America

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.
My guest today are hit makers on their fiftieth anniversary
tour celebration The Act America. You have Deuey Banel and
Jerry Beckley. Great to have you guys here. Thank you.
So what's it like fifty years later? It's quite similar

(00:31):
to the beginning, Bob. We're still together. You know, some
people might not know, but we it was never a breakup,
never come back kind of thing. We've been doing about
a hundred shows a year for the last fifty years. Okay,
but the classic question would be when you started, did
you envision that you'd be doing it fifty years later. No,
I can honestly say I'm shocked myself that we're still

(00:55):
and really we are on kind of a resurgence. It's
been a real special last couple of years. Is the
live show is locked in. We've been through all the
ups and downs and peaks and valleys, and we've got
this a couple of younger guys in the band now
that really kicked us in the butt. Our drummer rylan
Steen and and Steve Ecadion guitar, and then we have
a good seasoned, uh solid bass player Enrich Campbell, so

(01:18):
that five pieces just chugging along. So what do you
think accounts for the resurgence? Classic hits? Hits, help is
the same, you know, and there's there's a lot of
hits um and you know, we honor those every night,
so you play all the hits every night. I have
this equation in my head. I figured that the people
that come night after night, those are the people that

(01:41):
bought these records in the millions throughout this career. Those
are the people that put our kids to college. You know.
Our our half of the bargain is to now go
out and take this music to those people and perform
it around the world, which we're very happy to do.
But you're talking about a resurgence. Why do you think
it's on an upswing? Well, I don't know if it's
resurgence per se. It just seems like it's locked in.

(02:02):
You know. We were always kind of like, who are
these young guys that came out of nowhere? And there's
always been you know, we had a little bit of
proving ourselves in the seventies and so on, but we
just got into this cruising thing where we're just going
to power through and keep doing what we do. It's
not a it's a simple enough formula, try and write
some decent songs and like a record every once in

(02:22):
a while. And so maybe it's because there's been a
we've lost a bunch of guys the venue before everybody dies. Yeah,
well that yeah, I don't want to put it that way,
but we all know people our ages, you know, they
drop off. So, uh, was there ever a time in
the fifty years that you thought I'm done, I'm not

(02:46):
do this, not personally done. We we've had some challenges,
as do we said, some ups and downs. When Dan,
our original founding member, left in seventy seven, that was
a personal challenge he was addressing and he did actually
a great job, but it didn't allow for us to
carry on as a three piece. So that was a
bit of a hurdle, but it gave Dewey and I
the kind of green light to carry on. So I
can't say that I ever had a I'm out kind

(03:08):
of the writing and stuff goes. We seemed to be
every day we'd wake up and have some idea. In
the seventies, record something or this song or recorded cover
and I think that aspect of that excitement. It's really
hard to recreate that. I think any long term a
veteran band will say, you know, we had our these
years that just seemed to couldn't do anything wrong, you know,

(03:31):
but I've never wanted to stop. We can't do anything else.
We graduate from high school together, never went to college,
you know. I learned my three chords, and Jerry's a
school musician over there on the keyboards and so on.
So I mean, really, uh, realistically, we still feel comfortable
and enjoy it. So now in the era the Internet,

(03:52):
there's a lot of information that it used to be there.
But I didn't know until I did some research what
were the exact circumstances as of Dan leaving the act. Well,
we were still on a pretty heavy um series of
Right Record Produce tour and it filled the year for
all of us, and Dan was having a harder and

(04:13):
harder time making the commitment to do all of that,
and we would book a tour, or we would try
and rehearse and nes, hey, I can't make it or something.
He he had some emotional challenges, to put it, I
suppose mildly. He um. He had a very stable home
life with his wife, but he was wrestling with some
demons and him having the time to focus on that,
he went through a rebirth, he became born again Christian,

(04:36):
devoted the remainder of his life to doing contemporary Christian music,
which we performed on when we could when asked, but
he couldn't keep up the schedule that we were doing.
Now did you see it coming? Yeah, well we were
all thrown into the spin dryer effect, you know, with
the number one record an album when we were like
eight years old and moved out to l a and

(05:00):
we we were from military families that had moved around
all of our lives and had that vibe. So there
was a lot to take in. And there was the
usual pitfalls, drugs and women and the hectic road life,
none of which were at anything really unusual when you
look at the history of bands and everything, and it's

(05:21):
just some can weather through some of that and some don't.
And and Dan really did have We didn't know this
even that he had a strong Christian rate. He was
raised Baptists were his families, all from Missouri in for
a little place called farming to Missouri. We ended up
visiting out there and you know, we we loved Danny.
We were the three Musketeers. We've gone through high school

(05:44):
and we're laughing it up and then suddenly we've got
this thing, this career for God's like. He went back
to college for one semester but didn't take and he
came back to England and Jerry and I were still
in England where our parents were, and so it was
it sad time and it was that was the first
big transition. It wasn't a shock, to answer your question.

(06:05):
We we could see it. I mean, obviously we were
all complicit in that in what we've just lump in
as the seventies, but it was really hitting Dan harder
than it was us. And he had a So what
was it were looking back with all these years and
now that he's past, what did he add to the band? Well,
a trio obviously, I always think of like the three

(06:25):
legs of a stool. I mean, it's a very very
stable thing. We had a democracy from day one. One
of the things that happened very early on in the
group was Dewey sang Horse with No Name, which was
a huge hit for us. The follow up was a
song called I Need You a ballad which I sang,
so we right away established a pattern of handing it around.
It never fell on any guy's shoulders. It wasn't like

(06:46):
a sting thing where he had the right and sing.
Dan contributed some huge hits for us. A Lonely People
don't cross the river. His element, apart from being a
great lead guitarist, his writing kind of skewed a bit
more country, so those songs did to have a banjo
on him and just slightly different color, which I think
really rounded it. Was a good rock guitar player too.

(07:06):
He was our lead guitar player, and he was our
high harmony singer, and that was another feature that we had.
That's it's an alchemy that you can't really predict the
three voices, the blend, and that was a magical thing
when we first sat down with our acoustic guitars and
he had a song and Jared had a song, and
I had a song, and we started arranging and you know,
doing the usual thing, getting these voices gone and Dan's

(07:30):
high harmony, it was hard to recreate that. We've been lucky. Okay.
So once you left the yacht, did you change the
material so you did require it or did you double
it or did somebody else do it? We had Timothy
Schmidt came in a lot. Christopher Cross when we got
to know him, just really fine high voice singers. If
we needed the three part harmony, but there's a great
history of harmony that's two part Everly Brothers and all

(07:51):
the Beatles stuff was built kind of on that mold.
So we were very happy to be to do two
part harmony. It wasn't like a big piece missing. We
were never gonna play Dan as it were, you know.
As as a matter of fact, we did some audition,
we did. We even audition we did just Michael stepped
in our our guitar tech Michael Woods at that time
when Dan left, he'd been working with us for a

(08:13):
couple of years and knew all the songs by heart.
Was a guitar player himself. A lot of guitar techs
are you know, and he just stepped right in and
we said, okay, that's good. I think we were gonna
have auditions. And he said, hey, would you guys consider
letting me audition and we said, yeah, you can have
the gig. Just like that. We did the same thing
when we got We had drummer. We were just three

(08:33):
kids on stools, originally acoustic guitars. Three no rhythm section
at all. In fact, if you listen to the first album,
there's not as hardly any drums right here, because like
on Sandman, there's Dave Attwooder and old high school guy
who played drums. But when we came to the l
A and David Geffen and Elliot Roberts picked us up
and we were we were thrown into the deep end
of the pool. And now we're filling arenas and so on.

(08:55):
We've got to get a band, We've got to get
a thing here. You know. It was on the job
training and we did call some rehearsals and we ended
up picking the first guy, Willie Leacox. Yeah, he was
a friend to our bass player at the time, David
Dickie and some guys had flown in to to to
audition and bless their hearts, you know, one guy got

(09:17):
got a ticket for jaywalking here in Hollywood somewhere, you know.
I mean, it was really sad, but that's how professional
we were were. Okay, he sounds good enough, and it showed,
frankly for a while. Although Willie Leacox was a schooled drummer.
He's from his family's all big band players from Iowa,
and he was good. You know, he stayed forty four years.

(09:37):
You don't, don't change it if it's not broken. He
just essentially retired about four years ago. So let's go
to the end before we go back to the beginning.
What's it like to be an act with a lot
of hits and non quantity in the concept of putting
out new music today? Because there are a lot of
acts the Internet era. They make a new record, good batter,

(09:59):
Otherwise it sinks in a day. Yeah. And in addition,
if they play that new material live, that's when their
fans tend to have a bathroom break. Yeah. I mean
even we can see that we have many albums that
we can pick from to do the deeper cuts in
the show. But if you're I always say painters paint musicians, right,
I continue to write. I mean, I can't honestly say

(10:20):
that the only reason I did this was to make
money off of it. It was a creative outlet, of
vital creative outlet. But you're right that dynamic ebbs and flows,
it doesn't matter who you are. UM And I think
you just have to wrap your head around it. The
good news for us is that we built an incredibly
strong performance space that it didn't revolve around, you know,
And we did experience putting out albums that we really

(10:43):
had put the nose to the grind so and it
worked hard on Jerry's studio and stuff that Jerry and
I had done, and and it was disappointing when it wasn't.
What happened the seventies, huh. You know, it's a it's
a strange thing. You put your heart and soul into it.
I don't think I put any more effort into those
albums that tanked completely that I did into the ones
that were huge hits. I don't know how that works.

(11:03):
But Jerry is more prolific than I as far as writing,
I'm not driven to do it in the days when
we when we first signed with Warners, we had a
seven album deal. We had an album every year, the touring,
everything capital the same thing. Then you're motivator. You have
to you have to produce, you have to do something,
and so I'm not doing it to this day. I'm

(11:24):
I need some impetus. Something is our project. What are
we doing? Even then? It's um. It's something I really
have to make myself do. So at this stage of
the game, is already planned to do a new album
or new music because of the anniversary coming up. There's
a lot of archival things. Every label that we've been
on is doing a box set release. We just did

(11:45):
a show with the London Palladium that they filmed within
cameras and that's it that came out. So most of
this stuff is archival. UM. Recently or a few years ago,
we did an album of covers in Nashville with a
wonderful group of players and stuff, which was a need
experience because it didn't put the weight of writing on
our shoulders. But you know, I'm sure this is your

(12:06):
business as much as it is. You know, you have
a new record coming out. I do solo records every
so often. It's it's kind of cleaning house a little bit,
you know. I I assemble a dozen tunes. If I'm
fortunate to have a label that's interested, I will support
it to the best of my ability. But I'm not
holding my breath, you know. Okay, but you will put
out another solo album at something. Yeah, I've got one
coming out in September. Will you do it yourself? They'll

(12:28):
be a label. Well, it's done. But this one is
on Blue Alwan, which I didn't last and it's a
lovely small something like you've made it something to happen.
He's street email exactly. He's got that. Kirk Pesk's got
great ears, this guy who runs this and he did
an album. I did an album with him a few

(12:48):
years back. It was just a pleasure from start to finish.
And you know, it's a different it's a different time.
So if you cut the record at home and you
make a deal with Blue Alawn, do they give you
any money? Well, yeah, what do you have? What do
you call that harshold question? Anybody? Yeah, there's enough to

(13:08):
enough to warrant the effort. But I think, okay, that's
all I needed. Let's go back to the beginning. Let's
buy for Kate. Let's start first with you. Jerry, So
where you from? Originally? I was born in Fort Worth, Texas.
My dad, as Dewey's, was in the U. S. Air Force.
I moved to England when I was one year old,
so I have no memory of Texas. Okay, your father
did what in the year force? He was a sack

(13:30):
bomber pilot. He flew beef fifty twos during the Cold War,
and he ended up at the Joint chiefs of Staff
at the Pentagon, and when we met, he was the
commander of the U. S Air Force in the UK.
So he and I know some other people with the
military fathers. And it's not irrelevant where you're living. It's
not like growing up with a regular suburban dad. You you,

(13:52):
as anybody that grows up in the service, would know
that you're you're denied a hometown, you're denied lifetime friends.
You moved from the minute and the get go. The
only good news in that, well, there's quite a bit
of good news. It broadens your horizons. You see the
world in a much broader way than most people would
living in a in the town that they were born.
But also everybody that you are with is in the

(14:13):
same boat. You're not sitting there going why do I
feel different from all of these people. It's not like
you had ten years of some kind of stability and
then your mom remarries a guy in the service or something.
So we are all in that same boat. And I
think it's something we shared and it's it was a
bonding element rather than an alienating thing. Okay, but your father,
I mean, we see movies like The Great Cian Tini.

(14:33):
What's it like having it's the only thing, you know,
But what's it like having such a military success as
your father? He was being a sack bomber pilot. He
was gone a lot. It was secret at the time,
but during the Cold War, they would go out of
an air base and Goose Bay, Labrador and fly around
the Arctic Circle for two weeks at a time, staying
in the air. I'll be like in the movies where

(14:54):
they refuel from in the air. So he would be
gone for weeks and and I we weren't allowed to
even ask where he was and stuff. So there was
a lot of absent dad stuff. But he was an
incredibly devoted father and one of our biggest fans. He
kept a scrapbook from day one, and he was very
proud of all of us. And in your particular case,
you know, in terms of in the house, was he strict,

(15:16):
because in the military he wasn't. He was. I have
great memories of all of this. But for example, when
we we got stationed in England and there was a
somewhat of a welcoming parmade. The parade the new base
commander and I had quite long hair at the time,
and he said you might want to skip that one, son,
you know. He he wasn't the kind that said, you know,

(15:37):
look sharp and okay. So you were one years old
when you moved to London from Fort Worth and then
were you in London the rest of the time. I
was there till I was five or six, and then
I moved to um off At Air Base in Omaha, Nebraska,
which was a SEC base, and we were there a
few years. Then we were in Ohio for a couple
and then when he got stationed at the Pentagon, we

(15:59):
moved to the DC area and I was there till
sixty five, and we went to Germany, were at Ramstein
Air Force Base for a year, then went to England
and that's where I met Dewey for our last two
years of high school. So you were going for the
last two years of high school. Now, Dewey, what's your backstory? Well,
first of all, my dad saluted Jerry's dad, that was
the senior master's large in the Air Force. But but

(16:20):
but they knew each other. They you know, they probably
did a small base well that when we became, when
we broke afterwards, but it was a small base. It
was more of an administrative base by then. Your dad,
his dad wasn't really flying at that point, and my
dad was born and raised in Alaska and really yeah
and wait wait, so that must have been like the twenties.

(16:41):
It was third how his dad was army as it
turned out, and he and his older brother, first chance
they could, signed up for Uncle Lart went into the army.
My dad, I went to the Air Force and his
first UH stationing was in Yorkshire, England, where he met
my mom and I was born, So I was born

(17:04):
in Yorkshire, England. By the way, Jerry didn't mention your
mom's English to my mother is English. So then he
and your father met her in the UK during the
war World War two. And now did your parents stay together, Yes,
they did in yours and mine right, and my mother
passed away in but we we did the same thing.
My dad was actually off it also. My dad was

(17:24):
in communications, radar and stuff. He was in the Korean War,
and we lived in several places. Biloxi, Mississippi, was a
training base. Where were you born born? In Harrogat, Yorkshire, England.
He could never be president, probably not, thank goodness, but yeah,

(17:44):
and I was similar to Jerry. We only stayed there
a year or so and went back to this U
s UM and we bounced around Pensacola, Florida, Long Island,
New York, Biloxi twice, Omaha. Coincidentally, when Jerry and I
compared notes, we realized as we were living in the
same place at the same time in Omaha. Dads were

(18:05):
there because Sack Headquarters in Omaha, so that's the big
Air Force space there. And then we were out here
in California, Vandenburg Air Force Base. My dad was part
of a team that fired some missiles out there in
sixty two sixty three. And San Jose, California. There's another
base up there, Sunny Vale. But then we went back
to England in sixty five two. Um we left San Jose.

(18:30):
The music scene was happening in the Bay area. Then
that's when I was really starting to feel some stuff
going on. And we moved to Norfolk, England, a base
they're called Lake and Heath Milden Hall. So I did
my sophomore year of high school there and then he
was transferred down to London. The base where we met
and Jerry and I and Dan and the rest of

(18:50):
the people we met and friends were there at the
Central High London, England. Okay, now, is that an American
school dependents? There was another one in the heart of
London called a s L which was for more of
m kind of kids of oil companies and things and
executive civilian kids. But this was outside of London and

(19:11):
it was basically for the kids stationed in their parents
at the base. And how many kids went to that
school was a hundred and something a graduating class sixty
nine graduate, all quantit huts. You know. It was an
A base. Yeah, it's all r A F bases that
the U S leases. I guess the same deal in
Germany and everywhere else Belgium. But okay, just a cover

(19:32):
for a second. Dan's back story was essentially the same.
He came. He came the senior year. He wasn't there
for the last two years. His dad was a colonel
who worked in the b X system, the supply system,
and he had a totally different He lived in Japan
and the Philippines and Pakistan and stuff. Fascinating story. But
we all ended up outside of line. His father was

(19:54):
in the Air Force Colonel. Okay, so you're in London
in the late sixty for someone who lives like in America,
that sounds like a paradise for musical for American teenagers,
are you kids? Yeah, we'd see all kinds of great music.
So you did partake of that. Yeah. We saw King
Crimson every day or was it once a week? It

(20:15):
was a five day or five nights at the Marquee
when they first started, and we went every night. We
were like stunned, you know, Robert greg like, but we
saw all kinds of great music. You know else comes
to mind Led Zeppelin a couple of times they were
just kind of firing up. I saw Jimi Hendricks at
the Royal Albert Hall. That was great. Um. We saw

(20:39):
the Stones in Hyde Park and really have to Brian
Jones let letting go of the butterflies that didn't fly. Uh.
There's a place called the Lyceum Ballroom, the Roundhouse, which
we ultimately that was when we when we first started
getting some traction, we were playing the Roundhouse. Um. Uh.
There was just a lot of the festivals. The Bath

(21:01):
Festival was a great festival in nine seventy that had
a bunch of American acts. We wanted to go see
all these American acts because they were coming over Miss
Janis Joplin. We saw the James Gang at the Lyceum.
You know, Three Dog Night Sly came over here in London,
so everybody played London. So when did both of you

(21:22):
start playing musical instruments? Hey, I started piano when I
was three, when we're living in England. The house was
a furnished house and it had a piano in it,
and I was just starting to fiddle around. And my
mom thought, he seems keen on this. Um. Got me,
got me some lessons, and I took. I took lessons
till I was ten, and then at that point guitars
seemed cooler than piano, so I switched to guitar. Well,

(21:44):
if you played piano at one time, you could read music.
You could read music. Today I can follow along. I
can't site read anymore, but I could when I was ten.
I could read anything you put in front of me.
So you were a good piano player. I was all right, Okay, yeah,
he's our Jarre's our musical director. You're not. But we
put all of the stuff in his hands. He's really
great at that. And when we get into arranging and

(22:06):
so on. Um, I picked up a guitar in sixty
sixty three music. Yeah, it was in uh, Dick Dale lost.
We lost recently and that was a sad moment for me.
And I'm really glad because that I'd met him and
seen him. We actually Dick Dale open for us one day.
But um so it surf music, single notes, stuff, d D.

(22:30):
I'm not schooled. I'm really the worst when it comes
to that. Within our umbrella, I'm comfortable. It's really tough
for me to even sit down and jam with guys.
But but I enjoyed that. And then the Beach Boys
came along right in that same time. It's Safari's and
and um the Shantas and the Ventures and so then

(22:54):
then the Beach Boys came along and then we moved that.
That year was huge for me. It was like eighth
grade or something grade and it was the Kennedy Assassination.
It was Ali knocking out Sunny List, and it was
the Beatles sixty four there on Ed Sullivan the thing
you hear every I'm sure Bob, everybody you talked to
that Beatles thing on Ed Sullivan and we were, you know, smitten,

(23:17):
and now we're going to England, oh wow, and it's
just snowball from there. But I never did get off
my butt and get into some music theory and learn
some things. You know. I was always depending on the
other guys in the band. It's a relative thing, you know.
I mean, it's I went through uh Bill Evans thing

(23:38):
recently where I went back and listened to all of
that stuff Walster Debbie and stuff, and it just so
humbling when you see somebody who really knew what they
were doing. You see, that's what it's for. I had
it all wrong. Yeah, but you know, some people the
least talent have created some of the greatest records. Well,
but I think when you say the least talent at

(23:59):
least least school, I always think of that like a
guy like Bill Withers, who wrote some of the greatest
songs ever. If you just sat at a piano in
sometimes in my life, you know, it's just it's just
this on a ladder thing. But it couldn't be a
better song. It's an incredible song, but it's very simple. Okay,
So at this point you're thrown together in high school.

(24:20):
Do you think there's any chance you're going to be
professional musicians before you form the act? No? No, I
think that that curve when you change from boy. We're
having a great time Fridays at the teen club too.
We're actually going to make a living at this. There's
a story that I've told where, um, we were actually
going to try and make this as a profession. And

(24:41):
my dad was a bit concerned because we both just graduated,
and my my brother was coming over from the States
and he when he came over, he said, no, He said,
when you come, I'd like you to have a word
with your brother because we're not so sure this music
thing is really going to pan out. And by the
time he got their Horse with No Name was number one,
and he said to my dad, well, what do you
want to tell him that staying okay? Was there any

(25:07):
of the thing your father said, Hey, you got to
go to college. Well, this happened so quickly for us
that we never got to that point of I don't know.
I mean, we put out a first album in a
single that went basically number one around the world, so
there was not a lot of second guessing about it
that everybody, including the label, was just over the moon.
You know. See when we get when we graduated in
sixty nine, whatever that is June, Dan did go. We

(25:29):
worked at the base to make some money. Hey, we
got a job. We were working in the warehouse in
the cafeteria. Dan's dad, as Jerry said, was part of
the b X and the food services or something's Colonel Peak.
So he got us a job there in the on
the base. But Dan was slater to go to college
and his family, I think, and we never really talked

(25:51):
about it much. I mean we were worried about the
draft of course at that point. And Dan did go
off and do one semester. Jerry and I stayed and
worked at the base. I actually took a shot at
drama school. I'd love the school plays and I thought,
you know England Thespian's. You know, I bailed out of
that after about three months. It was called the Corona

(26:13):
Academy of Dramatic Arts, and like Mark Lester, it was
for kids. It was a kid's school, teenagers and so on.
But I was in way over my head and you know,
they were doing ballet and fencing and whatever, and I'm
going okay. Meanwhile, I'm talking with Jerre a lot and
We're hanging out in London, and uh, that's one thing
led to another. The music was still the thread. We

(26:35):
still wanted to play some music, see some music. We
were still learning. It was exciting the scene in London,
you know, and before you know it, I'm writing a
couple of songs. And this I was living with another
guy my parents. My dad had retired from the Air
Force and went back up to Yorkshire with my mother,
who always wanted to go home, and they got a
pub up there. But I stayed down in London with

(26:58):
another kid that was going to high school, John Alcazar,
and was drumming in the room, you know, going to
the base to work and playing my guitar and came
up with some songs. Jerry was doing the same. And Jerry,
you can pick it up there because you started getting
some sessions in London. I was doing. I was, you know,
you read liner notes, and I knew where the studios were.
So I would go down and basically offer my because

(27:20):
I could play most things adequately, and I'd offer myself
that what do you need a base? Keyboards? And so
I started playing on some people's demos at Morgan Studios
and a couple of other studios, and they would give
me studio time in return. They wouldn't pay me. They
say you can use it from you know, like ten
at night or something. So I started cutting some of

(27:40):
my earlier and it it led to some of the
earliest context that we eventually used in the in the business.
So but at that time at ten PM and later
you're cutting by yourself or the other two. Well, no,
not not doing. I hadn't involved doing in this. I
was working with whoever was basically hiring me from the studio.
They say are you available, you know on wednes Day
they need a bass player, and I sure go in

(28:02):
and I'd play on whatever gig on the base. Well,
that was kind of the segueing time when it started
this started to take over. We basically just worked the summer.
You know, we drove a fork lift and made tea
from you got to drive afore. Yeah, we were tea
boys too for the bridge because they always have British
guys working with the Americans. You could just it's like

(28:23):
that thing, you got to share this thing and alright,
YouTube out go get the tea and bring me a
box of Swan which for matches and you know, uh,
cigarettes and things like that. We were we realized that
if you were a tea boy, you could leave early,
could go out and the tea was like ten to
ten twenty, but you could leave about nine fifteen, take
people's orders. Then you set up the tea and it's

(28:45):
over at ten twenty, but it has to be cleaned up,
so we could fudge it into about two and a.
Good jobs like that, you make your own work so
you don't have to work those lazy Yankee kids. Okay,
what about the draft? What did you two guys? It
was lottery by that right, and we had pretty good numbers.
Dan had a bad number. And Dan had come back
by then and he did get the crap number. I

(29:07):
mean he was and he had to go to Germany
to take his physical because you had to go wherever
the whatever the um area that well, it didn't need
to be an army base, and it wasn't. We didn't
have an army in the uk um it What happened
he well, he had he had some childhood illnesses that
were undiagnosed, at least one apparently literally on his medical

(29:29):
record undiged what we don't want anybody with an undiagnosed
as ease um. So he got the four f And
do you remember what your numbers were? I think I
was in the one hundreds somewhere. I think it was
like two hundreds, but I remember that. Okay, So let
me be clear. When you're in high school, you're doing

(29:51):
it on Friday afternoon? Is that the time when you
say there's a band or really does the band complay?
There was there was a band we played. We played together,
not all three at the same time. There was a
band that Dewey and I were in, and then Dewey
left and Dan came in the band. But this, here's
this is just topt It was cover. So I think

(30:11):
that the thing it changed when instead of just covers,
you had to do covers and you didn't have to
but we'd all play the hits whatever they were to
be wild. But we started to rearrange songs. If you
remember when like Vanilla Fudge did keep Me Hanging On.
They took an upbeat motown song and turned it into
a power ballot. So we thought, oh, so you know,
you know, there's really no rules, so we would take

(30:33):
a fast song and make it into a slow song
or vice versa. I think that was the transitional period
between just being a cover band and writing, creating something
of our own and are you working out it all?
Playing any live games? Mostly at the base. There was
a team club that we played every Friday. Did you
get paid for that? I think there was petrol money.
As we graduate from high school, that's summer. You have

(30:56):
jobs on the base, you have this exchange, you play
for studio time. What's the next step. I had done
a session for a duo that was being shopped around
a couple of English songwriters. And the guy that took
him around and I'm not sure what labels he took

(31:17):
him to, took him to Warners Ian Samuel, who was
and our guy at Warners, and he said, I don't know,
I don't hear anything. And he said, oh, what's that
who's playing that guitar? And he said, well, actually that's
a this American kid who was helping us do the recordings.
He says, and he said he's got his own band,
and he and said, will bring me his band? Really? Yeah,

(31:37):
And that's how we got into We had that little
moment with Middle Earth Records, and that was Dave House
and was managed Dave House. Well, the Middle Earth Records
is not the same story or a story before, No,
that's that story. He that guy had signed this duo
and he was shopping him around and when he took
him to Warners, they passed, but they wanted to know
who that guitar st okay, So he wanted to know
what happened after that. Well, we hadn't. We were now

(32:00):
the three of us had worked up five or six
songs and we didn't have any tapes. So the only
way to perform was to take these guitars and and
play in the offices. So we went in and played.
A guy named Martin Wyatt, who's still this isn't Warner UK.
The understanding with the intermediary, he'll be the label this
This ian was a staff producer and and our guy

(32:21):
at Warner Brothers. And we were playing in the office
of the head for the head of A and R
guy named Martin Wyatt, and we played basically half of
the first album, Riverside and I Need You and stuff.
And he has since gone on record and said it
was the hardest thing he's ever had to do. In
the business was to keep a straight face while we
came in and played all this stuff. And he said
he ran into his boss, a guy named Ian Ralfini,

(32:41):
you might know that name, and um he said, you'll
never guess what's just walked in here, you know, and
they signed us. Yeah it was okay, yeah, yeah. What
was it like being on your side of the fence?
Did you expect this time? Well, it was pretty amazing.
I mean, I still I'm still was numb about it. Right.
At the same time, Ian Samuel's partner roommate was this

(33:05):
guy incredibly calledful guy named Jeff Dexter. He's in a
lot of the British folklore and he did a lot
of m seeing and things at the Roundhouse. Ile why
he introduced artists and he got us on a couple
of club shows, the Country Club and this guy Bob
Harris have you ever heard that named Bob Harris's DJ

(33:26):
in England BBC. He got us on the BBC doing
just what Jerry saying, those three or four songs that
we had worked up, got really tight harmonies, had all
our acoustic guitar parts, just three of us sitting there.
He got us on the BBC, and that caused a
little bit. I don't know where all the buzz comes
from or how like Jerry says, Martin Wyatt got some

(33:47):
stuff going around. Hey, these guys are good. We can
we got to sign these guys or whatever and getting
on the radio. But that was all super like, Wow,
what's going on. It's happening around us by some kind
of supernatural forest. Okay, let's go back for a second.
Before you went and played Warner for the audition, how
much rehearsing gets you done. We had just learned these

(34:10):
tunes at our houses, our individual homes, in our car.
We would rehearse in the cars. We we really I mean,
we've been in bands. We knew that this just sounds
pretty good. But it had become the era of the
singer songwriters. We'd all sold our electric gear in the
amps and things, so we all had acoustics. But I
think another thing that this guy that was running us

(34:30):
around town, he said, Okay, now tomorrow we're gonna go
see Atlantic. And remember we played for Phil Carson in Atlantic.
This is nine and we didn't realize that if you're
playing for one label and they're interested, you're not supposed
to go to the other on Phil. Phil would be
meeting with Ian from Warners and say we've got these
great guys America going into the studio, and he said,
we've got them going this. So we were cutting the

(34:51):
same songs for all the different labels around town, making
basically the same demo, tightening up our arrangements for the
master recordings O. So you had those two demo deals.
Any other demo deals we did. We went to Dick
James d j M, which is at the time was
kind of where Elton was just starting that and we
cut things there. We went into Chalk Farm for Warner Brothers,

(35:13):
which is a great old demo studio that a lot
of the reggae music. So we cut those same songs
three or four times and kind of honed them down.
So when Warners pushed go, we said, that's great to beat,
you know, because it was obviously Joni was on Reprieve,
it was Warner Reprise and Neil was on you know,
it just seemed like a great fit. And uh Ian

(35:36):
was assigned to be a co producer, but basically just
a guy to watch the budget go in and just
capture what they're doing, what they're doing is already fine
if you can just get that on tape. The budget
was three thousand pounds, which was seven and a half grand.
Just to be clear, this is to make the record
of the album. This is to make the album. So
we went into studios on Water Street in Soho. And

(36:01):
and because he and Ian Samuel was actually a bit
of a legend. He'd written Move It for Cliff Richard.
He was kind of woven into the London music isn't older? Yes,
he said, I've got a great engineer named Ken Scott.
He's just been working with Dave Bowie and stuff. So
Ken engineered the first album. We did the whole thing
for bucks. So you did for seventy five hundred bucks.
How long a period of time was about three weeks

(36:23):
to three weeks, right, Yeah. We had David Linley, of
all people who we didn't know from Adam at the time,
came in. I think he was who he was with Terry.
He was playing with Terry Read in London. He was
just before Jackson and so Terry Reid was the next
as you probably know that it's going to be the
next big thing on numerous times in his in his
life and Linley was available and played, and then they

(36:45):
brought in this percussionist, nam Ray Cooper of course, yeah stuff,
and so those are the only two additional guys. Okay,
So essentially you're saying you produced the record yourself, we
co produced it. Yeah, it's co credited to us. Okay.
Are you happy with the alt? Yeah? I think yeah,
I think so. I think the original recordings are are good,
you know. Okays, a lot of people say I wanted

(37:07):
the studio and I'm not happy. You know, I pushed
around Rose anxious. Okay, so that you make that record
and how long does it take to come out? The
One of the interesting things about that was that record
didn't include Horse with the name. So the original British
release came out and it was getting airplay and same cover,
same cover, same everything. But here's one something that the

(37:29):
label did that would never happen now. They then said
to us, what else you got? We're not sure there's
a single now. They just invested and released the album.
But we went back in the studio a month or
two later to cut a few new things, and that's
when we cut Horse and that was released as a
separate thing. The album and the single were two different

(37:50):
releases in the UK. Okay, so you cut the record,
are you now playing live? We're still doing these little
club John's up. Now. Now we've got a van of
Ford Transit band with three airplane seats in there. We've
got a roady guy Claude and a little whim p
a system and our acoustic guitars. And Jeff Dexter has

(38:11):
getting us bookings and colleges and pubs and growing up
and down the m one and we did. We went
to Holland. He got us a little tour of all
these clubs around Holland and then we got put on
the catch Steven's European leg of his tour. And at
that point it was just the three of you. Now
we we had actually evolved to having a bass guitar

(38:35):
that Jerry and Dan would switch off on. So on
certain arrangements be to acoustics and bass. I always I
also always remember we got this one off date in
Holland opening for the band and we thought, oh this
is and we were playing with some British bands that
were just starting. Brindley Schwartz Nick Lowe came out of Brindley,
Swarts and Curved Air which um uh, what's wrong with me?

(39:03):
Police's drummer drummer for kurbjer Stewart. Um. Yeah, he wasn't.
Actually he was added to Kryptiner. But and Lynda Lewis
was a great singer, young singer, and she also sang
with Eldon. Yeah, and that was our little kind. They
were all Warner's acts burgeoning, you know, upcoming acts, and
we play shows all of them. So before you we

(39:26):
cut the cut the additional tracks. What was the plan
they thought? They thought about I need you? I need
You sounds kind of like maybe, but I don't know.
It's it's it's a slow song. What else have you got?
So that's what put us Okay, before you get there,
this was the dark ages. You made a deal with
Warner Did you have a music attorney? I don't think

(39:48):
there was somebody. I think there was somebody legal, but
clearly they it was Warner Brothers music. You know, the
publishing was totally integral to the deal. If you want
to cut right to it. Yeah, we lost all that stuff,
and to this day it got worse actually because David okay,
well we'll wait for that. Okay. So now they said,
I go back to the studio with cut some additional

(40:09):
stuff and so then how does that work? Well, they
picked they said we liked this Horse song and it
was actually called Desert Song. We couldn't get into Trident,
so we went to Morgan, which I knew because I
had worked there a lot, and we had a different engineer.
I think we might have had Philip McDonald on that,
and we went in to cut a couple of tunes,
but feature Horse with no name all came out great.

(40:30):
Ray Cooper did some percussion and we put it out
as a single MAXI single. I think it had two
songs on the B side and it went right to
number one in the UK. Okay, So, although I've read
a little bit about it, tell my audience the gest station,
how horse was the only name came together? It was
I was playing around with tunings, different tunes, David Crosby

(40:54):
and needless to say, you haven't even mentioned what about
us being these knockoffs the ESN guys, Right, well we'll
get well but the best people. Yeah, it's beautiful. Well,
we were just we just picked apart those records, the
first first to CSN Records, the first three Neil Young
solo albums. I mean, we're Buffalo Springfield fans of birds

(41:15):
fans and and Joni Mitchell was incredible, so they were
really right in our face and right at that time.
So so yeah, I picked around to find my own
little weird tuning. Again, being unschooled, it's kind of unorthodox
what I did. And I found some cords, different fingering
and just got those things going. And I was always

(41:36):
an outdoor guy, always loved nature, those travels around the US,
the desert places we lived, Biloxi, swamps, snakes, whatever, so uh,
and it's rainy in England and it really was rainy.
It was really a tough summer, I remember that year.
And so I just went, you know, wrote some imagery
some desert, the heat was hot, to plays and birds

(42:00):
and rocks and things and pretty simple, Bob, It's just
a travelogue, I mean it. It turned into a bit
of an environmental thing that was going on. We were
passion teenagers and save the planet, you know, and so
under the cities, you know, lies a heart made of brown,
but the humans will give no love and that was it,

(42:22):
and the law laws and whatever. So so the song
was written, how far in advanced the recording and did
you write it for the recording. No no, I mean
that we were, like I said, we were writing kind of.
It was the second nature now and you go back

(42:43):
to your room or whatever. The distractions weren't as much
as they seem to be as you get older and
families and stuff. There was a lot of dead air.
We have certainly was the analog age in more than
one way. Life was slower and whatever. So there's a
lot of strumming in your room and would shedding, and
so it was going on at the time. You have

(43:03):
any idea when you wrote it this was going to
be a gigantic kid. I didn't. I thought it was
more of a novelty song, if you will. My mother
loved it. I've always said, moment the ears, You had
the ears. But but we were casting our faith to
the wind. These decisions were gonna be warners. We did.
We did agree that I Need You had this most

(43:24):
solid universal shot at being the first single, and of
course best leg plans. Uh. Someone said, well, let's see
what else they've got and when so they had not
released Ideaed You as a single, No no, no single.
They put the album out and the album was getting
some airplay and like this, this next batch hadn't been written.

(43:44):
It wasn't like, oh, we should have cut it for
the album. We were just as do we said, writing
all that, and then of course hitting the obvious point
you've heard your whole life. People thought it sounded like
a Neil Young record. Were you conscious of that when
you cut it? Yes? Said no. Like I say, it
felt like that music was running through our veins and

(44:04):
we were inspired by it and the tone of my voice,
I was I leaning that way. I don't know. It's
like people who sound like Bob Dylan or they sound
like Neil you know. Um, it's it's a gray area
for me. You know, my voice is evolved since then.
For one thing, literally when we were teenagers, we had
these kind of younger voices. We listened to our our

(44:26):
old recordings. It's like that doesn't even sound like me,
you know. So I don't know. But um, I love
Neil Young and and still do his music. And well
you know that once the record in America, which is
my viewpoint, and I bought the first album right when
it came out. Once that became a giant hit, there
was some backlash. Did you feel and also, um, Neil

(44:50):
who we've been following since the started. Buffalo Springfield had
three or four solo albums that had got to the
point of Harvest. So Harvest and Heart of Gold are
coming out, and America's coming up with this song that
in theory kind of sounds a bit like him. Our
bass player always likes to point out if you look
at the chronology, Horse was before, it was before, but

(45:12):
that's picking, you know, picking it apart um. But yeah,
clearly it would be hard. And the irony is that
he finally got a number one record and he was
knocked off after one week by Horse, but one that
sounds like his dad apparently in his books, as his
dad said, called Neil, hey like your new song. But
you know, I just quickly on that one too. I

(45:32):
just want to say that, I know we never took
things personally really, I mean, the career has been here
this long. We were still going to pursue our path.
We weren't going to be knocked off our our trajectory,
if you will. And I understand people protecting their heroes.
A lot of Neil Young fans thought it was a
direct rip off, and you know, and and I I

(45:53):
can I understand when people are trying to protect their
own heroes or or they think that this is a
you know, scandalous But Neil never said anything. He was
We ended up in the same office with him. Althoughays
a very private man. We can't say he's a friend
or we know him closely, but he was always cordial
to us. And okay, let me go to a personal note.
Tell me the backstory of cn Man because that's my

(46:14):
favorite song on that album. Sand Man was, to be honest,
those a minor chords. When we were in high school.
We were doing a big song meaning disaster and I
was done, you know, in the event of something happened,
and we would segue into sand and we put him

(46:37):
so sad man, and um, that was another one that
I was sitting there thinking lyrically, at least I have
a lot of ambiguous lyrics, something that don't connect. I'm
sure every writer throws in lines at what does that
have to do with anything, you know, the tropic of
Sir Galahad or alligator lizards in the air. But uh,
but I was we were definitely focused on the Vietnam situation,

(47:00):
and then there were young airmen at the base and
so on and and you've been here, I've been I've
been here, You've been there. We ain't had no time
to drink that beer. And it was it was an
homage to some degree. I'd heard reports of a guy
saying that he couldn't he was yet insomnia, he was
in Vietnam, he was on in some jungle situation and

(47:23):
just could not sleep at night. So running from the
Sandman kind of a image came into my mind, and
and then the chorus, and that was That was the
most edgy song, I guess on the first time. Although
here was a great song, I don't I don't know
if you know the song here on that album, which
we played to this day, and it's gotten stronger and
stronger in the set. I think. Yeah, we played that

(47:46):
every night. Okay, good, I see it on Friday night. Yeah,
all right, So let's go back. You cut with Horse
with No Name, and a lot of times, not all
the times, in the process of doing something, go holy ship,
I have some great Here was that the case at all?
You know? Warners I remember saying, because we played them
three or four things, and they said, well, it's definitely

(48:07):
that desert song because it was called the Desert song.
And okay fine, which is an early lesson of sometimes
you should listen to the label because they are the
people that are going to be out on the street.
They're gonna be making the calls. It so um, we
basically played it and arranged it as we did. Ian
who was in the chair said what we got to
change the name? Um because you know there's an opera

(48:28):
in the den, so he said it should be Did
he say Horse? Yeah? I think, But I think we
were all pleased with it and it wasn't like, well
that's it. There was no debate even though we were
making a single. It was it was designed to we're
gonna come how long after you cut it? Does it
come out with a pretty quickly? And then it takes
off immediately? Well the machine kicked in. I mean they

(48:52):
got us on Top of the Pops, which is like
that was the crowning thing in in England for your
listeners who aren't younger. Maybe there's two TV stations over there,
BBC one and BBC two and I guess i t
V and Top of the Pops was what every kid,
you know, seven thirty on a Thursday night or something
would would you know, get around the TV to see

(49:14):
the light of stuff, and we got on that twice
I think yeah, and whatever was on top of it
was obviously the fix was in a little bit because
it was such a controlled audience that whatever was on
top of the pops would miraculously appear in the charts,
you know, in the next week or two. Okay, while
this was happening in the UK, what was happening in America?
What what Warners signed in the UK had nothing to

(49:35):
do with Burbank. It was a it was an uh
its own, isolated kind of company, except that it was
responsible for all of the American content, so Reprise and
everything would be Sinatra. Actually it was at the time
owned by the car car park company Kinney and um,
so for them to sign a few acts like they
did with us, it didn't mean at all that Burbank

(49:57):
would even listen to it. But because we were called America,
and because the album had done well and now we
had a number one record, they said, yeah, maybe we
should we should think about that. Would they come over
and do a club tour. We'll put it out if
they'll come over and do a club tour. And I
love this part of the story. We said sure, I mean,
we're mery. We'd love to go over there. Warner said,

(50:20):
we'll send us the parts, we'll press it up everything.
So they sent him the parts of the single you know,
because you had it was pressed, and send him in
the parts for the album and they just hit go
and there was about a hundred thousand things pressed before
they even realized that the single wasn't on the album. Yeah,
so the earliest of the release was hey, wait a minute,
you know that song is not on this is that

(50:41):
Horse thing? Oh um. But we came over and they
booked us basically in clubs all that, you know, the
bottom line, the main point bitter and bitter, bitter and
um and in d C which no, no main point,
the seller and we were pining for the Everly brothers
and Don and Phil had put a great band together,

(51:05):
which by the way, had Warren Zevon on keyboards and
Wady walk Tell on guitar. And this was February seventy
two and Horse blew up. So there was a line
around the block to see these eighteen year old kids
from the UK who were doing thirty minutes. Phil and
Don would come out and everybody leave, So they got

(51:25):
a little piste. They had nothing to do with us,
but it wasn't what they had in mind. The next
week we were in a place called Lenny's on the
Turnpike outside of Boston, and when we got there we
were told that Don had got sick and that they
weren't going to be coming and that we were going
to be the headline. He said, well, we don't really
have a whole show, and he said, it's okay. We've

(51:45):
got this kid out of college, Jay Leno. He's a comic.
He's gonna he's gonna do it's crazy. So it blew
up pretty quick and by the time we got to
l A we did the Whiskey, not the Troubadour, because
Doug Uston at the Drupadour had this thing about options
in the future. So we did the Whiskey, sold that
out for a week and it wasn't it wasn't number

(52:07):
one by that point, but it was like number two.
It was on its way. And so that week, you know,
we had Brian Wilson and that was when the the
you know, the spin dryer started and we flew into
New York City, first time any of us had done
the Limos and oh my gosh, you know, and we
meet Todd runn Gren up at the Warner's office in

(52:28):
New York and we go to Manny's and get to
buy new guitars. I mean, it was like it was
a candy store thing. We're going to Max's Kansas City
and seeing war Hall and it was such it was fantastic.
I mean, we really and we stuck close to each
other because we hadn't been in the US for so long,
and you know, we lived pretty simple lives in the

(52:48):
military and move around you've got this cloistered kind of vibe.
And there we were on our own, wildly checking it
all out. And like Jerry said, by the time we
get to to l A, we're at the Whiskey and
we're staying at the Hyatt House. Led Zeppelin just left
there and there was still some hangers on and a
lot of it from the Zeppelin tour. I think, um,

(53:10):
so I did all that stuff and Warners had a hit.
I mean, this was clearly a huge hit. So now
we had the entire machine behind us and we're in
limos going everywhere, and you could hit the radio station,
you know, it was buttons then and switch and you
could hear it on two or three stations at the
same time. You'd hear it and on Kailast and you didn't.
We got sick of it real quick. But where were

(53:31):
you the first time you heard it on the radio? Well,
that was in England English? So what was that like? Cool?
It was again, it's felt like an out of body
thing at that point. You know, it was like once
once you get your your land legs and you're going
forward and you're putting out new releases, you're looking for
it and you want to hear it on the radio

(53:52):
and it's a it's a validation. But at that point
we didn't know what we were validating at all, as wow,
it's on the radio, Okay, So how do you hook
up with Jeff and Roberts. We would go see all
of these acts when they came to London, so Joanie
would come in, Neil come in and play Royal Festival
Hall and stuff. So now that we're part of the
Warner's camp, we've kind of got a little bit of
an inn. We can get backstage and stuff. Elliott Roberts

(54:15):
came over with Joanie to do some dates and I
think he was in that he was in the Warner's
office and he had said, I introduced myself for he
introduced himself and and we got talking and he sort
of said, yeah, you know, we're putting together this band
called the Eagles, some players back, and you know, we
were just at all all ears and asking about JOONI

(54:38):
had played the Festival Hall, this fantastic show, and so
had Neil a couple of weeks before or whenever it was.
So we've seen their artists and really it was amazing,
but he laughed. There was no pitch at that point.
I was living with my girlfriend's family at that time,
s into the wife and get a call about three

(54:58):
in the morning, so he wasn't even dealing with the
time zones, you know, and it was it was David
Geffen's secretary saying I got David Geffen on the line
and he he said, we're interested, we'd like to think
we can do better for you. And the pitch was on.
And we remember we had this relationship with Jeff Dexter
and Sound well they were so called managers, but there

(55:19):
was nothing. And we've just been back in the States
for that club tour and we're chomping at the bit
to go do another tour and we were literally on
a plane within I had some stuff to tie up.
Jerry and Dan you went over first. Yeah, he said, well,
we'll send you tickets and we didn't tell the label.
We snuck out of London and we moved into Geffen's

(55:41):
house and Joanie was staying at the house and Derek Taylor.
I don't know if you know the legend of Derek,
but it was a dear friend of He was at
Warner Brothers and they were having a panic, where's our
number one? Acted that we can't get him on the phone.
And after a day or so, Derek knew that we
had gone to the to Geffen, and so he finally
in a meeting said everybody, I'm down there in l
a with you know. It's in shock. Oh my god.

(56:04):
But we moved into Geffen's house and he said, look,
we're going to change a few things here, and which
they did. Well. We were all American. I'd never been
to California in my life until we played The Whiskey.
It was my first time ever. But he said, this
is where you belong. I mean, this is on office.
We've got an incredibly creative thing going on. You should
be a part of this. So we agreed to be

(56:28):
honest and it was the classic we we do this
with a handshake, there's no contracts. David had a real
way with him. He was a very personable guy. He
was full of energy, exciting. He was like twenty nine
years old and he thinks something like that. And there
we were in the middle of it all up into
Hollywood Hills house in a swimming pool, and it was
just we were just you know, bowled over and ultimately said,

(56:52):
you guys need to get an apartment here pretty soon,
and we immediately started. Yeah, we lived on King's Road
right there off the strip. We walked up to the
Rainbow and whiskey and everything. But we had to start
a new record. It's time when we had this, we
had music that was we were prolifically putting out a
writing stuff. He got us into the record plant using

(57:16):
Hal Blaine and Joe Osborne from the Wrecking Crew. Oh
my gosh, we got our That was our first rhythm
section before we got Willie Leecox and David Dickie we
talked about earlier. So we're in there working, you know,
and meanwhile David is busy on the phone. I presumably
because I am was as naive as they get. We
didn't like our early discussion. There was no attorney there

(57:38):
telling don't let them do this, don't do that, do this.
In fact, in reality we had David is the one
who set us up with a legal firm and a
business management firm who were still with firms. Yeah we're
still widows firms. And he did reum renegotiate the record deal.
That's a big deal. And at that time him unbeknowns

(58:02):
again this is all hindsight and it's water under the bridge,
and I'm not gonna it's too easy to get to
feel bad. But he could theoretically have negotiated our publishing
back we had a million selling, number one record that
puts you in the driver's seat, and potentially we would
have that today. But he did. He did negotiate an advance,

(58:26):
a big, substantial advance. Anything over a hundred dollars was
big to me in those days, you know. And and
we started the second album and we signed a new
record deal and that was good and we were off
to the races. But it's all in retrospect that we
could have done better. We could would it could have
should have, but I think it was all for the better.
His his cashe his clout, us being in that lookout

(58:49):
management office, and he was a powerful man even then.
And look where he is now, right. Uh. We benefited
from all of that and for being in that room,
in that building with all of those artists, and in
in a strange way, I look back, we were these
young kids, wet behind the ears, but David was putting

(59:10):
his artists in front of us on those first tours.
Jack j d South opened the first tour. We're filling
big rooms. Put one of your other artists in front.
Jackson he opened for us on the second tour. I
thought we were just so lucky to have these guys
out there on the road. But but it worked in
reverse too. We we were able to to expose them

(59:30):
to some bigger crowds. We've seen Jackson opening for Jonie
in in England, and I think I saw him open
for Laura Nero too. I saw him open for Laura Nero.
She used to play every Christmas at the film Wore
East and that's one of the few times where you
didn't even know who he was. And he played solo,
acoustic and he go, wow, that's something you're waiting for

(59:51):
the record to come out, because normally if you don't
know the music, he didn't hear it. Laura too, you know,
so that's kind of where he cut his teeth on
the thing. Another thing was they also had a very
protective nature. It was no longer the thing of how
can we get our people out in front of the people.
It was like, you don't get to talk to Neil,
you don't get to talk to Joanie. So we benefited
from that in it. At the time with the number

(01:00:13):
one album and single By the way, there was a
lot of you know, trying to get to us, and
they kind of put up a wall and said, oh, yeah,
we're all too cool for that. Man. We didn't go
to the Grammys when we were when we won the
Best New Artist of seventy two, that he didn't so much. No,
he would never verbalize that, but it was a general vibe.

(01:00:34):
That's that's the establishment, man. It's it's always the um
for Best New Artist is always the first award, and
believe it or not, seventy two it was in Nashville.
The Grammys were in Nashville, and we were told we
were going to go because we had a night off.

(01:00:55):
And our year, by the way, it's just fantastic year
was ourselves, the Eagles logging into me, you know, John
Prine and Harry Chapin. Now, normally Best New Artist doesn't
really get that strong of we thought at the last minute,
they said, no, you're not going. We're not going. Okay,
well we'll just watch it on TV. And they said,
and before we announced the winner, here's the nominees. Loggins

(01:01:16):
and Messina Kurtin opens and they do your Mama don't
dance or something, and we thought, oh, well, that's why
we're not going there. There they must be winning. And
then the winner was America, and Dusty Springfield took the
stage to accept accept the Grammy for America because the
people just we need you to stand by in case
somebody's not here. And she said, I bet the lads

(01:01:36):
are very happy, you know, which we were, brittish artist,
Where did you put the Grammys? Where are they today?
You know, because we weren't there. It took a few
weeks and a box showed up on my doorstep with
those three dreaded words. Some assembly require and you had
to put the Grammy together you had. It came in pieces.

(01:01:57):
You had to screw the well bay. He had to
put it together and it's still on my bookcase. I
ended up mine got damaged. The original one was would
I noticed it was display at L a X recently
with all the various shapes and sizes, and I ended
up having mine got damaged. I wrote a lot of
Hey can I get a new one? It was like
you had to really had to certify, you know, get

(01:02:20):
a certified letter and a picture. You're broken one and
all this, And I got a newer one with the
black onyx bace or whatever it is. But it's a
it's a treasure. Okay. So you make the second record
and you make it. Who's the producers on that? We
did that one? We did? And you're happy with the
second record? Yeah? I mean we again. We had such
a talented rhythm section. It really went very smoothly. We

(01:02:42):
were in Studio A at the record plant. Stevie Wonder
was in b the entire time, so we got to
go in and watch him do inter visions or music,
talking book or whatever. It was just an incredible time.
And that album came out and Venture Highway was a hit, right,
out of the door. So we cleared that sophomore you

(01:03:02):
know that jinks. We we had that and Don't Cross
the River, which is a song of Dan's. We had
two large hits, and we met Henry Dilts and Gary Burden,
who were doing the covers for a lot of those guys,
and and we took a trip up the Big Sir
and hung out at the at the Salon Institute, and
we just got California eyes big time. You know. Okay,

(01:03:25):
what you know for those of us were living in
these gas we had no idea there was you know,
venture of freeway whatever. How did that come up? Well,
that's another one I wrote, uh, sort of fantasizing in England.
I had written that roughly at the round the same
time as horsewo Name within a month or two. And
again it was dredging up this imagery from when I
lived in California and our family had driven up and

(01:03:47):
down down to l A. I don't know if you
know where Vanderberg Air Force Space is, and it's like
Santa Maria Lompoke midway up the coast, and so I
would and this was again it was sixty three because
I remember the assassination of the President and all that,
and so the surf scene was on the free wind
blowing through your hair and vent I remember we pulled

(01:04:11):
over a flat tire. I looked up at this freeway
sign that said Ventura something or another, and it's just
stuck in my head. I wonder about that sometimes. I
was thinking the other day about the surf music, the
ventures and the word Ventura. It was literally about the
word Ventura because I didn't have any experience, and and

(01:04:31):
highway it's just what I called the road, you know.
But there is a Ventura Freeway, there's a Ventura Boulevard,
there's a town in Ventura. There actually some segment of
the highway. One is called Ventura Highway. There's a little
piece of it or something that. Okay, that's the second album.
Everything's good, you're on the road, everybody's happy. Who's the agent?

(01:04:52):
Do you remember who the agent was? Alan Frey? Alan
Frey at At I f a internet famous. Okay, and
now we're at the third album. That's when we kind
of we had our we're big now and we're gonna
spend more time and we're gonna four hits. We had

(01:05:12):
four charting because Horse and I need you the first venture.
So we were produced at Jared. We've got these apartments
our King's Road. We're all living in the same building.
Some guys from Three Dog Night and stuff we're in there,
and some actresses and things. But you set up a
studio you had. Jerry was always on the front end
of getting the equipment and stuff. We were able to
afford things more and we started demoing some stuff. The

(01:05:34):
album became Hat Trick three in a Row and the
title song Hat Trick was a pretty ambitious thing that
the three of us wrote together. Up until then, we
each brought our song to the table this is mind,
This Mind, but we collaborated on that one track, and
um it was a long time in the studio. We
were producing ourselves. We've got different players and we got

(01:05:56):
Joe Walsh came in and played on a song called
Green Monkey, and we Hadna Carl. We met the Beach
Boys by then and we were big Brian Wilson freaks.
Still are and love love the Beach Boys. They've been
our mentors to some degree for these decades because we
then were opening for them quite a bit. But um it,
it dragged on a bit more than it might have.

(01:06:20):
The recording and we took it on ourselves and don't
ask me how we felt for this song by a
guy named Willis Allen Ramsey called Muskrat Candle Like, okay,
there was a very famous record, did everybody seem it?
So you have that album? Yeah, we did, and it
was produced by Leon Russell produced and we really loved

(01:06:40):
this song. We by the way, we're still like those
days with our albums are vinyl on the floor putting
stuff on. You gotta listen to this one. I'm down
in my apartment listening to some album. Take it up
to Jerry's, Hey, listen to the song. We're doing that.
So we're still immersed in whatever releases are going on,
and this song jumps out and we just said, let's
work that up. We had done one other cover on

(01:07:01):
the second album, John Martin. John John Martin was another
guy we played with in England. We forgot to talk
about him because he was he was something too fantastic guy. Um,
and we've done it. We've done his song called Head
and Heart. But now here's another cover song, David Geffen
and be with you. I heard your version first, did

(01:07:24):
because I think Clapton did it. Did Clapton. Did you
know he did? May you never? I think somebody else
said somebody much later, like twenty or thirty years. I'd
have to remember. John wrote some great stuff. He's a
He was a tragic figure in the end. He didn't
farewell in his life at the end. But so now
we've got this song, we've changed it to Muskrat Love.

(01:07:46):
We each single verse. We were collaborating a lot, and
it fit into our set pretty nice. It was acoustic
in that vein, and the office didn't like it. I
don't think they didn't. They wondered, first of all, why
you're recording so much? All that money at the table? Yeah,
I guess that was yeah, and uh, just just for

(01:08:06):
for the sake of it. It did become a huge
hit with Captain and Tenil, so whatever our senses were,
our radar, it was a song that went on to
be a number one record. But so now we've were fallible.
Our record now is Not didn't do as well. The
third album, Muskrat didn't do as well. And we've had
two platinum back to back or double platinum antains. This

(01:08:28):
one didn't go gold, so it kind of caused there
was a ripple in the force. Yeah there, okay, that's it.
They're done. Um, And that was Hat Trick. It It
kind of came and went. We toured behind it and
did what we were doing. Anyway, it was the fourth
album that changed things with George Martin. Of course that's
way okay. So obviously, well let's go back before Hat

(01:08:49):
Trick is not as successful. You're working amongst a group
of superstars. Did you feel you're on their level it's
some case as you were selling more records, or did
you feel slightly inadequate? Well, when you're comparing yourself to
Neil and Joanie, I think you would be wrong to
do to take any other stance. It was an honor
to be just in their circumference. I think. Yeah, that's

(01:09:12):
really what it felt like like. You know, yes, there
were times when I don't think I'm supposed to be here.
You know, it's only in retrospect, you go, but you were,
You were there, you were producing this stuff. You were
part of that room. And everybody's in their bands are
all in their own little bubbles. You know. We travel
around here and pass each other in the night, and
this guy's that bands doing that, and we're all in

(01:09:34):
our own little heads, you know, and so were the
Eagles were doing their things. I would go over to
some sessions or play cards with those guys and get
to know them. They were all from different worlds, you know,
J D what so. So in retrospect, we were just
part It's like high school. It's like life is like
high school. Yeah, there's the big men on campus and

(01:09:57):
that your leaders and the nerds and the jocks, and
it's kind of like that's what it was everybody. So
there's the big powerful you know, there's Neil Young, there's
David Crosby. Crosby has always been from from day one
we we met David. We met Crosby at Geffen's house
and you would think maybe they could be you know,
and Davids had pretty much a had had a good

(01:10:20):
tongue on the world's most opinionated man man. But he
was from day one and to this day we're still
in touch and he's supportive. Yeah, he's okay. So how
do you decide to work with George Martin after the
third album hadn't done well? We thought, of all of
these pieces, we certainly have to do the tour and
we want to do the writing maybe it's the production

(01:10:40):
that we could turn over to somebody else. Made a list.
We always say about we made this list and of
which George was the top of the list. But to
be honest, I can't really remember what that list was.
You know. I think maybe Roy Halley or some of
the good engineers from that era. But we had George
at the top because we, being Beatle fanatics, knew exactly
where his hands were on those songs. We knew that

(01:11:02):
the strange chard in eleanor Rigby was George had written
this thing. We you know, we had followed like the
world as those records had evolved, and we were pretty
clear on what what he contributed. It turned out that
he was in l A four Live and Let Die.
He was nominated with Paul for the soundtrack to the
James Bond film, and so he was available for a
meeting and he sat down and he said, I have

(01:11:24):
to tell you, lads, um, I'm not sure what a
producer does. He says, I can tell you what I do,
but the term is such a broad term and there's
so many ways to approach it. I know what I do.
We were a multi platinum act with number one record
and follow up hits. It wasn't like we were unknown.
He was looking for things to do. He was starting

(01:11:44):
to do things like Jeff Beck and Paul Winner Winner concerts,
and so he said, no, this sounds like it would
be a good fit. The only thing I ask is
would you be willing to come to England because I've
built a lovely facility air studio as he was no
longer a d m I, and he said, I really
can't be gone that long because he looked at our
previous hat trick schedule, which was months, and he thought,

(01:12:06):
if we're committing anguished in the studio on that. So
we said, hell, yes, we'll go to You know, we're
both do we and our both half English. We took it,
you know, why not? So games on. We we headed
over there, and when we got to Air, he said, look,
I've held two months. I'm not saying that we need
to be done by that time, but we'll see how

(01:12:27):
it goes. But I've got two months held and we
were done with that album in thirteen days. We did
the entire record mixed, mixed. We prepared ourselves. You know,
we weren't going to go over there and waste his
time so we had worked out in the in those
apartments and uh, actually, but yeah, we were lonely people,
lots of we were cutting four tracks a day. We

(01:12:48):
were done with all the tracks in the first four
or five days. In retrospect, could you have cut him
as well yourself? No, Now, the thing that he brought
if because it believe me, there's so many George fans
or numerous but they'll say what did he bring? And
I said, I always say he brought focus. He he
refocused the camera and we were so concerned as do

(01:13:09):
we said with pleasing him. Jeff Emeric was there engineering
and they were a team through the Beatle Ears and
for him, he even said to us when he's done,
he said, this can't possibly be a success. Nothing this
easy could be a success. So and it was for
all of us. It was that was kind of the
rereboot coming out of Hat Trick, and it did change

(01:13:31):
the field and the vibe. Everything was a little a
little more different. The next album was going to be
George Martin. We had a relationship then and we were
it was a different feeling every time we recorded in
different places. George was quite an adventure guy, liked right well,
he built the studio and Monserrat because one of the

(01:13:52):
projects we did with him, we decided, let's go to Hawaii.
Why don't we record on paradise. So we barged over
the entire record plant to the island of Kawaii and
we had the most wonderful two months. We made a
crap album, but we had We had a great ton
of Warner's money and our money. He then took that,
as you know, this is a great id and that

(01:14:12):
he then built Monster At off of that model, and
he went and made Paul's record London Town down there
on a ship. He really always wanted to record on
a ship, remember that. But the logistics were so crazy,
you know, moving in the whole thing. Okay, But also
we put him back in the charts. This was George
who done all that Beatle music was now again it
had made him a current and the shocker to find

(01:14:35):
out that George Martin really didn't make a lot of
dough on those Beatle records of it. I know his son,
I know that he was in the studio then on
that fourth album when they were little kids. He and Judy,
I mean, and Le and Lucy Lucy, right, yeah, okay,
so you have ten men, you have lonely people, and

(01:14:56):
then the How's Sister Golden Air? What happens there? Well,
that the next album. But because Tim Man and Only
People were big hits for us and we were back
and George's in the charts now, he's quite willing to
come to the States because the last one only took
two weeks. So we booked the sauce leto the record
plant in Sauceleto. We thought this would be lovely. I
had Sister as a song, but I was already happy

(01:15:17):
with the few I'd submitted for the holiday on the
previous album, and I'm very proud of those tunes. But
when people asked me that I've been sitting on it
for a year. So I had a demo that was
virtually like the final master and it was just part
of the batch. We always do an album. Each one
of us would throw in three or four and um,
I had Sister and Daisy Jane on that album, so

(01:15:39):
it was you know, and that became part of George's
He had to decide of these songs. He was very diplomatic,
very it was an admirable guy, tall and dashing and handsome,
and had this great accent. Well, I don't think we
need that one necessarily on that's too similar to the
one we did. But you know, get rid of those
songs and to the ones that he felt, and he

(01:16:01):
was good about that. I think we all had to
defer to his choices on the song selection. What about
you know, many bands there's an issue how many songs
I got on the album songs you got on the
album because we're making a different amount of money. Did
that ever come up? Well, we were lucky that way
that there were three writers and each of us had hits,
and each of us had has our writer's name on

(01:16:23):
that hit. But I think we you know, it's always
a group effort at the end of the day. There's
always so many contributors to a song. But I'm the publishing,
the person of the credit that you know that the
like the famous Lennon and McCartney stories where it helped
each of them because it egged them both on. I
think in our case, because we knew we were supposed
to contribute three or four each, and this is why

(01:16:45):
we picked we'd picked three each or four each in
and picked one cover song that we all agreed on
but it I think that kind of competition was very
constructive during that time because we'd each had some success.
It wasn't kind of the George Harrison thing if I
can't get my songs listened to, you know. And the
first album was thirteen days. The subsequent work with George

(01:17:06):
it got longer and but not crazy. It never again focused.
This guy was he knew what he was doing and
we were not in awe of him. By this point
we had a really good working relationship, like a father.
Each day was structured. You know. He'd know, we got
to work on this background vocals on the third verse
in that song. Today, we've got to cut the track,

(01:17:26):
this new track. Or when we were working by ourselves,
especially on hat Trick, it was almost come in and okay,
let's I want to do my song today. Let's and
it dragged out and we'd stay up late in the
studio and we're trying to get someone to run off
a tape off, run off cassette for us at three
in the mornings, like go home and listen to it.

(01:17:47):
George cut all that out, you know, he had a
working schedule, and remember he'd say we're cutting tracks, let's
do it one more time. I'll call this the egg
and bacon cut, because we were going to stop and
have bacon, and they called egg and bacon in England.
So you know, he just kept it moving along gently
and smoothly, and because you can waste a lot of
time in the studio if you want to, I mean

(01:18:09):
back in that era. Did he charge more than all
the other producers? No, no he didn't. And if you
know that history that his he had a staff deal
at E M I. He made no money from all
those Beatles records. He he actually openly in interview said
it wasn't until he worked with America that he made
real money because we were selling millions of records, of
which he had a good producer's points, and uh you

(01:18:32):
know about time, not until they did the anthology project
when they all got to renegotiate before we do this,
and he made a ton off of all the Beatle
re releases. Okay, so you know, for an amateur sitting here,
George Martin says, want to record in England, I'm adding up,
you know, sitting in the suburbs, the flights, the hotel rules,

(01:18:53):
you know, does anybody ever say, well, that's going to
cost us a lot of money. We were never good
at that and didn't spot that until the way through.
Like you can, you can extrapolate that out to getting
private planes and keeping a limo on twenty four hour
call because you might want a burger and three of
them on. We didn't do good in that department, mob. Okay,
So at the end of your hit run at the

(01:19:14):
end of the seventies, did you have any money? My
joke line is that we tried our best to spend
it all, but we haven't been successful. We did, We've managed.
We're not like some, but we're certainly no complaints. Okay,
So how do you end up with Capital? Our deal
had come was winding down the seven years with Warners

(01:19:36):
and what was the The last album was Silent Letter.
The last one we did that was Oh that was
on Capital. Perspective was the last one we did Harbor.
The one in Hawaii was the last one we did
with Dan and the deal was over basically, but they
had an obligatory live album. Dan had left and we

(01:19:57):
owed one more album. So we went into the Greek theater.
We had met um Elmer Bernstein and so we went
in three nights at the Greek with Elmer Bernstein conducting
the l A Phil and we recorded all of that.
George was allowed to produce in the States. He was
now kept the place in the States and his tax
structure didn't allow him to perform, so we asked Elmer

(01:20:18):
if he would conduct. So that was the final Warner's album.
Those albums hadn't done well by that point that the
usual ebbs and for us, so Capital was interested. They
paid us a pretty healthy advantage. We had changed management.
By then, John Hartman and Harlan Goodman, who were part
of the Geffen Roberts management team, had had peeled off
and had taken I think Crosby and Nash and Poco

(01:20:40):
and us. So I heart been well, yeah, I do
his class I speak of yeah right, and of course,
bless his heart. Phil was his brother. Of course, those
bugs from Phil. Phil did the cover of our greatest hits,
The History album is a piece of art. Okay, so
you switched to Capital, Yeah, and now we're a duo.

(01:21:01):
And George actually said before we did that silent letter
out and he said, I'm not sure I've really got
any more to contribute. I mean, he was clearly saying
I think as his run. Its course, I'll do it
if you like, which we basically said to of course,
you've got to do it diplomacy. So that was the
last one we did with George and it didn't Although
it had some international success, it didn't have anything here
in the States and Capital. Having ponied up this money,

(01:21:23):
now was given an album that was now two guys
instead of three with no hits on it. So it
was rocky from from day one. Yeah, that those years
are are kind of now we're into the eighties and
stuff is changing. Stuff was changing all the time in
the seventies to the disco movement, and but now the
eighties is a whole new thing, new wave, and our

(01:21:43):
music isn't really adapting to that. We've we finally started
using some different writers and some we figured we can
change virtually everything but ourselves. You know, we can try
some different and people were suggesting, you gotta use this producer,
you gotta listen to this song, I gotta record that song.
I remember feeling a bit discombobulated during that first few years,

(01:22:08):
but we got You Can Do Magic was written for
us and Russ Ballard, who was a great British writer
he'd written for the Zombies and he wrote I'm Winning
for Santana, which was one of their only actual hits,
and that was that was a breath of fresh air

(01:22:30):
and that was a shot in the arm and it
got us back into the top ten and we were back.
It jelled and we came back together. I thought, pretty well,
those were exciting times at that point, and we could
appreciate it that much. We hadn't had a hit for
a while and there it wasn't. It put us back
in in the mainstream, if you will, and we were

(01:22:50):
doing TV and all this stuff, but it still felt
like we were trying stretching to get some some stuff
on these records of our own, and some of it doesn't.
It's not as cohesive when you have three producers on
a record coming from Bobby Columbia was working with us
at that point. I remember when when you're selling, everybody's happy,

(01:23:14):
they don't mess with it. You know, we were producing
them ourselves or George and they put them out and
you're selling. When you're not selling, everybody starts to come
up with, you know, and investor trying to accommodate all
of this different inputs. So whoever was the head, and
Capital had three or four heads while we were there.
It was it was, it was changing almost yearly. It's

(01:23:35):
interesting Hart had the same experience, right, They on their
ole material, They're an epic, and they went to Capital
and then ultimately they started singing other people's songs. Yeah.
Well again, I can't really say what their dynamic was
that caused that, but I think everybody's intentions, right, everybody
wants to sell records. It's not like, hey, I'll show
you what we can do with these guys. We can
trash these guys in a couple of And by the way,

(01:23:57):
we were also growing up, if you will, and had
marriages and children and mortgages, and it wasn't the apartments
and the Three Musketeers anymore. There was a lot more
to life, which is what starts happening, as we know.
And I had moved to Marin County at that point,
and I had had a son, Um in seventy seven

(01:24:20):
and my daughter in eighty one. You'd had Matt, So
it's no more seven music and rock and roll, you know,
it's the juggling starts there. And it's okay, are both
of you married been married? How many times I'm un
numbered to my last marriage? Three? Three? And how long

(01:24:43):
you are you been married the third time? We've been
together for seven years. Now we've been married for two.
And how many kids don't you each of you have?
I have two sons and I have now inherited three
step kids, so I have five total. I was married
twenty seven years to my first wife with two two
kids and son and a daughter. I've been married seventeen
years to my Okay, those are two long runs. How

(01:25:05):
does it end after twenty seven years? Oh, it wasn't
that great. I mean it was we'd had a happy life,
you know. It's we've been divorced since and I've been
married for seventeen years to Penny, my present beautiful wife,
and we're very happy. And I wasn't so happy at

(01:25:26):
the end of my first marriage and things. The kids
were already out, my son had already gotten out of
high school, and my daughter was a senior, and things
just um, I wish I had an answer for that stuff.
It is. It's just much. There's always sad stuff. You
just can't get around life in in these areas that

(01:25:48):
you know, I always envisioned sitting on the porch in
the rocking chair, looking back at my rock and roll
life and having the same nuclear family and everything. You know,
it's I'm very grateful for the for what did happen
in the first marriage and the children and the life
we had in Marin County. It was cool and hanging
out with the dead and beautiful home. That's when we

(01:26:11):
did have spent some money in and stretched. But I'm
very happy now. It's it's a whole second second life now.
Usually when you're successful, the forces are very expensive. So
at this point, do you guys have to go on
the road to pay the bills? Well, we'd probably have
to adjust our lifestyle a little bit if we didn't,

(01:26:33):
and the road it became a business many years ago
for us. But it's to just call it that is
really it's not fair because it's so much more than
we're working bad. I mean, it's okay, So these days
a year do you work? We'd like to call it
a hundred shows, which is about two hundred days of travel,
but it's it's been settling down about eighty six Sames.

(01:26:54):
How often do you play outside of the US? Every year?
We're off to Italy. First two weeks of July. I
now live. My wife is Australian and we live in Sydney,
and so we have a home in Venice here and
we have a home in Sydney. And for example, we
just heard today that we're off to Australia for two
or three week tour later in the year. You know,
every day the phone rings and you're just not sure

(01:27:16):
how it's gonna You don't at least it's yeah, no,
it doesn't all just fall in your lap. Here's next year.
You know, it has to be pieced together by a
variety of people, and very grateful for that fact. You
know that the people still want to come to the
show's agents can't not find work. There's stuff out there.
Lots of venues we we repeat play year after year,

(01:27:36):
and it's a nice mixture of of of theaters. And
of course the casino circuit is great, and arenas and
festivals and tours in Europe. We were just in Israel
for the first time recently. There's always some new experience
out there. I mean, we've played Africa, we've played Morocco,
we've played India, we've played Indonesia, Malaysia, your name at

(01:27:59):
the Philippine tours of US bases that took us into
the DMZ in Korea. I mean, we've just had an
unbelievably fantastic time of it and we're not we're not
looking to stop soon, you know, we're The Italian tour,
for example, is all roman amphitheaters, outdoor, historic, under the

(01:28:20):
stars in the middle of the summer in Italy. I mean,
it's just beautiful. Well, I know this guy was a
photographer for led Zeppelin and it's heyday, this of course
before digital photography. And he says, I've been all over
the world that I see nothing. So when you guys
go to these places, do you take advantage or of
Tuesday it's, you know, Pittsburgh. It's a bit of both.

(01:28:40):
I think I try to personally, I try and add
some time before or after if we're going to someplace lovely,
my wife and I will try and add a week
if we can. We're off to Italy and we'll go
four days early, which is as much as we could
fit in in the schedule. So you do what you can,
but work comes for We've always had an interest in it,
and I think the fact that we traveled as kids, uh,
in the Air Force, you're you're just that little bit

(01:29:03):
more looking at things and trying to center yourself in
these places that you've never been. And and I think
that applies in this business. We're into constantly looking look
at the maps, look at a visitor's guide, see what's
around the hotel. Obviously it's stressful physically when you're touring
and your one night ers and you get into a town,

(01:29:25):
you don't want to do anything, but we try, especially
foreign dates, you try to make an effort to see
what's going on. Plus, I think we're somewhat anonymous personally.
It's not like it. I always used the analogy of
Elton going to the grocery store. We don't really have
that problem. If you're playing in a city and it's
sold out or something, then there's a good chance you're
going to be spotted or followed or something. But in general,

(01:29:47):
we can move, move amongst the people. Okay, so if
you do that many dates when you start something, what
is the most number of dates you'll play in a row?
Three tops? Now, because of voices and stuff, we've got
to save these voice Since we were we used to
do five, six nights and two shows a night. Sometimes
I don't know how we even lasted. Okay, so all

(01:30:08):
your records on Warner Brothers, they own the publishing. But
since then you got yeah, we got our own publishing,
since you just set up your own little publishing company.
So any bucket list things now that you know there's
twenty thirty years left podcast, you did it by a

(01:30:30):
car out there on the outside. I mean, there's always
something you want to do. You know. We've gotten to
an age though we both agree, well, I'm just probably
not going to do that one I don't see my son. Yeah,
I'm not going to climb killaman jar. Oh. I don't
think I had that on my list, but that's gone.
But We've checked off a lot of stuff, you know,
and I'm hoping to still see great things. You know.

(01:30:53):
I learned to scuba dive in this business, and you know,
we've traveled. We've been on Safari and after Arica and uh,
it's just been some trippy things. Man, sounds great. Okay,
you've been listening to America Dewey and Jerry here on
Bob Left Sets podcast. Thanks so much for coming by, guys,

(01:31:14):
Thank you, true honor

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