnant on or not so uh so and and
then I never got pressured from from Marcia. They were

(57:05):
really good to me. I think I was helped by
the fact that the record company was really struggling and
I was the only artist that at the time did
much for them, so they pretty much left me alone
and I ran with that like crazy. Pat mcfeini started
playing on my records. That was really special because he
was He played so amazingly on my fourth and fifth records,

(57:28):
Harbor Lights and Hothouse Man. He just turned it out.
It was so beautiful. Branford played on those just great.
So by then the record company has just thrown up
their hands. Look, I was trying to, uh sort of
be a purist about it and and just follow my
my musical instinct and and the rescipe damn and the

(57:50):
rest was kind of damned for maybe I stopped topped
having hits, but it was okay. So back back in
the eighties, when the myth of winning Best New Artist
was an actual yes, cursing, yeah right, how did you
feel when your name was called? I frankly was so
clueless at the time that I didn't start hearing about

(58:10):
that curse until after we'd won it. And so, uh so,
how did I feel? I've thought that, well, this is great,
but you know, I'm a three time winner, but I'm
a ten time loser. Just so you just set the
record straight. So pretty, it's a pretty uh pretty sorry
batting average uh three? Uh but yeah, how did I feel?

(58:33):
I didn't know about it. When I've heard about it later,
I thought, well, whatever happens, I'm certainly it seems to
me looking back on my career that I had this misuccess.
And then I've been trying to rid myself of that
audience ever since, because I asked this question, then, is
your best new artist? Is it on the mantel piece

(58:53):
or is it a doorstopper. It's neither. It's it's down
the bottom shelf of a a little a little little
case that that that houses old scrap books and the
three Grammys. You know, they grew with the through the years,
you know. With My second win was the Best Bluegrass Record,

(59:14):
and the third win was with Brantford, something we did
for the Olympics Barcelona, Mona back then. And uh, I
think people just voted for us because Kenny g had
one for a hundred years and they wanted somebody else too.
Bruce Horsby problems. I love it exactly, exactly, not a problem.

(59:36):
Just you just about also with uh, with Bonnie Ray
as well, because that's your well, yeah, I can't thank you. Yeah. Look,
she's my big sister in music. Uh we we became tight.
She was a big fan of my early records and
subsequent records. Uh and uh so she I would see

(01:00:00):
her at parties in l A after I had hits.
Of course, now I'm invited to these slickster parties, which
was it was. She's a lovely person. She sent me
a fan letter one time and it was so sweet.
So I'm all for Debbie Gibson. She's a talented person too,
So that's fantastic. Yeah. So anyway, Bonnie asked me to

(01:00:26):
play on her her record, her I guess was second
record she made with Don was and uh producing, and
all of a sudden for a little a little time
there was sort of Don was his boy. I played
on a Segar record and Bob Dylan record and Body
Rate record all in all, and when just a few
months period, and when I was still living in l A.

(01:00:46):
My letter days in l A. But that record was
just one of those uh Kismith moments. You had this
fantastic song. And I give Don credit because he didn't
rested up a lot. Uh. We cut the track just
a trio. I was playing some little keyboard Rhodes. He'd
not THEAC seven, mind you, but something some sort of

(01:01:09):
rosy sound. And then well, yeah, then they have you
have you over the piano. And he told me later
he kept trying to dress it up, maybe strings, I
don't know, maybe a little hornted, And finally he just
he realized he took all the faders down in the
mix and just put on those original four elements drums,

(01:01:30):
bassed electric piano, acous piano and vocal and it just resonated,
so it was very We might have cut two or
three tracks so fast. And look, I consider that to
be Bonnie's iconic hit record, the one that will be
around forever. So look, how could I not be proud
of being a part of that. It was just and

(01:01:51):
she's the greatest anyway, she's she's send me some crazy
lud uh to Twitter thing today, So you know, so
we're she's She's a hilarious, great, just beautiful woman. Do
you think there was something with you guys kind of
understand each other because I guess kind of the creative

(01:02:12):
kinship that you guys had, because Bonnie was also someone
that didn't really hit pay dirt in her career until
much later, you know, even later than me. Yes, yeah,
you know what I mean. Do you think that kind
of played a role with you guys understand each other? Yeah,
it could. I think basically we have similar musical interests

(01:02:32):
and uh, she's one of the great singers, one of
the great soulful singers, and uh, I like soul music.
I'm not one of the great soul singers, but I
love it. And so so look, I think we just
connect personally. She likes to have a laugh, and I

(01:02:54):
do too. But is there anyway It's just like I said,
she's my big sister. That's is it all to me?
How does how does your mindset change when you're going
from like Sidemann and Bonnie Ray to like playing your
own ship? Or is it just the same approach, because like,
I can't make you love me. It's like a fairly

(01:03:15):
simple harmonic situation at the end of the change changed.
I'm sure. So I almost feel like you produced it
even though you didn't. I'd love to hear it before
you sat down to play it. But I'm sure that's
a whole other situation. But chords were more standard. You know,
I'm a Bill Evans fanatic. You know, I love all that.
I love that French Impressionism, harmony, revel whatever, and uh

(01:03:38):
so I'm always interested in maybe finding a place for
that I called I had to find a find figure
out a fascile way to describe my style because people
are always asking me. They always say, well, we can
always tell us you and why do you think that is?
And I say, well, I think it's a sort of
a harmonic aesthetic a way of playing chords, And I

(01:03:59):
call it Bill Evans to be to him book because
I love the the the movement in the left hand
of him of him music church music. But then I
love those beautiful, uh sexy chords Bill Evan's played too,
so uh so I don't know that's I don't know
if I answer your question, that makes total sense because

(01:04:20):
it's even when I hear something you you play something
like I really love um your take on Nole's thing
because she's got to have it, and the way you
play it, it's like it's gorgeous. Man, So I love it.
I sound like here you say that gets yeah right,
you know that's my thing. If you're gonna do that,

(01:04:42):
do a cover. And in that case, Spike's Dad's great
original theme Bill Lee, and I wanted to, you know,
make it my own. That's why. Why why do a
cover if you're not gonna try to spin it and
do it and not replicate what's coming before? What what's
the point of that? So yeah, thanks man. I was
proud of at and I did it pretty fast. I

(01:05:02):
gave him three takes and and Spike used the right
one to me, he used the one I liked the most,
and so yeah, that's good. That's but we've seen since
we seem to be going chronologically. Then we can go
back to to nine five where we were talking about
pam Athenias. This one more thing, one important part you missed. Okay,

(01:05:27):
you just banded the group ever went to the Grateful Dead.
So how how is that? Like, hey guys, I'm going
over here. You guys take care of Like what was
the Well, it wasn't exactly like that. I joined the
Dead in nineteen ninety and the Range was split apart
in ninety two, but so probably by joining the Dead

(01:05:49):
played a part in that. But mostly I wanted to
move on the first record without that band, and I
always loved it when people would say, oh, I just
missed the old band sound, and I would say to myself, Well,
what you're referring to is the old band sound is
me playing on along with the drum Machine and with
the city based Basic Virtual one man show, all those

(01:06:10):
hits that say the Range. I mean, the band was
great and just like I've said before, the Range live
we'd beat the dog shoot out of those records, you know,
just on an impact and intensity and and groove level
that the guys were great. Molo Joe Puerta, George Marinelli,
on and on, Pete Harris, David Mansfield. So uh so

(01:06:31):
they wasn't just banded, but okay, So I we got
asked to open for the Dead out of the Blue,
and as I said before, my older brother it was
a big deadhead and all his hippie friends up in
up in uh University of Virginia. They used to drop acid,
paint their faces and go play intermural volleyball. Sounds like

(01:06:53):
high school life was easier then. I think they just
exalted if they ever just hit the ball, made contact,
you know. So so I had my my training with them,
so I knew a lot of dead music, and so
we played a dead song, well, an old traditional song
in the dead manner called I Know You're Rider in

(01:07:14):
our gigs. I don't know. Maybe they heard about that,
or they were just fans of the first record, and
we got a call to open for them in Monterey, California's.
We did that twice two days. They ask us again,
eighty nine some more, ninety some more. Every year they'd
asked us to play a couple of times, and then
sadly their keyboard player, Brent Midland, died of an overdose

(01:07:36):
in the summer of nineteen, right after we'd played with them.
And it was so strange because it was this growing
relationship Garcia had before that played on our third record,
played fantastically on two songs and I'm in I'm Seattle.
And at seven eight in the morning, I just heard
it Garcia that that Brent died. In the middle of
the night. I'm walking down the street and some young

(01:07:58):
guy comes up to me and says, hey, Bruce, You're
gonna join the dead. It was so wild. I mean,
the rumor mill was already out, uh, that that I
was going to replace and I told them so, yes.
Sure enough, they came out to a gig that we
did in Conquered California just a few days after this
and asked me to join Garcia and Phil Lesh came

(01:08:18):
out and uh, And I said, look, guys, if you'd
have caught me four years ago, before I had this
thing going on, I would have said yes and lived
happily ever after as your keyboard player. But I've got
this thing going on pretty solidly now, and but I
will help you if you need me to. So they
asked me to help them through the adjustment period their
new keyboard player, Vince well Nick and who didn't have

(01:08:39):
a long history with the music. He learned it pretty quickly.
He crocked it fairly rapidly. And so I played with
them for about two years, uh twenty months, about a
hundred shows, and I wouldn't trade that. I wouldn't trade
that time with them for anything. It was how happy
with you doing this? Look, as I said before these

(01:08:59):
these X we're really nice that they allowed me major latitude,
major leeway. You know, they gave me long rope with
which to hang myself on a career level, you know.
But again, it wasn't about career. I wasn't trying to
build this. I was just trying to to be moved

(01:09:22):
by music and and just just it just sounded like
great fun, and it really was. I mean, where else
can you play one song for an hour? I was
going to say, what was the longest What was the
longest show you did? The longest show was probably four
or four and a half hours. But there's an asterisk
asterisk there because there's some long ass breaks. You know,

(01:09:42):
maybe if you take an hour between the first set
and the second set. Sometimes it was very loose. I
couldn't believe it. They have the most amazing audience anywhere.
You know, there's two thousand, fifteen fairly well concerts they
could have played. They had a million, over a million. Okay,
I almost went. I had a gig that night, the

(01:10:03):
one in San Francisco I wanted to go to. Yeah,
I just wanted to study them from a just from
sociological level. Yeah, I've been getting into them, and I'll
say during this Corona break, Um, there's some video out
I think Lee Oscar of War sitting in uh with them,

(01:10:24):
and also slightly family Stones drummer Grant Rico. I didn't
realize how many of like my favorite you know, like
I'm a studio musician, junkie, so I didn't realize how
many like luminaries that they pull into the fold, and
and how they adapt, you know, and then how they
just just instantly with them a few times, which was

(01:10:50):
always amazing. So opening for the dead is it? Is
it a little bit different than like, have you ever
met an audience that you didn't vibe with right away
like that? Well, it could be rough, because the Deadheads
can be fairly myioptic, fairly tunnel tunnel vision do you

(01:11:11):
know that they're really not there to hear you and
so so damni version of the way it is or sure,
but we were kind of doing that anyway. But so, yeah,
it was tough. It was really tough. When I would
we probably opened for them eight times or so eight

(01:11:32):
nine times, and probably only twice did we ever really
garner a crowd and have them really be interested in
what they were doing and when. So, when I started
playing in the band, I admit it, I was self
appointed sort of psychologists to these poor opening acts who
would go out there and just be roundly ignored. You know,

(01:11:53):
Dwight Yoakum came out there and he's playing all and man,
I mean he's a beautifu guy. I just said to him.
Then I feel you. I've been there, you know. So,
uh So it can be real tough. Now, some acts
like Traffic, Steve Winwood or Dylan or Little Feet, you know,

(01:12:14):
the Dead fans just really embrace a certain groups and
maybe some reggae groups. If Ziggy Marley was playing, they
probably loved that sort of related musical styles. I guess
I have a question, Bruce, Sorry, fante um, it's not good.
Uh So, since we're on the Dead and that they

(01:12:35):
asked you to join did And I'm not trying to
be funny, morbid or disrespectful here, but the three previous
keyboard and piano players had the keyboard died. Yeah, And
I don't know if you did that cross your mind, Like, uh, No,
I left the Dead because I came home in the

(01:12:58):
middle of a one of their spring tours. They'd have
the spring, the summer, and the fall tours around the US.
I came home in the middle of the March tour
in in ninety two. I just my wife and I
had just had our twin sons, Russell and Keith, named
for Keith Jarrett and Leon Russell, and so uh, I

(01:13:19):
came home and they didn't know me, and uh and
I went, you know what, I don't like this. I
need I need to get off the freaking road at
least most of the time for a while anyway. So
that's when I went back to finish the tour and
I said, hey, guys, and Vince Fince really had the
Giegs solid. He was doing a great job by then.

(01:13:40):
He was doing solid the whole time, but he really
seemed to be getting in the groove with it. And
just so knowledgeable about the music. So so that was
my my swan song. Although I would sitting with them
when they were geographically close to me, when he was
really struggling in his last year, they would actually call
me up and say, Hey, we're in Charlotte, would you
would you come down here? We'll fly you down here

(01:14:02):
to play because he was having such a hard time.
It was, it was so listless on stage, so low energy,
and they thought I could maybe pride and give a
little cattle prod and get him going. So I did
that in in Charlotte and then in uh at our
Case Stadium two nights in d C. And then a

(01:14:23):
month and a half months or five weeks later, he
was gone, yeah, yeah. I kind of had like a
kind of a two part question or along along those
lines of just your family and your you know, your
kids and everything. Um, at this point in your career
when we first got on the show, you were saying, uh,
you know you're in the studio working on something. Do
you think of yourself more primarily as a player or

(01:14:44):
a singer or a producer, and like kind of what
is the hierarchy you know when you sit down to create, well, well,
I sat down to create it's all about the song.
So it's all about being a songwriter. Yeah. And what Frank,
my last two records that are receiving such great I
don't know, sort of acclaim around the world. It's amazing.

(01:15:06):
It's some of the more adventurous, strange music I've ever made.
And all of a sudden, I'm being embraced by all
these these vaunted venues. Uh. I've been taking I've been
writing music to some Spike Lee cues. Uh. And because
I thought through the years Spike hired me, I'd always

(01:15:28):
do a little bit little things for him here and there.
In fact, shadow Lands, I love that song. Well, I
was just gonna say, because question love you your first
acting gig was bamboozled, right, Yes, so and Oscar worthy
of performance? Is that your Shina Eastern moment? It's not,

(01:15:50):
you know, it isn't because you know, I knew that
it was a satire. It was just yeah, the way
that um Spike often does the these social experiments. So
I'll say that the only part that was like hard
to do about that movie was the fact that he
purposely We'll put our trailer five blocks five city blocks

(01:16:15):
away from where we were shooting. Why because he wanted
us He at the end, I was like, you you
you did a school days on us. You purposely he
wanted you to feel the shame of wanted us to
walk through the streets of New York and it gets
closed and in black faith like five blocks. Yeah, and

(01:16:38):
it was yeah, like we knew it's that this was
And you know, at the time in two thousand, I
was like, yo, you know, you don't think it ever
was going to get And now it's like we're we're
past it, like you know, it's more like a documentary.
Then it's like it's like idiocracy it is it? So yeah,

(01:16:59):
well that sounds cool, but it sounds like it has
a real purpose. What he made y'all? Do we know
it had an absolute purpose in doing it? Yea, yeah,
I enjoyed it. Um yeah, So what was how did
you do? Was this your you to clock us first? Correct? Okay,
my my spike, Uh, I guess the resume goes like this,
we made this video. Uh we Branford in New York City,

(01:17:20):
I trove in New York cap Uh. Then a ninety
five he called Massby if I would to write an
entitled song for his great movie Clockers. I think it's
one of his great ones. And uh, you have so
many and I just had. Shaka Khan had called me
right around the same time and said, he said, hey,
would you write a song with me? And I said, yes,
come to Virginia because I heard shot look I love

(01:17:42):
her death, but I heard she was famous for making
a meeting at noon and showing up many hours late.
So so I thought to myself, well, if I'm gonna
wait on her, I'm gonna wait into my house. So
she came and we had the best time. We wrote this.
The song loved me still and then Spike, right around
the time we were writing it, he calls me and said, hey, uh,

(01:18:05):
I'd like I'd like an entire I need an entitled song.
What do you got? I said, well, Jock and I
were writing the song and we'll get and say, okay,
well I claim it, and so that's as simple as that.
Without even having heard the song, he was just like that, well,
I guess I claimed first write a refusal. Okay, okay,
you know so wait, were you initially trying to put
that on her on another album of hers or it

(01:18:28):
was just we're just writing a song. It was it
was for her though, it was it was she she
was writing the words, she was gonna sing it. Uh so,
and she's done it. Great, She's on her greatest hits record.
And then six years later he asked me again for Bamboozled,
and this time though he wanted it to be specific
to the script to the story, I guess it's Damon

(01:18:52):
Wahen's character, right, and so I basically wrote it from
his point of view and uh and look at So
that was that ended up being the entitled song for
that And then years so he kept asked me for
a little little bits and pieces for Boobies. But then
in two thousand and eight he called me and said, hey, uh,
I want you to score I'm doing I'm doing this

(01:19:14):
documentary ESPN documentary on the late Great Kobe Bryant's called
Kobe Doing Work, and I'd like you to score. So
I think this was my audition. So that was my
first one, and that was two thousand and eight, came
out and O nine I believe, and then all the
way up through last year with that She's Got to
Have It Part two, the second season, I did a

(01:19:34):
bunch of stuff, probably six or seven full scores and
some little incidental music. So in that time eleven years,
I wrote probably almost two hundred and forty different pieces
of music. And now and then I would think, Man,
this song, this piece, this instrumental que, it sounds like
it needs to be expanded into a song. So I
started doing that three years ago. And I started giving

(01:19:55):
myself chills while doing this because the cues themselves were
very Vive's cinematic. And that became my record absolute zero,
and then I can't follow it up with you know,
just last week came out non Secure Connection also uh
chock full of of of score of music that became songs. Yeah, Scott, Yeah,

(01:20:17):
And do you um you know when you talk about
your songwriting process, I was scared to know. Do you
think of yourself as a singer or is it just
kind of your voice is just the I guess, the
vehicle to kind of get it out. Like if someone
came to you and was like, Yo, I have a
song I wrote for you. Is that something that you
have explored for oh? People writing songs for me to do? Yeah,

(01:20:38):
for me to sing specifically, as I say, yeah, no,
I don't people fusy don't do it that much, but
I had that. Look, if there was ever a book
written about me, it should be called slow learner. Uh
and I feel like it's a vocalist. What I do
now is far, far exceeds what I did then, just
on a soulful level and expressive level. And uh so

(01:21:02):
so yeah, I'm just deep. People ask me, well, do
you have any interest in doing this and scoring films
blah blah blah and or doing this and that. I say, Look,
I'm just really trying to do what I do better
and better. Um. And I also tell them that I'm
like Tom Hagen and The Godfather who has one client
as a lawyer Don Corleoni, I'm as a film composer.

(01:21:23):
I'm the same. I have one client, Spike Lee. I'm
not interested in doing this for other people. We have
a special relationship. And so that's now y'all have a synergy. Man,
it definitely is. It's just you know, when you were
just describing your your style kind of like the Bill
Levans meets to him kind of thing. Yes, it fits
his I mean, it fits the tone of his movies,

(01:21:45):
like the thing you guys have. It works, man, Yeah, well,
he he just likes what I do. He called me
up last week about something UH and said, look, just
I'm gonna keep calling you because I like what you do.
So so that's not I love him. I'll tell you what.
I'll tell you one great Spike story, speaking of the
Bill Lee the theo UH. We were recording that with

(01:22:11):
Leslie Odom Junior singing UH from Hamilton's and he's he's
he was in Harriet Tubman lately. He's had a great
post Hamilton's career. Anyway, we're doing recording in Brooklyn, recording
Leslie and UH with a great jazz group backing us up.
And so I said, hey, Spike, I need a ride

(01:22:34):
to my hotel somewhere in the middle middle of the session.
Said you have no problem, we'll get it. So the
session ends and he says, hey, let's it's a nice day.
Let's just walk to your hotel. So we go out
in the street, just the two of us, and man,
it was like walking with I don't know, I mean, well,

(01:22:57):
I just I was just I just love that people
are hanging out of cars, hanging out of apartment spoke Spike.
It was I said to him, is it always likeness. Yeah,
pretty much. But then later on, you know, Spike, Spike, Spike,
and he looks at me, said, well, maybe today is
a little more intense than you but it was. We

(01:23:18):
had the best time. It was a beautiful November afternoon
in Brooklyn, and we just walked and walked and walked,
and it's just it's one of my great Spike Lee moments,
is walking with him while he's just getting the love
from you know, he was just getting his king exactly right.
It's just fantastic. So let me ask you, so with

(01:23:39):
where we are now today in Corona and the world
slowed down, I know for a lot of musicians, this
is the time period in which the portals of a
lot of ideas are opening up. And you know, again
you've done blue grass work with Ricky Skaggs, and you know,
jazz working all these other things. What have you? What

(01:24:02):
have you been trying to cook up as of late? Like,
how have you how have you spent the last well
as of this recording six seven months? Yeah, Well, in
early mid March when the quarantine shut down era began, Obviously,
like everyone else, I wasn't going to go go anywhere,
but I have this great facility, this great studio. So

(01:24:25):
I just decided, okay, well I'm gonna try to take
the deep dive and and try to really take it
to another level. So I wrote six songs in six
weeks from mid March to the end of April. Then
I had to go do a few other things, some
music for other records, etcetera. But uh uh, and I've

(01:24:45):
learned how to play these the songs off this current
new record because now we're in the remote era and
so you have to perform in your house. And so
I did that. And I was just in l A
last week working with uh with tone de Burg, who says, Hi,
do you quest love? He Tony Berg has a studio
in Brentwood on Kenter and he said, you worked there

(01:25:07):
with a woman named Susan Rodgers and engineer. Wow, yeah, yeah, yeah,
that's right. So he he says, hello, Tony Brooks great
great producer. He produces it produced Fiona Apples of our
great records. He produces young girl Phoebe Bridgers, who's sort
of all the rage in that world, very strong. So
that's what I've been doing, just just working on new stuff.

(01:25:30):
And that's I'm lucky just like I guess all of us.
We get to do what we love to do for
a living. And so I'm just continuing to try to
be creative at this point in my career. Sometimes I'm
trying to make a sound that I've never heard before.
So it takes me far afield into again, do decaphonic stylings.

(01:25:53):
There were you were coming, you were coming? Where your kids? Like?
Were they aware that you know their dad was Bruce Hornsby?
Like how did you navigate being a musician and a parent?
And I think I think they gradually It's just as
you grew up as a kid, you you sort of

(01:26:13):
gradually become awake. You know, you wake up every year
a little bit more. And so they they knew about it.
Say when they were seven or eight where they go
see we did a tour. And when they were six,
Bonnie Ray Jackson, Brown, Shawn Colvin and I and David
Linley did a tour. The boys came around on this

(01:26:36):
tour and you know they're in red rocks and seeing
a big crowd of nine thousand going crazy for their
grizzled old code of a dad. And uh so, anyway
that that's they've enjoined it. My boys are fans of
what I do, and so that's really really nice. Okay,
before we let you go ahead, do have one question.
So obviously you got a long, long mile it out

(01:27:00):
of the way it is via Tupac. But did you
ever foresee or think that there will be a time
in which, even twenty years after Tupac, that the way
it is would come back again. I know that Polo
G Polo G wishing for a hero. Man, they wished
for a hero. So I love it. I really love

(01:27:23):
what Polo G did. We got out of the blue
and maybe February of this year, we got reached out
to by his people saying, Pology would like to fly
to Virginia to ask your permission. I said, we'll just
send me the thing. And I heard it. I went in,
save you do that. Well they fly out and asked

(01:27:43):
what we're missing? Input person in, wait, that's a that's
really a thing? Well it was. It wasn't this case.
It wasn't this case. Uh, So I said, hey, save
your time money. I love what you did. It's called
wishing for a hero and uh and yes you may
work together at some point. Yeah. The odd couple kind
of like Spike and Bruce another it worked well. Look

(01:28:09):
I just uh, I love what I love what Tupac did.
It's a positive message and same with Polo g. The
the video is beautiful. This record has this great gospel
choir coming in and sort of halfway through and taking
you home with it. It's I love it. So I'm
I'm proud and grateful to these great young artists for

(01:28:31):
for their interested in my music, at least that song anyway. No,
that's that, you know, that's the always wondered if if
that myth is really real? Like on on television of movies,
you always hear this thing about like it just takes
one song to change your life and then you know
that I guess uh. I think Carl Douglas, creator of

(01:28:56):
what is now the unplayable Kung Fu Fight Fight uh
still once fantasy, said that you know, just that one
song can you know, can change your life and you
don't have to work another day again, Like you guys,
this one song to fall back on. But maybe I'm
gonna try to get to those cats was fast as lightning.

(01:29:17):
Maybe I'm gona try to get that next year. There
you go. I'm sorry I cut you off. What you say, man, No, no, no,
I was no, I was saying that. Well you confirmed
it then, But I mean I also know that you're
not in the game just to monetarily, you know, kick
off of you know, burn hundred dollar bills with the

(01:29:39):
cigar or burned cigars with one hundred dollar bills. So
you should see that. I'll go to the whole house
with Huey Lewis. That's maybe I'll start burning hundreds. No,
I don't think so though. I'll leave that to uh
the Wolf of Wall Street guy, you know, Aprio. And

(01:30:00):
then yeah, that's good. Well, we thank you very much
Bruce for being on the show today. And yes we
we are still. I listened to our version of love
Me Still from tonight, so well, I'm so glad you
brought it up. Can I just end with my quest
love story? So yes, yes, we're in that little that

(01:30:25):
little rehearsal room. It's tiny, right, and uh so your
piano player he says, hey, can we play love the Skills?
So I say sure, sort of playing it in the
normal way, And all of a sudden, I guess you
had this great idea to play it as a slow
shuffle so we can we try it this way. So

(01:30:45):
we start playing. We're playing a little bit, and I guess,
so you You've made the greatest sort of producer sort
of request. You said, hey, play it like you're drunk,
which was great because because what I really felt was,
I was when I think you really meant truly you

(01:31:07):
meant was, hey, man, you're a little on top, we're
laying back always. You just need to get back with us.
So I so I started really sitting on it, and
what a field. The next time I came back. We
had to do it again. And now my band plays
Loved Me still, the Quest Love version. Okay, quest I

(01:31:33):
was gonna have to cover that version before you recover
and cover your version. Whatever you want, thanks man, but
well we gotta do it. We gotta do it now.
Sounds great. That room was going crazy that day. Yeah,
that's that's probably one of our movements. That's that's the
top ten moment inside that room. Well, it was you

(01:31:56):
and we're now playing according with us. Yes that I
put that up there, definitely, definitely. Well I'll take it up.
I'll be lumped in with weird Al any time he's
a fat due can go. Man, This is of course love.
Thank you very much Bruce Hornsby for joining us and

(01:32:17):
uh we'll see you on the next go round. Of course,
Love Supreme in a real pleasure. Thank you so much.
Thank you. M basically want to thanks for the music.
Thank you, Bruce. What's Love Supreme is a production of
I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio,

(01:32:39):
visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.

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Questlove

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