Questlove Supreme: Bruce Hornsby

This week on Questlove Supreme mega talented, multiple award winning singer songwriter, composer and pianist Bruce Hornsby shares his story. Amongst many topics, he speaks on the impact of his monster socially conscious hit, That’s Just The Way It Is and those infinite relationships from The Grateful Dead and Spike Lee which have brought life changing music to our ears and screens.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Ladies and Gentlemen. What's Up?

Speaker 3 (00:09):
This is another episode of Court Love Supreme. I'm your
host Quest Love Jenkins. We're We're Team Supreme today Shook
Steve in the house. Hello, Hello, Quarantine Steve, Quarantine Bill.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Yeah, what's up?

Speaker 3 (00:24):
Man?

Speaker 2 (00:24):
How you doing?

Speaker 4 (00:25):
Holding it down?

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Okay it's asterisk or just definitive.

Speaker 4 (00:31):
It holding it semi calling down. Everything's good. Uh, working
on some music for the street all as well.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Okay, gotta keep the street tapping and h fan take
a lot.

Speaker 5 (00:42):
I'm good brother, I'm good man, doing the work as well.
I can't complain.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
Cool, cool, all right.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
Bark Yesterday is a Grammy Award winning singer, songwriter, producer, composer.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
He has actually come to us in many forms.

Speaker 3 (00:57):
Of the past, real real, for real, either as a
soloist or fronting one of his many projects sounds like Quesla,
either a member of the range the Noisemakers at one point,
Ambrosia and Ambrosia.

Speaker 6 (01:13):
Yes, not really, but okay.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
We'll take it.

Speaker 3 (01:18):
We'll take it. You know, wait a minute, you know what,
and I often do this. I'm not interrupting my own
intro yes or no? All right, I'm a Soul trained collegist.
Is that you on Soul Train with she and Easton?

Speaker 6 (01:32):
That's hilarious. You've nailed me.

Speaker 5 (01:38):
Yes, yes, yobs from Downtown.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
No, I didn't even know.

Speaker 3 (01:45):
I think like I have all the episodes that I
keep them on loop. And like three weeks ago, she
was on doing Sugar Walls and.

Speaker 2 (01:52):
I was like, wait and that was you? Okay, okay, okay.

Speaker 6 (01:59):
Well well, oh yeah, there's a funny story about it.

Speaker 7 (02:01):
Look, I played with her for two years and and
sure we did Soule Train and I out there looking
like a complete clown.

Speaker 6 (02:08):
Most likely I haven't seen that for years.

Speaker 7 (02:13):
But 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.

Speaker 6 (02:22):
For a great benefit.

Speaker 8 (02:24):
He was.

Speaker 7 (02:24):
He played My son, Keith played at LSU, and he
was live on national TV his junior year maybe against
testas A and l on ESPN one.

Speaker 6 (02:33):
And he had a pretty rough game.

Speaker 7 (02:35):
And we're back at the hotel, the Cook Hotel on
LSU campus and he just bumming. He's really down, And
I said, you know what, I'm going to change your
mood right now, go to YouTube and look up Sheena
Easton Strut and the China Easton sugar Walls featuring me
looking like a complete idiot. And so he looked at
his dad just sort of undulating around with funglasses on,

(02:59):
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 clownest appearances in Sena videos worked well.

Speaker 3 (03:12):
I assure you that exaggerating lazy and gentlemen anyway.

Speaker 8 (03:17):
You had say, I forgot we was still on the intro. Yeah,
who's on a show?

Speaker 4 (03:21):
Hold on, I never want played with CDs, did allot
of second.

Speaker 3 (03:26):
We don't even talk about his work with U, d
J Neet Jack Dsonnet and my high school mate Christa McBride.

Speaker 6 (03:33):
Yes Philadelphia schoolmates.

Speaker 3 (03:35):
Yes, yeah, not to mention you know your your musicianship,
your DNA is all over our favorites by Bonnie Ray
Don Henley, so many projects.

Speaker 2 (03:46):
This intro is going to be forever.

Speaker 8 (03:48):
Y uh.

Speaker 9 (03:49):
He played with Squeeze what yep when I don't know?

Speaker 7 (03:54):
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 is a beautiful bet you
know that one. No, it's it's a great not a hit,
but it's a beautiful song.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
Squeezehead.

Speaker 8 (04:10):
What album is it on?

Speaker 7 (04:11):
It's so called play Okay, early mid nineties and I
played Accordion.

Speaker 6 (04:16):
Yeah on this right, let.

Speaker 3 (04:19):
Me just say the two words so we can start
the episode. Bruce Hornsby the Quest Love Supreme. Thanks anyway, Yeah,
we often fall in the rabbit holes even before we
get the name of the artist.

Speaker 6 (04:31):
Who cares. It's fine, Bruce Hornsby, Easton veteran.

Speaker 3 (04:36):
So right now you're celebrating the release of your twenty
second record.

Speaker 2 (04:39):
Correct, Yes, that's true, sir.

Speaker 3 (04:42):
So without my knowledge of your your your Deadhead years,
can I can I assume that the fact that you
have about I believe it is twenty six live albums,
that's the less.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
And that you learned from playing with the Grateful Dead.

Speaker 6 (05:03):
Well, okay.

Speaker 7 (05:03):
People always ask me, how did playing with the Dead
change your musician, ship, changed 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

(05:24):
of people for a year paid vacation for rich Nordon kids,
Northern white kids. Anyway, I came out with that background,
and so the improvisational aspect of the Dead was not
anything that was sort of epiphanal for me, epiphantic. What
I got out of them mostly was inspiration on the

(05:48):
songwriting level. People don't realize that they have fully fifty
truly great songs. Half of them sound like they could
have been written one hundred years ago or plus. Old
folk music keep well of influence there. So so I
love them. I miss Garcia. He was quite a guy.

Speaker 2 (06:08):
He was a rocket during the Garcia years.

Speaker 7 (06:11):
Oh yes, the last spot I played with him, just
for twenty months or so. I played about one hundred
shows with them from eight from nineteen ninety to ninety two.
We'd opened for them before that.

Speaker 2 (06:23):
Okay, Oh so you played the ninety two Okay.

Speaker 7 (06:25):
Yeah, but then I was sitting with them when they
were geographically close to me up through ninety five, up
right up to his death.

Speaker 3 (06:30):
Okay, so yeah, I went to one Garcia show. I
think in Houston when Branford Marcellus was singing with them.

Speaker 7 (06:40):
Yes, my guy, Yes, Branford and I played together with
it dead quite often. It's his birthday's coming up here
pretty soon, Fellas, So maybe you should shout his ass out.

Speaker 8 (06:50):
Yeah, are you on without a net the deadline?

Speaker 6 (06:56):
No, that's Branford's on that, okay.

Speaker 7 (07:00):
To respond to the twenty six live albums to which
you're referring, that's albums, I mean they're just available online.
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 expands everything that we started with.

Speaker 6 (07:24):
On the original record.

Speaker 7 (07:25):
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 this 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 don't and
it makes it great fun.

Speaker 3 (07:42):
Is there a pressure for you to make a memory
each and every night knowing that some of these fans
will follow you like there. To me is no more
loyal fan base than you know, anything associated with the dead.

Speaker 2 (07:59):
Yes within it.

Speaker 3 (08:00):
So yeah, that's how did that affect your actual the
way that you put on shows?

Speaker 7 (08:06):
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 freer, 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,
people who are only there to hear the songs. They know, yeah,

(08:28):
that's right. And so I was never that guy. So
I've it's been my self appointed job to piss those
people off for many a year, and so been nasty
letters abound in my world for thirty two years.

Speaker 2 (08:44):
Now.

Speaker 3 (08:45):
Wait, you're saying that you've gone shows without playing maldern
Rain or the way it is.

Speaker 6 (08:50):
Or yet, well not many I've been.

Speaker 7 (08:53):
I've become a lot more kind about it in my
snessence here in my sixties, but there have been shows.
But the only only 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 away with it,
and it wasn't a problem. Of course, I still get

(09:15):
a couple of nasty letters from people who again are
so core 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 devo te
and so that a stringent atonal chromatic, dough decophonic sound

(09:40):
has been filtering into my music much too many fans chagrin.

Speaker 6 (09:45):
I apologize to that.

Speaker 5 (09:46):
Mat That is actually the g is the first time
we've ever heard the word dough decophonic used on questloads
and that is amazing, and I'm.

Speaker 6 (09:55):
Happy to be a first to give you all a
first here.

Speaker 10 (09:58):
Yeah, I saw you play one downtown and uh, there
was a lot of feedback and it.

Speaker 4 (10:03):
Was in the key of F.

Speaker 10 (10:04):
So so they played everything in the key of F.
And for that it was fucking hilarious because every song
was just in F, no matter what in what grange.
They took everything into F and so like because they
kept out feeding back and so like, so is not
to be a total They played everything in f and
it was hilarious.

Speaker 7 (10:24):
Well, look, if you're a musician of any worth, you
should be able to transpose instantly.

Speaker 6 (10:30):
You can't. You're not going to play with me, and so, uh,
what's that?

Speaker 10 (10:37):
We share a guitar player, Doug Doug Derryberry, who used
to be a noise maker many years ago, is sesame
Streets guitar player.

Speaker 6 (10:44):
So well, not that many years ago, Doug.

Speaker 7 (10:47):
Doug was with me for fifteen years and I 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 it's a great
New York guitar player named John Leventhal, most well known
for the Sean Colvin Great Records and Levinthal had played

(11:09):
on my sixth record, Spirit Trail in ninety eight, and
I wanted somebody 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 love Doug
and he did a great job for us, Like I say,
for fifteen years.

Speaker 3 (11:30):
So your musical roots. I know that you started out
in Virginia. What city were you born in?

Speaker 7 (11:37):
I was born in Richmond, and 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 la I moved back in nineteen ninety. So I've
been here for back here for thirty years and we're
in my garls.

Speaker 6 (11:56):
Yeah, you can have that shit.

Speaker 8 (12:00):
I went there once. They took us on the trip
there like third grade one time, and like that was it?

Speaker 3 (12:05):
No roots show there our get the Spontine the the
one we did like one.

Speaker 2 (12:12):
O six in part live.

Speaker 7 (12:14):
Oh h yeah, so how did you how did you
go over?

Speaker 6 (12:20):
How did they.

Speaker 2 (12:23):
Our song?

Speaker 3 (12:24):
Break you off with nice for about four minutes and
then the rest of the show was like.

Speaker 6 (12:28):
Okay, they're just they're just out there a little.

Speaker 2 (12:32):
They were like, where's mister cheeks? That we're done? So yeah,
I can relate.

Speaker 9 (12:38):
I've been about what about Colonial Williams Williams, Vergon.

Speaker 7 (12:44):
Well, we made it our self appointed job as local
townies to pelt tourists and local College of women marry
students with water balloons, and so.

Speaker 6 (12:54):
We would ride through town and just wear an ass out.

Speaker 2 (12:58):
Uh Jesus christ Man.

Speaker 7 (13:03):
Yeah, our karma was probably not so good then hopefully improved.
But uh we actually got stopped by the cops and
take it to the cop the police station our senior
year in high school. Uh, some young, well appointed young
College of women marry grad students. We just pelted him
and he flagged the cops down and we were through.

(13:25):
So that's but yeah, that was as exciting as it
got in the little last town of Winnsburg, which I love.

Speaker 6 (13:31):
Obviously I moved back here, but yes, Williensburg is my town.

Speaker 2 (13:35):
Yeah, yeah, Worns. We got Karen, Okay, I'm right down
the street.

Speaker 5 (13:40):
Yeah, I'm I'm in North North Carolina, born and raised
where where I'm in Raleigh? And I saw your son.
He went to Ashville, right, he went to Yes, yeah,
in the mountains.

Speaker 7 (13:51):
Yes, you saw him planc State, yeah, man, Yeah, he
put twenty three on Ency State and then they recruited him.
Mark Gottfried recruited him, but he picked LSU and it
worked out great for him. But yes, Robbie's a good
old town. We like playing that museum, the outdoor.

Speaker 8 (14:10):
One had art museum out uh huh.

Speaker 7 (14:11):
Yeah, it's nice, it's really nice. And you know Branford
lives in Durham.

Speaker 8 (14:16):
Yeah, man, Bradford.

Speaker 5 (14:17):
So Bradford he actually I'm I graduated from North Clina
Central and Branford taught there. He was there the artist
in residence for years and h he's just super cool dude, man.

Speaker 7 (14:27):
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.

Speaker 2 (14:37):
What was your first musical memory.

Speaker 7 (14:41):
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, crock and all the time,
you know all that business. Uh and some other songs too,

(15:05):
with the Wind and the Rain in her Hair by
Pat Boone. Our parents were turning us on to this stuff.
So yeah, sadly, alas I probably heard Pat Boone's Tutti
fruity and not little Richard rich as sad as that sounds.
That's that's that was what was happening in my house.

Speaker 2 (15:24):
But yeah, siblings or was it just you?

Speaker 6 (15:27):
Yes, I'm the emotionally disturbed middle child, and.

Speaker 7 (15:32):
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 not like not like
relationship that I had with each of them. My older
brother was the original deadhead in our family, Bobby Hornsby,

(15:54):
and I used in my freshman year of college, I
was a little Brucey playing Fender Rose 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 writing a lot of songs with
me later in the aforementioned Mandolin Rain is a co
write with my younger brother, John Valley Road School, about

(16:16):
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, so he yeah, so
he wrote that with me.

Speaker 6 (16:32):
He wrote songs for several years, but now he's out
of it. But yeah, they're I was. I was.

Speaker 7 (16:37):
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 hoop.

Speaker 3 (16:44):
Yeah, I was gonna say, your your relationship with basketball.
I'm a Philadelphian, So yeah, it has been noted how
your involvement in the life of Alan Iverson, some could
say literally saved his life. At the time, it's too curious,

(17:05):
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
fans and how they see that just as important as
professional sports. And but what was it at the time
that made you want to get involved in his situation?

Speaker 7 (17:25):
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
the Atlanta Hawks and the New Orleans Pelicans. So for
most of this vast area. College sports is king. That's
one reason why the SEC, I think is so huge,

(17:48):
because the only game into and the a SEC too,
so those are the only games in town.

Speaker 6 (17:55):
And that Having said that, what what did you just
ask me?

Speaker 3 (17:58):
Other than that, what made you personally get involved with
Alan iverson situation?

Speaker 2 (18:04):
Oh?

Speaker 6 (18:04):
Okay, okay?

Speaker 7 (18:05):
So well, Chuck as we call him, Bubba Chuck, that
was Chuck was his name 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 all
this because he was a beloved figure. Even as a kid,
people just knew he was special. There's an AAU program

(18:27):
in our area, legendary program called the Blue Williams League
Boo Wiams 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 too.
He was just special athlete. He got over two hundred
offers in football as well, and so.

Speaker 2 (18:47):
So he was just as good at football as he
was in basketball.

Speaker 7 (18:50):
Well, it's arguable who can say, he was just fantastic
at both. So you know what he is saying, greater, greater,
He was just great in both.

Speaker 2 (18:57):
What was his position in football?

Speaker 8 (18:59):
He was a quarterback Okay.

Speaker 7 (19:00):
Yeah, and he was so fast and he had all
that juke, all those all those changing directions. You know,
he'd go this way and then go there. You just
he was crossing people off 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. In one of the

(19:20):
bases is Fort Ustess. They had a Christmas tournament. Chuck
was playing. Bethel High School was playing. So I went
to see the game and Anne Iverson, 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 left, We left Chuck, et cetera.

Speaker 6 (19:37):
And uh So.

Speaker 7 (19:38):
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 alley in pecosin Virginia, a
little an area of Newport News, Porhampton, I guess, and
uh well, a brawl broke out and he and a
bunch of others, uh were arrested for brawling in a

(20:02):
bowling alley and also maving by mob. So he was
He and three or four 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 and Virginia elected the first black governor in America.

Speaker 2 (20:19):
Doug Wilder.

Speaker 7 (20:20):
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
as a friend of mine. And I don't know, I
was just one of many probably to do this. But
but Wilder, around Christmas time of say ninety two, Wilder,

(20:41):
Doug Wilder pardoned Allen. Now he should have pardoned everybody.
And about two weeks later, the hubub was so intense
that finally he did let everybody go, so as not
to show favoritism to the local favorite son, Killer Hooper,
you know, killer Jock. So about two months later I
get call out of the blue from his high school coach,

(21:02):
a guy named Mike Bailey, and he says, hey, Bruce
Alan knows about what you did for oh, and also
I had just become friends with our mutual guy, Spike
LEEPI and so Spike and I. The first thing I
did was Spike in ninety two he made a video
for me. Branford was in it because he played on
the record a song about the first interracial romance in

(21:24):
my town of Williamsburg and all the consternation it caused
with the local sort of conservative government crowd. Anyway, we're
in we're in editing, and I told him about Chuck, and.

Speaker 6 (21:39):
Oh, that's right.

Speaker 7 (21:40):
I had told him earlier about that. Anyway, I forget
the exact timeline. But this guy calls me and so
I had gotten Spike when when when Chuck was in jail,
I said, Spike, you know you know what this kid I
told you about when now he's in jail. And Spike said, yes,
I've seen it on ESPN know all about it. I said,
will you do me a favor and send him just
pat Carre package from Spike Lee. It might pick him

(22:02):
up when he's at the City Farm in Newport News.
And so Spike did that. Anyway, the sky calls, he said, well,
Allan 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 he said, well,
that's what he would like to do. So we ended
up doing that and becoming friends through that forever.

Speaker 8 (22:26):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (22:27):
Now is there any truth that you Oh no, god, that.

Speaker 7 (22:35):
It's not just one game. It was three. But you know,
I'm just setting the record straight. I don't need to
talk shit. I don't care about living about making that
some moment. I never bring it up. I never talk
about it, but look, it's out.

Speaker 6 (22:53):
Well though, look it just happened.

Speaker 7 (22:58):
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
I just couldn't miss, you know, I just was just
just 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.

Speaker 6 (23:16):
Really. It helps the smaller guy, and he's a little
small shorter than me.

Speaker 7 (23:21):
Uh.

Speaker 6 (23:22):
It's it's the way the pros play.

Speaker 7 (23:23):
You start the top of the key and you can
either pick a two dribble or three dribble maximum, which
basically means the big guy can't just back in, back in,
back into the bracket, throws up a little last land
to a pitiful land hook and and do that all
the time. So you've got to make a move, you
gotta you know, you've got to commit and shoot the ball.

Speaker 6 (23:41):
So that's that's what we played.

Speaker 7 (23:44):
Of course, he dunked on my head about five times.
I mean, you know, he's a freak. 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, the hell with it,
I don't care. I love I love Chuck and uh,
you know, maybe maybe he let me.

Speaker 6 (24:04):
You'd have to ask him.

Speaker 3 (24:05):
Okay, Yeah, there's there's Uh there's a friend of Pharrell's
who I guess went to high school with with Alan,
and like one night they were at a party for
the Neptunes, and you know it's like they're in the
nightclub and you know, the guy was trying to bring
up like old high school times and you know Alan

(24:27):
was like, oh yeah, way back in the day, like
really not trying to talk basketball when you're in a
nightclub situation.

Speaker 2 (24:34):
Well, this guy like insists, like whatever high school.

Speaker 3 (24:37):
Game they played, like oh boy, he had walked or something,
or like he did some violations. 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 pouring down rain and
he's playing against Alan Iverson's roll's voice, like he's just

(25:02):
in front of the rolls voice, like trying to cross
as if that roll's voice is Alan Iverson, Like for
no reason at all.

Speaker 7 (25:10):
Just oh, he was out there alone, playing out there.

Speaker 3 (25:13):
Alone, just like playing a car trying to cross the
roles voice like it was parked, like Alan was nowhere.

Speaker 2 (25:21):
You know. It was just that is one of those
moments that's sad. Really, yeah, it was so for you.

Speaker 3 (25:30):
What was your what was the moment that really drew
you into your music career right now?

Speaker 6 (25:37):
Like, well, what what was the moment that made.

Speaker 2 (25:40):
Me say, I mean as younger.

Speaker 7 (25:43):
Yeah, exactly, there made me say, okay, the hell with
the standard routine, I'm casting my lot with the muse.
Tho's that moment you're 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
made and then Berkeley and Miami.

Speaker 6 (26:04):
So that was a year that made me.

Speaker 7 (26:06):
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.

Speaker 2 (26:19):
Seven started playing piano in eleventh grade.

Speaker 11 (26:22):
Yeah, yeah, I had a lot of catching up to do,
and yes started How that's just freaking well okay, so
how uhause?

Speaker 2 (26:32):
I mean you're really good. So I just think that.

Speaker 8 (26:34):
You can't have started that late. Yeah that's crazy.

Speaker 7 (26:37):
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 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 going.

Speaker 6 (26:58):
To catch up a little bit.

Speaker 7 (26:59):
All the oh, I do feel like I love classical music,
but my technique because I was such a late starter.
It's it's commonly said that if you want to be
a classical virtuos or a concert pianist, you have to
start at age three, four, five, six, you know, no late,
no later than that, because the demands are so intense.

(27:19):
And I really feel that, to be honest, I always
going men, bitch you sorry, as you know, to myself,
and so.

Speaker 6 (27:29):
So that's that's a regret. But hey, everyone's life path
is different.

Speaker 7 (27:32):
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 so that's my story. Just started started late, but
couldn't stop. I just I just had to do it
at all times.

Speaker 8 (27:50):
Why did you leave Berkeley?

Speaker 7 (27:53):
I went 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 for today, you had
to wait about six and a half hours to do
that because they kick you out.

Speaker 6 (28:04):
It was a good a line of sign.

Speaker 7 (28:06):
Up sheet in the line they kick you out after
two hours for you know, for good reason, I guess,
because there's got a lot of people waiting.

Speaker 6 (28:13):
Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 7 (28:13):
So and also since I was late to start, I
felt I needed to. I'd amassed all this information, you know,
this theoretical knowledge at Berkeley, Heart, take taking, harmony, et cetera,
and I thought I needed some time to really really
assimilate and deal with this and really ingest it. So
I lived in a farmhouse outside of Willnsburg, and that

(28:37):
was when I 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.

Speaker 6 (28:47):
And then I went to Miami from there.

Speaker 8 (28:49):
Were you learning just by ear or were you reading
at that time?

Speaker 7 (28:53):
Well, I started playing by ear because it came fairly
naturally to me. I started because of two guys. My
older brother went to New England prep school, and we
were just local Virginia hooples who listened to the top
fourtyest station in the soul station. We didn't get the
underground stuff, you know, the stations where back then you
could hear Miles Davis next to Hendricks, next to Joni Mitchell,

(29:18):
you know whatever. And so so he turned me on too.
I know this sounds crazy, to think that this could
be sort of underground. But Elton John's second record, Tumble
Wee Connection, is least mostly 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

(29:39):
me onto Joe Cocker, Mad Dogs and Englishmen with the
great Leon Russell playing piano. So Leon and Elton. Leon's
a soul man. He came straight out of you guys
familiar with Kojik Church of God in Christy, deep deep
gospel music roots. I mean, it's just the music that

(29:59):
comes out of there. Like you hear those old Sam's Cooking,
the Soul Stirrs records, all that stuff that Leon played, that.

Speaker 6 (30:05):
Good, Good.

Speaker 7 (30:07):
Gonna Go, all that stuff. You're hearing that in the
background where Sam's cooking, the soul Sterriers are singing that
killer gospel.

Speaker 6 (30:17):
That's where that came.

Speaker 7 (30:18):
Yeah, that's the right gospels, that's right gospel quartets. And
so between Elton and Leon, I was hooked, and so
I was.

Speaker 6 (30:26):
I was learning those by ear.

Speaker 7 (30:28):
But my mom, see, my grandfather was a musician for
a living in Richmond, and he was the supervisor of
music in the public schools, the pubic schools system, and
then uh he uh was also the uh the theater
organists at the local mosque. If you went to the
state jc's convention, you you'd be the guy over in

(30:48):
the corner playing Las Turkey in the star some old
pretty convincedrul ship. But uh so anyway, uh, she my
mom look at me, and she's my hands just looked terrible.
I was probably playing like this, and he said, you
know what, you you may be sounded okay, but you
look rough. You got to start taking lessons. And so

(31:09):
then I started to learn to read and learn sort
of the the jazz language, the two fives, et.

Speaker 6 (31:17):
Cetera, all the color tones and all that. So that
my mom was good for me.

Speaker 7 (31:22):
And so that's how that happened.

Speaker 3 (31:30):
Real quick, What year were you at Berkeley and were
there any other notable students that were there at the
time that was in the year that you went.

Speaker 7 (31:39):
Yeah, Well, I've always heard it's a it's a badge
of dishonor to actually graduate from Berkeley, because I've.

Speaker 8 (31:45):
Heard it too. You only go for a little bit. Yeah, yeah,
I mean, you ain't getting a gege, Yeah.

Speaker 4 (31:49):
You don't have a gig. That's right.

Speaker 7 (31:51):
That means you're saying yeah, you know, so okay. I
went for summer and fall of seventy four, but I
was in the accelerated program. So I crammed two years
into two semesters and let me see anybody who was
there who really emerged. Pat Metheene was there, but he
had come from Miami. He had been a student at Miami,

(32:13):
but he was so bad he became a teacher like instantly.
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 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

(32:38):
it was a fertile scene in Boston. You know, they
had the Jazz Workshop in Paul's Ball.

Speaker 6 (32:43):
You could go. I would go.

Speaker 7 (32:44):
I had enough money to go see hearsay Bill Evans
or Horrace Silver one of the week nights. But I
would go and listen through the wall on Boylston Avenue,
Boyston Street, just to hear more So it was amazing
to be able to hear all these people, all these
legend Cannonball added Lee Miles, on and on and on.

Speaker 2 (33:07):
Was it? How heavy was the competition there?

Speaker 3 (33:09):
Because I know, especially now, like if we're anywhere near
that campus in Boston, like or at least the musicians
I see now looking on YouTube or whatever, I feel
like there's such a not a cut through, but a
need to out floss each other into in terms of
like you know, overplay and yeah, everything is that the

(33:31):
story of Berkeley, just like, yeah, try to.

Speaker 7 (33:35):
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 uh so I don't remember, and
I also don't remember anyone emerging to have a great career.

Speaker 2 (33:54):
Now.

Speaker 6 (33:54):
When I went to Miami, that's different.

Speaker 7 (33:57):
Okay, When I was at Miami, it was sort of
the letter stages of the golden era of University.

Speaker 6 (34:02):
Of Miami right when I hit.

Speaker 7 (34:04):
When I got there, Pat Pat had been there, Jocko
had been teaching near Jocko Obastorius.

Speaker 2 (34:11):
Uh oh he held a job.

Speaker 8 (34:12):
Wow, Yeah, I didn't know, well it.

Speaker 6 (34:16):
Was personally it was private lessons.

Speaker 7 (34:18):
I'm sure it was loose hair, can't I can't make
it today listen to you know that that kind of thing.
But the Dixie Drags, you guys know, those guys were
Steve Morse sort of like I don't know, like virtuosic
rock and roll, bluegrass or something that Steve Morris was
crazy that the virtuosity level was high.

Speaker 2 (34:40):
Uh.

Speaker 7 (34:40):
But then uh, Carmen Lundy, Rob Watson but 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 rite of patches. If you were emerging as
one of the better players in the hierarchy of the school,
you got to play in Carmen Lundy's band. You guys

(35:02):
know Carmen, right, you guys know I. Yeah, okay, so
she's had a nice career as a jazz singer, and
uh yeah, Bobby Watson, Carmen pat pat Metheenie of course.

Speaker 2 (35:16):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (35:17):
And you're looking at it more serious jazz sort of
road or just you're going for the whatever it took you.

Speaker 7 (35:25):
Well, I was just going with the inspiration, but it
was pretty tall tale at that time. I would go
to the record store and I'd buy an Ornette Coleman
record and a Joni Mitchell record, and I'd always find
myself listening to the Joni Mitchell record more. You know,
I get a ROBERTA. Flack record and a Hubert Laws record,
say and the flute.

Speaker 8 (35:46):
Player, yeah and so on record.

Speaker 7 (35:50):
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 I think my heart was in in in
songs and songs with words. 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,

(36:14):
I got signed to our Sia Records at age thirty.

Speaker 2 (36:17):
So it was wow, over, let's back that up. Six
years eighty two, you and you joined Ambrosia.

Speaker 4 (36:26):
No, but I didn't.

Speaker 6 (36:28):
That's a that's a fallacy on Wikipedia whatever.

Speaker 2 (36:31):
Oh so you had nothing to do with No.

Speaker 6 (36:34):
No, they were great friends of mine.

Speaker 7 (36:36):
Okay, I was discovered the aforementioned band 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 expected to play
shake your booty and brick house and all that stuff.
So we actually acquired an audience who would come to

(36:57):
these lounges to hear my songs. So we were big
fans of Mike McDonald of the Doobie Brothers, and so
they were coming through town and uh so we knew
where they were staying because the same people that booked
the big concerts at Hampton Coliseum booked our little ship
ass gigs at the at the Stake and Ale.

Speaker 2 (37:15):
So we walked in.

Speaker 7 (37:17):
My drummer and I were both sort of big guys.
I'm big, bony ask guy, but my drummer is a big,
strong guy. And we walk in and found Mike McDonald
in the lobby. We went up to him and said, hey,
Mike with the baddest motherfuckers in his town, and we're
playing right.

Speaker 6 (37:31):
Over here and you should come here.

Speaker 7 (37:33):
So he says, well, I will if I can. I'm
going to the movies. But so sure enough he came.

Speaker 6 (37:44):
Everyone could do a.

Speaker 4 (37:45):
Mike McDonald opression.

Speaker 8 (37:49):
We've had him on the show. We actually had him.

Speaker 4 (37:51):
He was doing a depression of himself.

Speaker 7 (37:55):
Well he's a beautiful guy, as you know, he's just
the sweetest person, so self a face 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 LA and that's what got me out
to LA.

Speaker 6 (38:16):
About a year and a half later, a lot of
us moved to California.

Speaker 9 (38:21):
Did you ever end up working with Michael McDonald after
that on projects or anything.

Speaker 7 (38:26):
No, But our claim to fame was that Mike McDonald
and whether the Doobie Brothers were playing some PBS special
and 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. We thought that was beautiful.
We slept on his floor for ten nights, my drummer

(38:46):
John Molo and I and at that time he was
singing on everybody's record under the La Sun, and so
he would take our admittedly very mediocre demo tape around
and try to turn people onto it and that.

Speaker 6 (39:00):
But to no avail again. Years later I got signed.

Speaker 2 (39:04):
Oh but yeah, right, this is from moving to LA.
What year did you move to LA?

Speaker 7 (39:09):
Nineteen eighty Yeah, okay, graduated seventy seven from UM and
then two and a half years around the local scene
from Virginia Beach to Richmond with Willisburg in the middle,
and then moved, uh to LA.

Speaker 2 (39:23):
Well, obviously I know what prompted to move to La.
Oh oh, but you know.

Speaker 7 (39:29):
You got we got onto this because you asked me
about Ambrosia.

Speaker 6 (39:33):
So yes, okay.

Speaker 7 (39:34):
So the opening act for the Dewey Brothers and on
that tour was Ambrosia, and so they came to the
gig too, and we became friends with them.

Speaker 6 (39:43):
And when we moved we went to LA.

Speaker 7 (39:45):
Later that summer we slept on some of those guys floors,
and so they became friends with us. And then about
eighty three eighty two, eighty three eighty four, they had
made a record called Rhode Island and very venturous, sort
of prog rock record because a lot of everyone knows
the hits make a wish baby, how much I feel yet,

(40:08):
but really their their heart lay in in the uh
the more progressive.

Speaker 6 (40:16):
You know that that kind of thing, and I liked
that too.

Speaker 7 (40:21):
So they made a record called Rhode Island, and uh,
I wasn't on it, but I wasn't doing much then,
and they said, hey, why don't you come be in
a video?

Speaker 6 (40:30):
So now I'm outing myself again.

Speaker 7 (40:32):
I know that I know what you're up to here,
because now you're making me admit to another laughable performance
on a video that is unfortunately out in the world.

Speaker 6 (40:43):
But you know what, do I care? I look hilarious again,
So if you want extra I see now.

Speaker 7 (40:49):
I started off as a video pitiful and so that's
all I did with him.

Speaker 6 (40:55):
I was just in that video. The Rhode Island.

Speaker 7 (40:58):
Record didn't really do much commercially, and so they kind
of broke up the band, and uh, but right around
that time, I was starting to get my own thing going,
and soon enough I finally got my chance.

Speaker 3 (41:09):
So what was what was pounding the pavement like in
Los Angeles between nineteen eighty and eighty six when you
finally got your deal? Well you have what was what
was the steps of not the steps of heartbreak?

Speaker 2 (41:27):
But I mean, what was it like back then?

Speaker 7 (41:31):
Well, you'll have you'll I'll have to set the scene
by remembering the pop music trend of the time.

Speaker 6 (41:38):
The early eighties were just chock a block with new
wave music.

Speaker 7 (41:44):
Guys in skinny ties and the kind of haircut buzz
whatever they had groups.

Speaker 6 (41:50):
Like you, well, I didn't have. I didn't have any
of that.

Speaker 7 (41:54):
I looked just like some Schmendrick who you know, sold
sold coffee somewhere.

Speaker 6 (42:01):
I mean, I I just was totally not this. The
pictures of me are pretty funny. Well if I just
pictures of me now are probably pretty funny too.

Speaker 7 (42:09):
But anyway, that so I was really I'm trying to
take the picture that 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 eighty five,
the pop trends tended to were starting to move away

(42:31):
from from this sort of brit pop new wave thing,
and LA had its own new wave groups like X
and the Blasters, but it started moving into more of
an Americana you know, Bruce Springsteen, John Mellencamp, Tom Petty thing.
So my music was sort of tangentially related to that stylistically,

(42:54):
and so maybe that, but I was playing all this
piano and so it was a little differ and I
don't know. I'm proud to say the guy who signed
me was the rhythm guitar player for the Zombies back
in the sixties soul. Just the best British man, Paul Atkinson,
with that great resume, and he just and I tell

(43:16):
this to people all the time, the least as far
of sort of a tale, 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

(43:40):
out of 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 going to come out
in some small label like Windham Hill or something.

Speaker 6 (43:53):
But you laugh, Okay, I get it.

Speaker 9 (43:58):
This kind of sorry, it's kind of interesting that Paul
Atkinson signed. You have he's from The Zombies, which was
a keyboard centric band.

Speaker 6 (44:08):
Yeah, Rod Argent, exactly.

Speaker 8 (44:10):
Yeah, so he might have had a taste for that, an.

Speaker 7 (44:13):
Affinity for a keyboard or dominated pop yet. So anyway,
that's what happened, and then we met our first record
and 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. Rod Stewart's Maggie May,
for instance, one of the iconics that was thought to

(44:34):
be a B side as well.

Speaker 2 (44:35):
So you're saying the Way It Is was kind of
an afterthought.

Speaker 7 (44:37):
Like here, Well was the title I titled the record
that the record our first record was called The Way
It Is? But again, a song about racism with two,
not one, but two improvised piano solos is not this
formula for pop radio, you know, and so at all.
But it broke on the BBC BBC Radio one broken England,

(44:59):
then throughout Europe, then throughout the rest of the world,
and then here and so I was really lucky, man.
I broke on a song that, at least for me,
felt like it had a little more gravitage than the
standard record that you were hearing on hit radio then.

Speaker 6 (45:14):
And so yeah, I was good. It's a I call
it a wonderful accident, a great fluke.

Speaker 3 (45:19):
I want to ask you before we even get to
the actual crafting of the way it is. I just
got to know, how did you avoid, like eighty six
would have been a very tempting year patch wise for
you to fall into Yamaha d X seven itis with

(45:40):
those like fake.

Speaker 2 (45:41):
Road sounds and whatnot. Yeah, I did, and I hate
no one is such a strong piano player, Like, how
did you avoid falling into that?

Speaker 3 (45:50):
Because literally every other hit was just peppered with the
DX seven fake Rhodes bell sound.

Speaker 2 (45:57):
How did you avoid that?

Speaker 6 (46:00):
I thought it was the horror. I thought it was horrible.

Speaker 4 (46:02):
I was not.

Speaker 7 (46:02):
I just I didn't want to make that sound. And look,
it's what I do, it's what I did. And so
again I made this tape with no regard to that.
That's why I said, it's the least commercial attempted tape
that I ever that I made. And uh so so
it was again it was it was honest, and it

(46:23):
was maybe fresh, and so it's easy to Monday Morning
quarterback to me was just a wonderful accident.

Speaker 5 (46:30):
Yeah, that was a record, man, 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 the way it is,

(46:53):
and we didn't start the fire, like I remember my
teacher like making us right about those songs, like oh interesting, wow,
the way it is, like okay, so what do you
think this is about?

Speaker 8 (47:03):
What do you think you know? And and and it
just always resonated with me. And I think even the.

Speaker 5 (47:08):
Mirrors one about you know, the d X seven, that
kind of plastic keyboard kind of sound that was hot
at the time.

Speaker 8 (47:14):
One of the things that always took out to me
that you were actually playing a real piano.

Speaker 5 (47:17):
And I mean I was, I mean got I was
probably like seven eight whatever when it came, but but
I remember it vividly, and that was just always one
of my favorite songs. And you know, all the times
it's sampled and everything. I mean, it was just I
just always thought that was just a gorgeous song.

Speaker 6 (47:31):
Well, how about a fast car like Tracy Chapman. Did
you like that when?

Speaker 3 (47:35):
Yeah, of course 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 meant

(47:55):
barely with with hip hop.

Speaker 2 (47:58):
I mean hip hop really.

Speaker 3 (47:59):
Wouldn't wasn't starting to get in your face for real,
for real until eighty seven eighty eight. Right, Yeah, so
I meant to even bring up something as topical or whatnot.

Speaker 2 (48:11):
Do you think that's just experience experiences in Richmond, Virginia,
or or like what prompted that?

Speaker 7 (48:20):
Well, I think it's just growing up in a small town. Yes, Williamsburg,
which is fifty miles for Richmond. So I have small
more of a small town feeling in Williamsburg. And look,
it's just it's just based on my upbringing. I was
the only white dude on the basketball team in high
school and that was just the best experience for me.

(48:40):
My old teammates are still my hanging pals in town.

Speaker 6 (48:45):
Here. We go out and talk shit and have a
laugh and get some beat all for years now.

Speaker 7 (48:51):
It's just beautiful and so I'll shout out Lawrence Jones,
Keith Drewett, Pebe Martin, Alonzo Dandridge Algae.

Speaker 6 (49:00):
I could keep naming them.

Speaker 7 (49:02):
So 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 it was
it was still sort of a fraud scene. It was
was definitely attention in the air. And uh, but I

(49:26):
don't know, I embraced it. They embraced me, My teammates,
They 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.

Speaker 5 (49:41):
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, but what was he
like kind of behind the boards and in working in
that capacity?

Speaker 7 (49:51):
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,
the River Runs Lot. I just thought it wasn't doing
the song justice, so I stripped it all down and
it made it a keyboard vocal record. Hughuey is one
of the great guys, and he was He was a

(50:15):
big cheerleader for me, kind of like Mike McDonald had been.
We were making a demo for Epic Records in eighty
four and hue had sports at the time, which was
just Hugh 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 the Range.

Speaker 6 (50:34):
Then RCA asked me to just be Bruce Hornsby.

Speaker 7 (50:37):
So I compromised on Bruce Hornsby and the Range. But
it didn't help us. We didn't get signed by Epic.
But that just shows you Hughey's 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 old horror this old horrorouse in
the countryside in Willisburg.

Speaker 6 (50:59):
He called down the road tonight and he he produced.
He produced that song. He should have cuted himself. He'd
have had a hit with it.

Speaker 8 (51:08):
I think, yeah, I could imagine hue Lewis sing about
whole houses that.

Speaker 6 (51:16):
Better than I.

Speaker 12 (51:17):
Yes, I think you're right more better suited with with
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 as across the board
hit pressure wise, what was that like?

Speaker 2 (51:34):
Uh?

Speaker 3 (51:35):
To be like, how did your life change as far
as the results and you know, of having that hit
single and then suddenly being ubiquitous because it's.

Speaker 2 (51:47):
Not like you had a hit single.

Speaker 6 (51:48):
I mean this song is you know, it's lasting.

Speaker 7 (51:51):
Yet when you said shock, I thought you were gonna
ask me about my Shaka song.

Speaker 2 (51:56):
I didn't get there yet. Yeah, I didn't get there yet.
About to be there everything.

Speaker 7 (52:01):
Every time I come to and play with you, guys
you're keyboard player, somebody in your bend says, can we
play love me still?

Speaker 6 (52:07):
So I'll get with you, which I love.

Speaker 2 (52:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (52:10):
I have a good, a good story about you and
that song on Fallin. 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 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

(52:34):
success at top forty, at least in America. Oh 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 a Top
of the Pops and the like in You're in Holland,
Germany all around, So I would be saying I was

(52:55):
being Cleveland because the record company will send me there
to sit at a at a table signing autographs.

Speaker 6 (53:04):
So here I am, and.

Speaker 7 (53:06):
Next to me 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?

Speaker 8 (53:17):
It's me?

Speaker 7 (53:19):
And so it just didn't fit. I just I didn't
know how to handle it. I should have just taken
the piss out of it, as the Brits would say,
and just made it into a big joke.

Speaker 6 (53:28):
But then people that have got mad at me, and
I'd be.

Speaker 7 (53:31):
Drawing stupid things signing different names. I started.

Speaker 2 (53:35):
I just did that everyone.

Speaker 6 (53:37):
Yeah, well I did that for a little while.

Speaker 7 (53:40):
But I got tired of suffering the slings and arrows
of disgruntled fans. Who would go, oh, come on, man,
take it seriously. We really like you, you know, And
so then 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.

(54:01):
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 Linn drum machine, piano,
an OBX or Juno pad boom, vocals, boom, and so

(54:22):
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 seen anything yet, you know, you.

Speaker 8 (54:35):
Just just wait.

Speaker 7 (54:37):
And so then I started taking it out and my
third record, I had Wayne Shorter on the record and
Bayla Fleck and Oh Charlie Hayden Nig say wow, way
to go uh, And so then the letters really started cutting. Uh.
But but I so I just never looked back because
I never I never trusted hit radio anyway.

Speaker 6 (54:59):
I knew was sort of ephemeral and not going to
be around for me.

Speaker 7 (55:03):
Because I again, they hit off the second record was
the song this aforementioned song.

Speaker 6 (55:08):
Valley Road. I'm really blowing.

Speaker 7 (55:10):
I'm playing like McCoy tyner chordal harmony in the left
hand seven egg. I got the come, 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.

Speaker 3 (55:30):
It's kind of weird for me because all right, so
I'm slightly older than Fante.

Speaker 2 (55:34):
So like in my mind though, I think, even to
this day, if.

Speaker 3 (55:40):
I asked myself, I still consider Henley's end of the
Innocent mm hmm kind of like your fourth single.

Speaker 6 (55:49):
Yeah, well it's filing drumming that you know all over again.

Speaker 3 (55:53):
Yeah, Like I still feel like it's it's I never
consider that a Don Henley song, Like to me, that's
like your song.

Speaker 2 (56:01):
And it's your and you're not DNA print.

Speaker 4 (56:04):
Yeah yet.

Speaker 2 (56:05):
I don't want to sound like a suit like the
suit by on the an R Guy.

Speaker 3 (56:10):
But you know, you could have you could have just
served them of like you could have served at least
nineteen of them like hotcakes, like why did you I
okay breaks on it like.

Speaker 7 (56:23):
Well, you asked me if I felt pressure to come
up with hits or something like that us and I
didn't really answer it.

Speaker 6 (56:30):
But I can do it now.

Speaker 7 (56:33):
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 felt they knew what a
Bruce Hornsby hit was supposed to sound like. So I
took that as total license to be free and and
and write songs about interracial romances and the girl who

(56:57):
got pregnant, on and on so uh so and and
then I never got pressured from RCA. They were 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 mcfeeney started playing

(57:20):
on my records. That was really special because he was
He played so amazingly on my fourth and fifth records,
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 sort of be

(57:43):
a purist about it and and just follow my musical
instinct and and the recipe damn and aggress was kind
of damn for me. I stopped topped having hits.

Speaker 8 (57:53):
But it was okay.

Speaker 3 (57:54):
So back back in the eighties, when the myth of
winning the Best New Artists was an actual that's the curse, Yes.

Speaker 2 (58:03):
How did you feel when your name was called?

Speaker 7 (58:07):
I frankly was so clueless at the time that I
didn't start hearing about that curse until after we'd won it.

Speaker 6 (58:12):
And so, so how did I feel?

Speaker 7 (58:15):
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, it's a
pretty it's a pretty sorry batting average three for thirteen.

Speaker 6 (58:30):
But yeah, how did I feel? I didn't know about it.

Speaker 7 (58:34):
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 success and then I've been
trying to rid myself of that audience ever since, because well.

Speaker 2 (58:48):
I'll ask this question, then, is your best new artist?
Is it on the mantel piece or is it a doorstopper.

Speaker 6 (58:56):
It's neither.

Speaker 7 (58:57):
It's down the bottom shelf of a little a little
little case that that that houses old scrap books.

Speaker 6 (59:06):
And the three Grammys. You know, they they grew with
the through the years.

Speaker 2 (59:10):
You know.

Speaker 7 (59:11):
My second win was the Best Bluegrass Record, and the
third win was with Branford the song we did for
the Olympics Barcelona, Mona back then. And uh, I think
people just voted for us because Kenny g had won
for a hundred years and they wanted somebody.

Speaker 2 (59:26):
Else to wow.

Speaker 4 (59:32):
Bruce Horse the problems.

Speaker 2 (59:33):
I love it exactly, exactly, not a problem.

Speaker 3 (59:36):
Just you talk about working also with U with Bonnie
Ray as well, because that's your.

Speaker 7 (59:45):
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.

Speaker 8 (59:54):
Uh and uh so.

Speaker 7 (59:59):
She I would see her at parties in La after
I had hits. Of course, not I'm invited to these
slickster parties, which was yeah, fun, it was fun. She's
a lovely person. She sent me a fan letter one
time and it was so sweet. So I'm all.

Speaker 6 (01:00:15):
For Debbie Gibson she's a talented person too, so that's fantastic. Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:00:22):
So anyway, Bonnie Uh asked me to play on her
record her I guess it was second record she made
with Don was and Uh producing, and all of a sudden,
I for a little little time there, I was sort
of Don was his boy. I played on a Segur record,
and a Bob Dylan record, and a Body Rate record,
all in the all w just a few months period

(01:00:45):
when I was still living in LA my latter days
in l A. But that record was just one of
those Kis moments. You had this fantastic song. And I
give Don credit because he didn't dressed up a lot.
We cut the track just a trio. I was playing
some little keyboard roadside, not the ex seven, mind you,

(01:01:07):
but something, some sort of rosy sound, and then they well, yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:01:13):
Then they have you have you over dubbed the piano.

Speaker 7 (01:01:16):
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, bass, election, piano, accousia, piano, and vocal,
and it just resonated, So it was very We.

Speaker 6 (01:01:37):
Might have cut two or three tracks so fast.

Speaker 7 (01:01:41):
And look, I consider that to be Bonnie's iconic hit
record and the one that will be around forever.

Speaker 6 (01:01:47):
So look, how could I not be proud of being
a part of that.

Speaker 7 (01:01:49):
It was just and and she's the greatest anyway, she's
She's sent me some crazy lude uh to Twitter thing today,
you know, so we're she's She's a hilarious, great, just
beautiful woman.

Speaker 5 (01:02:06):
Do you think there was something with you guys kind
of understand each other because or I guess kind of
the creative kinship that you guys had, because Bonnie was
also someone that didn't really hit paydirt 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?

Speaker 6 (01:02:26):
Yeah, it could.

Speaker 7 (01:02:27):
I think basically we have similar musical interests and she's
one of the great singers, one of the great soulful singers,
and I like soul music. I'm not one of the
great soul singers, but I love it and so so look,

(01:02:49):
I think we just connect personally.

Speaker 6 (01:02:52):
She likes to have a laugh and I do too.
But anyway, it's just like I said, she's my big sister.
That's is it all to me?

Speaker 8 (01:03:05):
Bruce?

Speaker 10 (01:03:05):
How does how does your mindset change when you're going
from like side manning Bonnie Ray to like playing your
own shit? Or is it just the same approach, because like,
I can't make you love me. It's like a fairly
simple harmonic situation. At the end of the d I change,
I changed.

Speaker 3 (01:03:19):
I'm sure you did that song, so I almost feel
like you produced it even though you did.

Speaker 4 (01:03:23):
I'd love to hear it before you sat down to
play it, but I heard. I'm sure. That's a whole
other situation.

Speaker 7 (01:03:27):
But the chords were more standard. You know, I'm a
Bill Evans fanatic. You know, I love all that. I
love that French impressionism, harmony, reveil whatever, and uh so
I'm always interested in maybe finding a place for that
I called I had to find a fine figure out
a fascial way to describe my style because people are

(01:03:48):
always asking me. They always say, well, we can always
tell it's 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
call it Bill Evans Me to him book because I
love the uh the the movement in the left hand
of him of him music church music. But then I

(01:04:09):
love those beautiful sexy chords Bill Evans played too, so
uh uh.

Speaker 2 (01:04:15):
So I don't know.

Speaker 6 (01:04:16):
That's I don't know if I answered your question.

Speaker 5 (01:04:19):
That makes total sense because even when I hear something
you you play something like I really love your take
on Nola's thing for She's got to have it, and
just the way you play it, it's like, oh my god,
it is.

Speaker 8 (01:04:33):
It's gorgeous.

Speaker 2 (01:04:34):
Man.

Speaker 7 (01:04:34):
So I love it sounds like hearing you say that,
because yeah, right, you know that's my thing. If you're
gonna do that, 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.

Speaker 8 (01:04:49):
That's what.

Speaker 7 (01:04:50):
Why why do a cover if you're not going to
try to spin it and do it and not replicate
what's come before? What what's the point of that? So yeah, thanks, man,
I was proud of the and I did it pretty fast.
I gave him three takes and and Spike used the
right one to me, he's the one I liked the most,
and so yeah, that's good. That's but we've seen since

(01:05:13):
we seem to be going chronologically. Then we can go
back to to ninety five where we were talking about Papathenas.

Speaker 2 (01:05:22):
Wait a minute, is one more thing, one more important
part you missed? Okay, you just banded the group? Everyone
went grateful Dead. So how how was that? Like, hey guys,
I'm going over here, you guys take care of Like
what was.

Speaker 6 (01:05:37):
The Well, it wasn't exactly like that.

Speaker 7 (01:05:41):
I joined the Dead in nineteen ninety and the Range
was split apart in ninety two, but so probably by
joining the Dead played a part of 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 as the

(01:06:03):
old band sound is me playing along with the drum
machine and with the bass virtual one man show all
those hits that say the Range, I mean, the band
was great and just like I've said before, the Range
live we beat the dog shit out of those records,
you know, just on an impact and intensity and groove level.

(01:06:23):
The guys were great Molo, Joe Puerta, George Marinelli, on
and on, Pete Harris, David Mansfield. So they wasn't disbanded,
but okay. So we got asked to open for the
Dead in nineteen eighty seven out of the blue. And
as I said before, my older brother was a big
deadhead and all his hippie friends up up in University Virginia.

(01:06:46):
They used to drop acid, paint their faces and go
play innermural volleyball.

Speaker 4 (01:06:51):
Ah, it sounds like high school life was easier than
I think.

Speaker 7 (01:06:57):
They just exalted if they ever just hit the ball,
made contact, you know. So I had my training with them,
so I knew a lot of dead music, and so
we played a dead song, well, an old traditional song.

Speaker 6 (01:07:12):
In the dead manner called I Know You Ryde or
in our gigs. I don't know.

Speaker 7 (01:07:15):
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, Californias.

Speaker 6 (01:07:22):
We did that.

Speaker 7 (01:07:22):
Twice two days in eighty seven eighty eight. They asked
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 in the summer of nineteen ninety, right after
we'd played with them. And it was so strange because
it was this growing relationship Garcia had had before that

(01:07:45):
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 Brent died.
In the middle of the night, I'm walking down the
street and some young guy comes up to me and says, hey, Bruce,
You're going to join the Dead. It was so wild.
I mean, the rumor mill was already out that I

(01:08:07):
was going to replace and I told them so, yes.
Sure enough, they came out to a gig that we
did in Concord, California, just a few days after this
and asked me to join Garcia and Phil Lesh came
out 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

(01:08:28):
on pretty solidly. Now. 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, who didn't have a long history with the music,
he learned it pretty quickly. He grocked it fairly rapidly.
And so I played with them for about two years,
twenty months, about one hundred shows. And I wouldn't trade that.

(01:08:51):
I wouldn't trade that time with them for anything.

Speaker 2 (01:08:53):
It was And how happy was the RCA with you
doing this?

Speaker 7 (01:08:57):
Look, as I said before, these were 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

(01:09:20):
to to be moved by music and and just it
just sounded like great fun, and it really was. I mean,
where else can you play one song for an hour?

Speaker 2 (01:09:30):
I was gonna say, what was the longest What was
the longest show you did?

Speaker 7 (01:09:35):
Longest show is probably four four and a half hours,
But there's an asterisk asterisk there because there's some long
ass breaks. You know, maybe maybe you take an hour
between the first set set and the second set. Sometimes
it was very loose. I couldn't believe it. They have
the most amazing audience anywhere, you know this twenty fifteen
fairly well concerts they could have played, they had a

(01:09:57):
million over a million.

Speaker 3 (01:09:58):
Takes almost Okay, I almost went. I had a gig
that night, the one in San Francisco I wanted to
go to.

Speaker 2 (01:10:06):
Yeah, I just want to study them from a just from.

Speaker 6 (01:10:09):
Out sociological sociological level.

Speaker 3 (01:10:12):
Yeah, yeah, I've been getting into them, and I'll say,
during this Corona break, there's some video out I think
uh Lee Oscar of War sitting in uh with them,
and also uh Slide the Family Stones drummer greg Or Rico.

Speaker 2 (01:10:28):
I didn't realize how many of like my favorite you
know all like.

Speaker 3 (01:10:32):
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.

Speaker 2 (01:10:42):
You know, and then how they just just instantly.

Speaker 6 (01:10:45):
Yet right in Ornett sat in with them a few
times and which was always amazing.

Speaker 2 (01:10:52):
So opening for the dead is it?

Speaker 3 (01:10:53):
Is it a little bit different than like, have you
ever met an audience that you didn't vibe with right away,
like opening the dead how was that?

Speaker 7 (01:11:05):
Well, it could be rough because the dead Heads can
be fairly biopic, fairly tunnel vision, you know. They they're
really not.

Speaker 2 (01:11:13):
There to hear you, and so so jammy version of
the way it is or.

Speaker 6 (01:11:22):
Sure, but we were kind of doing that anyway. But so, yeah,
it was tough.

Speaker 7 (01:11:27):
It was really tough when I would we probably opened
for them eight times or so eight 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.

Speaker 6 (01:11:40):
So, when I started playing in the band, I ad
made it.

Speaker 7 (01:11:43):
I was self appointed sort of psychologist to these poor
opening acts who would go out there and just be
roundly ignored.

Speaker 5 (01:11:53):
You know.

Speaker 7 (01:11:53):
Dwight Yoakum came out there and he's there playing away,
and man, I mean he's a beautifull guy.

Speaker 6 (01:12:00):
I just said to him. Then I feel you. I've
been there, you know, So so it can be real tough.

Speaker 7 (01:12:08):
Now, some acts like Traffic, Steve Winwood or Dylan or
Little Feet, you know, the Dead fans just really embrace
certain groups, maybe some reggae groups. If Ziggy Marley was playing,
they probably love that sort of related musical styles.

Speaker 8 (01:12:26):
I guess I have a question, Bruce. Sorry Fante.

Speaker 9 (01:12:31):
Uh So, since we're on the Dead and that they
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 keyboard died.

Speaker 8 (01:12:46):
And I don't know if you did that cross your mind, like,
uh no, no.

Speaker 7 (01:12:54):
I I left the Dead because I came home in
the 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 ninety two. I just my wife and
I had just had our twin sons, Russell and Keith,

(01:13:14):
named for Keith Jarrett and Leon Russell, and so I
came home and they didn't know me, and I went,
you know what, I don't like this. 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,

(01:13:35):
and Vin's really had the gig solid.

Speaker 6 (01:13:38):
He was doing a great job by then. He was
doing solid the whole time.

Speaker 7 (01:13:41):
But he really seemed to be getting in the groove
with it and so knowledgeable about the music.

Speaker 6 (01:13:46):
So that was my swan song.

Speaker 7 (01:13:49):
Although I would sit in 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?
Will fly you down here 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

(01:14:12):
could maybe prod and give a little cattle prod and
get him going. So I did that in Charlotte and
then in at OURFK Stadium two Knights in DC, and
then a month and a half months or five weeks later,
he was gone.

Speaker 8 (01:14:26):
Damn Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:14:28):
I kind of had like a kind of a two
part question along along those lines of just your family
and your you know, your kids and everything at this
point of your career. When we first got on the show,
you were saying, you know, you're in the studio working
on something. Do you think of yourself more primarily as
a player or a singer or a producer, and like
kind of what is the hierarchy you know when you

(01:14:50):
sit down to create.

Speaker 6 (01:14:52):
Well, well, I said down to create. It's all about
the song. So it's all about being a songwriters.

Speaker 8 (01:14:57):
The songwriter first.

Speaker 7 (01:14:58):
Yeah, and what Frank, my last two records that are
receiving such great I don't know, sort of acclaim around
the world.

Speaker 6 (01:15:06):
It's amazing.

Speaker 7 (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.

Speaker 2 (01:15:22):
Uh.

Speaker 7 (01:15:22):
And because I thought through the years Spike hired me,
I'd always do a little bit little things for him
here and there.

Speaker 8 (01:15:30):
In fact, no, I love that song.

Speaker 7 (01:15:33):
Well, I was just gonna say, because question love you.
Your first acting gig was bamboozled.

Speaker 8 (01:15:39):
Right, Yes, so.

Speaker 4 (01:15:43):
And Oscar worthy of performance?

Speaker 6 (01:15:46):
Is that your Sheena Easton moment?

Speaker 2 (01:15:48):
Yeah, No, it isn't, because you know, I knew that
it was a sattire. It's just yeah, the way that
Spike often does these these social experiments.

Speaker 3 (01:16:02):
So I'll say that the only part that was like
hard to do about that movie was the fact that
he purposely will put our trailer.

Speaker 2 (01:16:13):
Five blocks five city blocks away from where we were shooting.
Why because he wanted us He at the end, I
was like, you you did a school days on us.

Speaker 8 (01:16:26):
You purposely wanted to feel the shame of wanted us to.

Speaker 3 (01:16:29):
Walk through the streets of New York and its closed
and in black faith like five blocks wow. Yeah, And
it was yeah, like we knew it that this was
and you know, at the time in two thousand, I
was like, yo, you know, you don't think that's going
to get it. Now it's like we're past it, Like

(01:16:50):
you know, it's more like a documentary than it's like
it's like idiocracy.

Speaker 2 (01:16:56):
Yeah, it is, it is. It is.

Speaker 6 (01:16:58):
So yeah, well that sounds cool, but it sounds like
it has a real purpose what he made, y'all do.

Speaker 2 (01:17:02):
Total I know it had an absolute purpose in doing it.

Speaker 6 (01:17:05):
Yeah, yeah, I enjoyed it.

Speaker 2 (01:17:08):
Yeah, So what was it? How did you do? Was
this your where do you did Clockers? First? Correct?

Speaker 7 (01:17:14):
Okay, my my Spike, I guess the resume goes like this,
we made this video. Uh, we prand for it in
New York City. I trove in New York cap Then
in ninety five he called messy if I would to
write an end title song for his great movie Clockers.
I think it's one of his great ones. And you
have so many, and I just had. Shaka Khan had

(01:17:34):
called me right around the same time and said said, hey,
would you write a song with me? And I said, yes,
come to Virginia because I heard Shaka look I love
her to death, but I heard she was famous for
making a meeting at noon and showing up many hours
late being yes. So I thought to myself, well, if

(01:17:54):
I'm going to wait on her, I'm going to wait
in my house.

Speaker 6 (01:17:56):
So she came and we had the best time.

Speaker 7 (01:17:58):
We wrote this the song Love Me Still, and then Spike,
right around the time we were writing it, he calls
me and said, hey, uh, I'd like I'd like an
entitle I need an entitle song. What do you got?
I said, well, Jock and I are writing the song
and we'll get and said, okay, well I claim it,
and so that's as simple as that.

Speaker 8 (01:18:15):
Without even having heard the song, he was just like that, Well.

Speaker 6 (01:18:18):
I guess I claimed first write a refusal.

Speaker 8 (01:18:21):
Oh okay, okay, you know I guess.

Speaker 3 (01:18:22):
Oh wait, were you initially trying to put that on her?
On another album of hers, or it.

Speaker 7 (01:18:28):
Was just we're just writing a song. It was it
was for her though, it was for it was she,
she was writing the words, she was going to 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 the script to the story.

(01:18:51):
I guess it's Damon Wayn's character, right, and so I
basically wrote it from his point of view, and uh
and look, that ended up being the entitled song for
that and then years so we kept asking for little
bits and pieces for movies. But then in two thousand
and eight he called me and said, hey, I want

(01:19:12):
you to score. I'm doing this documentary ESPN documentary on
the late Great Kobe Bryant. It's called Kobe Doing Work,
and I'd like you to score.

Speaker 6 (01:19:20):
So I think this was my audition.

Speaker 7 (01:19:23):
So that was my first one, and that was two
thousand and eight, came out in nine, I believe, and
then all the way up through last year with this
She's Got to Have It Part two, the second season,
I did a 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

(01:19:43):
forty different pieces of music, and now and then I
would think, Man, this song, this piece, this instrumental cue,
it sounds like it needs to be expanded into a song.
So I started doing that three years ago. And I
started giving myself chills while doing this because the cues
themselves were very vibe.

Speaker 6 (01:20:00):
He's cinematic.

Speaker 7 (01:20:02):
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 score of music that became songs.

Speaker 8 (01:20:14):
Yeah, Scott, Yeah, And do you you know you talk
about your songwriting process.

Speaker 5 (01:20:20):
I was curious 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.

Speaker 8 (01:20:29):
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.

Speaker 6 (01:20:35):
For oh, people writing songs for me to do?

Speaker 2 (01:20:38):
Yeah?

Speaker 8 (01:20:38):
Yeah, specifically as a sing Yeah, No, I don't.

Speaker 7 (01:20:41):
People excuse me, don't do that much. But I had
that look if there was ever a book written about me,
you should be called slow learner. And I feel like
as a vocalist, what I do now is far, far
exceeds what I did then, just on a soulful level,
an expressive level, and so.

Speaker 6 (01:21:02):
So yeah, I'm just deep.

Speaker 7 (01:21:03):
People ask me, well, do you have any interest in
doing this and scoring films blah blah blah and or
doing this and that.

Speaker 6 (01:21:09):
I say, Look, I'm just really trying to do what
I do better and better.

Speaker 7 (01:21:14):
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, 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.

Speaker 8 (01:21:31):
And so that's now y'all have a synergy. Man, it
definitely is.

Speaker 5 (01:21:34):
It's just, you know, when you were just describing your
your style kind of like the Bill Evans meets the
him kind of thing.

Speaker 6 (01:21:40):
Yes, it fits his.

Speaker 5 (01:21:43):
I mean it fits the tone of his movies, like
the thing you guys have. It works man, Yeah, Well
he just likes what I do.

Speaker 7 (01:21:49):
He called me up last week about something and said look,
just I'm gonna keep calling.

Speaker 6 (01:21:55):
You because I like what you do. So so that's
not I love him. I'll tell you what.

Speaker 7 (01:21:59):
I'll tell you one great Spike story. Speaking of the
the Bill Lee the Uh the.

Speaker 6 (01:22:09):
Uh, we were.

Speaker 7 (01:22:10):
Recording that with Leslie Odom Junior singing uh from Hamilton
and he's he's he was in Harriet Tubman lately he's
had a great post Hamilton career. Anyway, we're doing recording
in Brooklyn, recording Leslie and uh with a great jazz
group backing us up.

Speaker 6 (01:22:30):
And uh.

Speaker 7 (01:22:31):
So I said, hey, Spike, I need a ride to
my hotel. Somewhere in the middle middle of the session.
He said, yeah, 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 people are
hanging out of cars, hanging out of an apartment.

Speaker 8 (01:23:02):
Go spy, Go spy, it was.

Speaker 7 (01:23:06):
I said to him, is it always like this? Yeah,
pretty much. But then later on, you know, Spike, Spike,
Spike he looks at me, so, well, maybe today is
a little more intense than you, but it was. We
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

(01:23:26):
Mogoks is walking with him while he's just getting the
love from you know, he was just getting his King.

Speaker 2 (01:23:33):
Of Boklyn exactly right.

Speaker 6 (01:23:36):
It's just fantastic.

Speaker 3 (01:23:37):
So let me ask you, so with where we are
now today and 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

(01:23:59):
all the other things.

Speaker 2 (01:24:00):
Like what have you what have you been trying to
cook up as of late?

Speaker 3 (01:24:05):
Like how have you how have you spent the last
well as of this recording six seven months?

Speaker 7 (01:24:11):
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 I just decided Okay, well, I'm
going to try to take the deep dive and and
try to really take it to another level. So I

(01:24:33):
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, et cetera.
But uh, and I've 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.

Speaker 6 (01:24:53):
House and so I did that.

Speaker 7 (01:24:56):
And I was just in l A last week working
with with ton Burr, who says, hi to you, questlove.
Tony Berg has a studio in Brentwood on Kent, and
he said, you work there with a woman named Susan
Rodgers and engineer.

Speaker 8 (01:25:10):
Okay, wow, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:25:13):
That's right.

Speaker 7 (01:25:13):
So he says, hello, Tony Brooks a great, great producer.
He produces It produced Fiona Apples of her great records.
He produces young girl Phoebe Bridges, who's sort of all
the rage in that world, very very strong. So that's
what I've been doing, just uh, just working on new stuff.

Speaker 6 (01:25:30):
And that's I'm lucky, just like I guess all of us.

Speaker 7 (01:25:34):
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.

Speaker 6 (01:25:46):
So it takes me far.

Speaker 7 (01:25:47):
Afield into again dough decophonic stylings.

Speaker 4 (01:25:53):
Wow, there you.

Speaker 2 (01:25:58):
Were, you were coming up?

Speaker 8 (01:26:00):
Were your kids?

Speaker 2 (01:26:01):
Like?

Speaker 5 (01:26:01):
Were they aware that you know their dad was Bruce Hornsby?
Like how did you navigate being a musician and a parent?

Speaker 7 (01:26:07):
And I think I think they gradually it just as
you grew up as a kid, you you sort of
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'd go
see we did a tour. And when they were six,

(01:26:30):
Bonnie Ray Jackson, Brown, Sean Colvin and I and David
Linley did a tour. The boys came around on this
tour and you know, they're 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.

Speaker 6 (01:26:48):
I do and so that's really really nice.

Speaker 8 (01:26:52):
Really.

Speaker 2 (01:26:52):
Oh okay, before we let you go, I do have
one question.

Speaker 3 (01:26:55):
So obviously you got a long, long mile out 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?

Speaker 2 (01:27:16):
Another pology?

Speaker 6 (01:27:17):
Polo g wishing for a hero.

Speaker 2 (01:27:19):
Many wish for a hero. So I love it.

Speaker 6 (01:27:23):
I really love what Polog did.

Speaker 7 (01:27:24):
We got out of the blue and maybe February of
this year, we got reached out to by his people saying, Polog,
you would like to fly to Virginia to ask your permission.

Speaker 6 (01:27:36):
I said, we'll just send me the thing. And I
heard it. I went mad, save your dats to do that.

Speaker 3 (01:27:41):
Well, they fly out and asked for miss an input person,
and wait, that's that's really a thing.

Speaker 6 (01:27:49):
Well it was.

Speaker 7 (01:27:49):
It wasn't this case.

Speaker 6 (01:27:51):
It wasn't this case. So I said, hey, save your
time money. I love what you did.

Speaker 7 (01:27:56):
It's called wishing for a hero. And and yes you
may work together at some point. Yeah, the odd couple
kind of like Spike and Bruce, another odd cop.

Speaker 8 (01:28:06):
It works though, Man, it works well, look, I.

Speaker 7 (01:28:09):
Just uh, I love what. I love what Tupac did.
It's a positive message and same with Polo g.

Speaker 6 (01:28:15):
The the video is beautiful.

Speaker 7 (01:28:17):
This record has this great gospel choir coming in sort
of halfway through and taking you home when it it's
I love it. So I'm I'm proud and grateful to
these great young artists for for their interest in my music,
at least that song.

Speaker 6 (01:28:34):
Anyway.

Speaker 3 (01:28:36):
No, that's that, you know, that's the I always wondered
if if that myth is really real? Like on on
television and movies, you always hear this thing about like
it just takes one song to change your life, and
then you know that. I guess I think Carl Douglas,
creator of what is now the unplayable Kung Fu Fight Fight.

Speaker 2 (01:29:02):
Once Fantasy, said that you know, just that one.

Speaker 3 (01:29:05):
Song can you know, can change your life and you
don't have to work another day again.

Speaker 2 (01:29:10):
You got this one song to fall back on.

Speaker 6 (01:29:12):
But maybe I'm gonna try to get to those cats
as fast as lightning. Maybe I'm gonna try to get
the lyrics there you go. I'm sorry I cut you off.

Speaker 7 (01:29:23):
What you say?

Speaker 3 (01:29:23):
Man, No, 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
one hundred dollars bills with.

Speaker 2 (01:29:39):
The cigar or burn cigars with one hundred dollar bills.

Speaker 4 (01:29:42):
So you should see that.

Speaker 8 (01:29:46):
I'll go to the whole house with Huey Lewis, that's.

Speaker 4 (01:29:50):
He was there.

Speaker 6 (01:29:52):
Maybe I'll start burning hundreds.

Speaker 7 (01:29:53):
No, I don't think so, I'll leave that to uh
the Wolf of Wall Street guy, you know, Aprio.

Speaker 3 (01:30:00):
And then good, that's good. Well, we thank you very
much Bruce for being on the show today. And and
yes we are still.

Speaker 2 (01:30:11):
I listened to our version of love Me Still from
the tonight show.

Speaker 7 (01:30:16):
Well, I'm so glad you brought it up. Can I
just end with my quest love story?

Speaker 8 (01:30:20):
So yes, yes, yes please.

Speaker 7 (01:30:23):
We're in that little, that little rehearsal room. It's tiny, right,
and uh so you're piano player. He says, hey, can
we play Lovely Still? So I said sure. So we're
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

(01:30:44):
this way.

Speaker 6 (01:30:45):
So we start playing.

Speaker 7 (01:30:46):
We're playing a little bit, and I guess so you
you made the greatest sort of producer sort of request.
You said, hey, play it like you're drunk, which was
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.

Speaker 2 (01:31:13):
Always.

Speaker 7 (01:31:14):
You just need to get back with us. So I
started really sitting on it, and what a feel. The
next time I came back, we had to do it again.
And now my band plays Love Me still, the Quest
Love version.

Speaker 3 (01:31:30):
Wow, okay, question, I was going to have to cover
that version before you recover and govern your version.

Speaker 6 (01:31:39):
Whatever you want.

Speaker 8 (01:31:40):
Yeah, well we got to do it.

Speaker 2 (01:31:43):
We gotta do it now.

Speaker 6 (01:31:44):
Sounds great.

Speaker 8 (01:31:45):
That room was going crazy that day.

Speaker 3 (01:31:48):
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 and we're now playing accordion with us. Yes, that
I put that up there, definitely, definitely, Well.

Speaker 6 (01:32:04):
I'll take it up.

Speaker 7 (01:32:05):
I'll be lumped in with weird Al anytime.

Speaker 8 (01:32:08):
He's a bad.

Speaker 2 (01:32:10):
Go man, this Quest Love.

Speaker 3 (01:32:14):
Thank you very much, Bruce Sorensby for joining us and
we'll see you on the next go round of Quest
Love Supremo.

Speaker 6 (01:32:20):
It's been a real pleasure. Thank you so much.

Speaker 8 (01:32:22):
No, thank you for your time. Thanks thanks for the music.
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:32:31):
Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio. For
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