Brian Wheat

Brian Wheat is the bassist for Tesla and he has a new autobiography, "Son of a Milkman." We chart the arc of Tesla's career, from fame to breakup to today, when they're making more money than ever, but we also delve into Brian's anxiety and depression, which he hopes will aid others to recognize their issues and get help, knowing they are not alone. In addition, we cover Brian's friendship with Jimmy Page, his passion for Victorian houses, his love of Italy... As my engineer remarked, talking to Brian was like hanging out in the recording studio, you'll feel like an insider!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left's podcast. Like
yesterday is the bass player for Tesla, Brian read Brian,
you wrote a new book and the title is Son
of a Milkman. Why did you use that title because
I am the illegitimate son of the milkman. Okay, well,

(00:28):
you know today people having babies without being married, etcetera
is Derek Gurr. But back when you were born, it
was a little bit pooh pooed. Was it something you
grew up with that had any negative connotation or any
negative impact upon your life? Well, just in the fact
that I come from a large family. There's uh, five

(00:51):
brothers and one sister now is the youngest. And you
know the old joke used to be, well you are
the milkman's kid. Well it's I am the milkman's kid.
So that's that's kind of why when I sat down
and started to decide to write a book, I thought, well,
that would be a good title because people think it's

(01:12):
a joke, But for me, it wasn't a joke. I
was the milkman's kid. You know. He came by and
dropped off of cream and my brothers were out there
ripping off his ice cream truck or whatever he had,
you know, the dairy truck, and he got mom pregnant
and cut out. So it was that's how life began.
So why write a book, Brian, Well, you know, it's funny.

(01:34):
In this book, I talked a lot about me and
the things that I have to go through in life
with autoimmune disease and depression and anxiety and all that stuff.
So getting back to why writing the book. When I
first started to develop anxiety attacks and I went to
see this therapist in New York, Dr Hirst Cough, he

(01:58):
said to me, you know, one day you should consider
writing a book. It would be a good way to
help you let go of some of the things that
you hang onto that maybe are causing you anxiety. And
at the time we were only on Great Radio Controversy,
so I went, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, sure, you know,
and I never really thought about it again. And then

(02:21):
I think it was when I turned fifty I said, well,
all right that that came to mind again. You know,
this thing about a book. I've seen other people's books
in the bookstores, Duff mckagans and a few other people's.
I thought, well enough, time has passed in my life
to actually write something about and the band having a

(02:44):
career the thirty years or whatever it was at the time,
because they started the book eight years ago, so I said, well,
then maybe it's time to do a book. There's enough
history and people might want to read a story about
the base player that started the band Tesla. But at
the time in in No One, when I gave a ship,

(03:07):
you know, they just wouldn't have that, you know, the
Tesla was still you know, becoming Tesla and and stuff,
and so I just thought, you know, it's kind of
like a turning fifty thing and then turning fifty, turn
fifty five. And we finished it last year. Okay, did
you write it alone? How did What was your actual process?

(03:28):
So I started. I started it eight years ago with
this guy, Pete mckowski, who used to write for Sounds
magazine in in England, because I was spending a lot
of time in England. And we started a draft and
basically he was interviewing me and interviewing other people and stuff,
and it was gonna be more of a Tesla book.
But when I started looking at the drafts of what

(03:51):
we were doing, it made me sound like it was English,
like I was an English guy the way he was
writing it, and so we kind of just lost We
put it on the back burner and lost connection whatever.
And then a couple of years after that, this guy
Kenny Nicholson who worked for Tesla as stage manager, production manager,

(04:13):
you know, monitor guy, all the stuff that han't known
as since we started playing in the clubs when we're kids. Um,
he kind of writes a little bit. He's got some
degree in journalism, and the said, I said, hey, would
you do this and let me write? Let me let's
write this book. You interview me in a series of
interviews and go kind of like from the beginning to

(04:34):
where we were at the time, and and let's see
if if there's something there, and then I'll pitch it
and see if someone wants to put out this book.
So we did that, and the feedback we got then
was it read more like an interview, And a lot
of the stuff that's in the book now wasn't in
the book, Like the things with the the health issues

(04:57):
and stuff. It was more geared towards Tesla instead of
you know, more Brian Wheat. So when I presented that
to people, my manager Mike kobe Ashi. Actually he said,
you know, do something a little bit different here, Brian
than just you know, this is what we did in Tesla,

(05:18):
this is how we made the albums. Blah blah blah.
Talk about your life and the things that I know
that you go through, you know, with your clidas and
your crones and your depression and all these other things,
and you know, overcoming alcoholism, all that stuff, believe me.
And for a minute I went, oh, I don't know,
and then I went, well, if you're gonna do it,

(05:41):
you might as well just put it all out there.
And if you're gonna let him be judged, let him
judge you once and for alln maybe just maybe you know,
there's some kidding Tara Hut, Indiana with colidas or something
that's a Tesla fan or suffers from depression or anxiety.
He reads the book and he goes, as well, you know,

(06:01):
I'm not the only guy, meaning him that has this condition.
Brian has it in Tesla, and I can relate. So
if then I thought, well, maybe I've been actually helped somebody.
And that's when I went full four center. Okay, let's
separate some of the health issues. Let's talk about the
physical health issues to begin. When did your colitis and
crone's manifest When did you first notice you had them? Fourteen?

(06:25):
And what happened then? I just got one day, I
finished eating dinner and I got really bad stomach pains.
And then we spent about three weeks going back and
forth to the emergency room. This is in the mid seventies,
and they kept saying you got the flu, you know,
because it was just really bad cramps and the bleeding

(06:48):
stuff didn't start until later. Until finally, three weeks later,
they the doctor figured out, well, you've got colitis, and
basically he put me on a bland diet for four
months five months and it went into remission and it
stayed in remission until I was forty years old. And

(07:10):
what happened at forty tesla was back together. Well, you know,
I have a friend of unfortunately had colitis and ultimately died.
There's a lot, you know, there's a lot that's unknown
to what degree is politis amplified by stress. There's a
lot stresses that you know, they don't know what causes it,

(07:30):
and they don't have a cure for it, but they
can you know, kick its ass. Into remission. But stress
is a big trigger, and you know, that was the
thing I talked about when Tessa got back together in nineteen.
After we broke up in ninety five and two thousand,
there was still a lot of stress in the group
and we had to find our way, and I talked

(07:51):
about that in the book as well. Um, so that's
when it really started to come back, you know. But
how being said that and you just asking me that,
I think it started two years before when I was
out in a van with my other band, Soul Mode,
because when Tesla quit, I started another band and got

(08:13):
another record deal and went out there and like in
a van and played clubs and stuff that I never
did in the beginning of Tesla. With Tesla, we got
hooked up with Cliff and Peter and we immediately were
on David Lee Roth and then def Leppard and that
was it. So I always called it like my back
taxes tour. But I think that started to to the stress.

(08:33):
And then when Tessa got that together, it was stressful
again because it took us a while to get our
our bearings on why we broke up in the first
place and how to not do those same things. So
stress is very very much a trigger and collidus, And
so what's the status and you're colleidis today, it's it's good.

(08:55):
I'm I'm in a good shape these days. I'm you know,
the last four five years, I've been really good. Okay,
And what about the crones? Tell us about the crones. Well,
my symptom is clide's basically crone's is from your mouth
to the other end, and collidus is just the intestine.
So how my manifest is is in the intestines and

(09:16):
you get ulcers and bleeding and cramping and all kinds
and gnarly stuff. Yeah, I wasn't sure what was going on.
Thanks for clarifying that. When did you first notice that
you were haunted by either anxiety or depression? That started
at funny enough, when I was fourteen too, and it

(09:38):
was Halloween and I was out riding around my tins
being Halloween, and I ran into a friend of a
friend of my brother buddies and he said, hey, do
you want to smoke some weed? Any I'm a young
kid wanted to be cool. Go well, yeah, sure, yeah,
what is it? Because it's Panama red man? I said, great,

(10:02):
So I smoked this weed. And the next thing I know,
I'm riding my bike and I'm like, I don't know
where the last ten minutes went. I can't remember anything right,
and I'm just like Wow. So at that point, when
I was a kid, I thought, well, I'm just allergic
to marijuana, so I'd never really smoked pot. I would just,

(10:25):
you know, when you went to those high school parties
and stuff, just drink beer, Jack Daniels whatever, stayed away
from the pot. And it wasn't until right after I
got married to Sandy Sarea and we were recording Psychotic
Supper that all of a sudden, these anxiety attacks started coming.

(10:47):
And we were sitting in pre production with Steve Thompson
and Michael Barbierro, and next thing I knew, it felt
like I was up on the ceiling looking down at
the band. I had disconnected, and I started freaking out,
and and Steve took me outside and I threw up,

(11:09):
and I said, I think something's really wrong. I don't
know what's going on. And that just kept happening for
a couple of weeks while we were in this pre production. Now,
mind you, Psychotic Supper was a little bit of a
stressful record to make, so there's all this stress going on.
So this stress triggers the anxiety and the colidus. It's
kind of like a double edged sword. So he said, look,

(11:32):
when we get to New York to record, my brother
is a doctor. I want you to see him. So
I went to the hospital there and on Long Island
or wherever it was, and they ran a you know,
every test nuner Son, and he came in and he said, uh, well,
I know what's wrong with you. And I'm like, well, okay,

(11:52):
and I'm thinking I got a brain tumor or something. Right,
he said, you're you're suffering from anxiety attacks. And I said, what, Well,
how do you deal with that? And he said, well,
and you either see a psychiatrist or I give you
a bunch of pills, you know, to to medicate this.

(12:13):
And at the time I kind of liked I was
drinking and taking whatever it was downers or whatever at
the time. Uh so I don't want to do that.
I don't want to become a drug addict. Funny how
my rationale was. So he said, well, you should see
a psychiatrist and and and it can help. And I said,

(12:35):
I don't really believe in it. You know, I don't
know today I'm a strong advocate of it. And it
was Peter Minch, my manager, that said, I know a
really good guy. When I told Peter what was going on,
he was always really helpful, uh with me. You know,
me and Pete had a really good relationship. And uh
he said, I know a doctor that's a psychiatrist. Go

(12:57):
to him and see if he can help you. And uh,
after I went there for about five weeks, six weeks,
this anxiety and these attacks started to get a lot less. Okay,
you know, as someone who suffered from panic attacks and
anxiety myself. Uh, they say that exposure therapy works. Was

(13:20):
he focusing on the general things in your life or
did he tell you how to deal with anxiety? He
was doing cognitive behavior therapy and what's the other one,
you know, the Freudian thing where you go through your
life and all that. So he did actual exposures. I
mean like, uh, some of my things would be I'm
gonna be in an enclosed space, i won't be able

(13:41):
to move whatever, and they'll tell you, well, try to
be in that space, try to overcome the feelings. Did
he do anything like that where he would put you
in situations and show that you wouldn't freak out. No, no,
he was more like, tell me about your life, right,
and why do you why do you have to drink
six scotches? Why you drink too? You know? He so

(14:03):
he started like that kind of thing, but he never
said why did you have to drink six scotches and
couldn't just drink? I was young, you know, I was stupid.
I was young. I mean the question because were you
self medicating to do I think so? I think so?
And that's what he said. He's like, why do you

(14:23):
got to do this? And he also said I had
this thing called a sundown effect. When the sun went down,
that's when the anxiety came out. And he said it
was because you know, I talked about it in the book,
as well as my mom having a couple of nervous
breakdowns when I was a kid, and he said it
it reminded you that you had to go home and
be this adult and take care of your mother. You know,

(14:46):
It's what he said, you know, look right, right, So
there's all this stuff, but long story short, he got
me to where I was able to really control them
and and and not freak out. But it took about
three years and I continued therapy with him for another

(15:06):
five A couple of questions, Do you still have anxiety today?
Very rarely, but I take medication today. Did you take
medication when you saw that psychiatrist? No, there was no medication.
Only when did you start taking medication? What is the medication?
It's Paxel And I started taking Paxel and two thousand

(15:31):
and four and I've been on it ever since. And
the thing of it is is I tried to get
off of it last year, you know, after so two
thousand four to two thousand one nineteen, so twenty doesn't count.
It's such a blur because the year before that, we're
on tour feff Leppard in in Canada, and I decided

(15:52):
to wean off the Paxel because I wanted to get
off medication, you know, as much as I could. And
it threw me the worst depression I've ever had in
my life. I never experienced it before. And then you know,
I jumped back on it, but it took another five
months to get it back in your system. When it

(16:12):
takes five months to get it out of your system, well,
did you ever get to the the point where you stopped
completely stopped the paxel. Right, yes, okay, so you were
off completely. I was weaned and I thought I was great,
and I got I got to a point where we
got on tour in Canada. I don't know what it was.

(16:34):
I woke up one morning and had this weird feeling
didn't want to get out of my bunk. And you know,
it wasn't anxiety because it didn't feel like anxiety. It
wasn't them an anxiety attack. This was like a big
black cloud. I I think it was depression. Certainly sounds
like it. But you're saying it takes five months to

(16:55):
ramp back up with the paxel. How did you cope
biting my nails? You know, you just you just you
just cope. That's what I've always had to do. I've
had to cope with it. Well, there's certain certain people
like Chris Cornell and you know, others who couldn't cope. No,
I know. And and that's that's funny you mentioned that

(17:16):
because the only time I met Chris met him one
time I drove him around l A with my friend
Ross Halfon to do a photo shoot, and you know,
he knew I was in Tesla. Obviously, I knew he
was in Southing Garden because we were peers, but we
never met or anything. And he started telling me, man,
I suffer with really bad anxiety attacks. I went, what, man, dude,

(17:38):
I've had anxiety attacks as I was fourteen. I said,
you know, I said, I did a lot of therapy
and now I take packs. Law I'm doing, you know,
pretty good. And this was two thousand and seventeen or
whenever it was. But it wasn't too long after that
that he committed suicide. Who did do you remember if
he said he was taking any antidepressants. I think he

(18:02):
said he was taking xanix, right, which is really just
an anti anxiety medication. People don't understand. That's different. Yeah,
I think he was, said I think he was. I
think he said something about Zanex. Okay, so in the
book you mentioned you had therapy with this guy for
five years as someone from Sacramentos on the road and

(18:23):
the guys in New York. How did you do the
therapy on the phone and did that work? Well, it
didn't work as good as when I saw him, but
it did. It was better than nothing. It would be
great if we have what we have now, these zoom
meetings right stuff. But you know this is and even

(18:45):
worse was when I would be on tour in Europe,
so I'd be calling him, paying him as hourly rate
and the transatlantic call. I mean, you know it's expensive. Oh,
that is for sure. That's one thing you also mentioned
in the book that you got to the point where
he was too expensive for your budget. Yeah, at a

(19:06):
certain point with Tesla, and I kind of ended my
my my therapy with him when Tesla broke up because
then obviously the money stopped coming in. There were no
more royalties, so you got your the Paxels. Who prescribed
the Paxel. That was another doctor I went to later,
a therapist, psychiatrist, Yeah, I went to it. I went

(19:30):
to another psychiatrist in Sacramento and Tesla got back together,
and he's the one that said, I think you should
take abuse bar and I tried that that didn't do nothing,
and then he said, well try Paxel, and Paxel worked.
And I saw him for you know, maybe a year,
and then the bands on for I want to say

(19:52):
six months because we were having a hard time making
the album. Uh into the now when we got back
together there and uh, I'd seen you know, Metallica doing
it on their thing. I said, hey, guys, and because
I've been in therapy, would you come, you know, consider
going in and and and seeing the psychiatrist? And you know,

(20:12):
I don't want to have the band break up again,
and the guys didn't want to, but we didn't really
know how to communicate. So we went to him and
he got us through it. We made the record and
we're still standing, Wow, and do you have any therapy? Now?
You're just taking the paxel. Pretty No, I just take
the paxel. Okay. We're having a very honest conversation about this,

(20:35):
and certainly as time goes by, these are topics that
people talk about. But to what degree since you started
at age fourteen, did you feel these were things that
you had to hold to yourself and you couldn't talk
about made you feel separate from people? Well, with with
any of those things in the book that I talked about,
they're not glamorous, they're not rock and roll. You know,

(20:58):
I'm cool, I'm Keith Richards kind of things to talk about.
You know, Uh, there's a stigma to them. People think
you're weak mentally weak if you suffer from anxiety or depression. Um,
so I kind of kept him to myself. It wasn't Hi,
I'm Brian, I have you know, I have collidus and

(21:22):
I suffer from anxiety. What's your name? You know? So
it was kept to myself a lot. And that's the
thing about putting it in the book, Bob is it
was kind of liberating for me. It really was, in
the sense that you let it go. The doctor was right,
how about the side effects of paxel? Do they affect

(21:43):
you in anyway? Well? Well, okay, you know the worst
side effect of paxel. If you take too much, you
can't come right. How do you deal with that? Cut
down your dose? Uh? Yeah, Because they had me up,
they and he ramped up on the high dose there

(22:05):
for a while. As to say, doc, you know, dude,
you know what's going on. He said, well, I got
that in half and we found the right dosage and stuff.
And do you supplement that with VIAGRAA or anything like that. No,
I don't need any of that. Okay, that's good. I'm
good with that these days. Okay, let's go to the band.

(22:28):
The band had instant success. They're on a major label, Geffen.
Then the band broke up, got back together. You had
a deal with Sanctuary. Now you say in the book
you turned down a deal with Sony you felt that
you can make more money yourself. What's it like now?
Granted the whole landscape change in this period, but what

(22:51):
was it like being on a major label and being
independent today? Well? I tell people, and they find it
hard to believe, but I say, we make more money
now being independent than we did back then, having Geffen
and Q Prime and all that, you know, all the

(23:12):
people that come with it, and I prefer And I
also tell people that I'm prouder of the second half
of my career that I am the first, only in
the sense not of the work we did. Because the
work we did, I think it's really good. There's some
really good moments, but just in the fact that we

(23:34):
survived and we had to do it on our own
and we learned how to do it, and I think
that was an accomplishment for that band. Um. But yeah,
I mean, you know, we we sold a million and
a half records on mechanical residents and never saw any money.
You know, it was paid. Did you ask for the money.

(23:56):
And what did they say, Well, we were too stupid.
We thought everything was free. They thought like we thought,
like when they came to the show and they took
you to these nice meals and stuff, that David Geffin
was just a really nice guy. He really liked you, right,
And when they flew you and they put you in
the Sunset Marquee to do press and all this stuff, like, man,

(24:17):
what a place. It wasn't until many years later that
we thought was that we found out that we were
paying for it. It's like, oh, okay, these two hundred
thousand dollar videos you got us making, we're paying for him,
right and and and unfortunately that band at that time,

(24:38):
I didn't really watch what we were doing. You know,
I did later, and you know, when certainly got back together,
I steered the business end of Tesla. But at that
time we were spending money like crazy. And you'd be amazed,
you know how much money was just going all over
the place. Okay, Uh, when you were having your first

(25:04):
hit era MTV was dominant. You get a video on
there blows you up all over the world. You certainly
with the beneficiary of that. That scene no longer exists.
So it's hard for almost anybody. You know, even the
biggest acts on the so called chart don't reach everybody. Okay,
So what's it like to be in the marketplace knowing

(25:27):
that inherently it's incredibly difficult to reach everybody? Are you
happy with the audience you have? Do you want to
grow it? How do you grow it? Well? You always
want to grow it. You know. Today we make money
from tickets and t shirts, make no money on records,
no money on publishing, no money on you know, Spotify

(25:49):
and Apple Music. That's you know, that's when no one
gets nothing, you know, unless you're a super act. So
we're I was trying to grow it. You just you
try to get on the bigger tours like we've done
in the past, in the in the summer, big Live
Nation tours to try to build your audience bigger um.

(26:12):
But Tesla has a cult following. We We can roll
into any town and do two thousand seats, you know, anywhere,
in some places four and five thousands, So that I'm
thankful for. That's what all that hard work we did
in that first half allowed us to be able to
still do. If you go to those markets to what

(26:35):
degree can you play new material? Well, we might play
three or four songs maximum out of how many how
long it said, how many our forty five minutes? You know,
an hour forty five minutes set, you might hear four
new songs and and and you know it's not like

(26:56):
it was back in the eighties and early nineties. You know,
people they go off and get a beer and do whatever,
and you know they want to hear the hits. They
want to hear the things they know, They want to
hear the way it is. They want to hear signs
and want to hear Susie Cowboy, what you give love song?
You know, they there's a certain percentage of our fans

(27:19):
that do like that. You know, we'll sell fifty sixty
seventy thousand albums still today, which is is pretty good,
but not compared to when you were selling two and
a half million. So you know, there's not a lot
of you know, we do though we we put them in.
We put three or four in, but never more than

(27:40):
four because it's just okay. And getting on those live
nation package tours in the sheds. Who makes that happen? Um, Well,
we have a we have a great agency, a G.
I Adam Cornfield and Dennis Arthur, and recently we were managed.

(28:01):
I managed the band from two thousand five until about
two thousand fifteen sixteen, and at that point we hooked
back up with our old buddies and Deaf Leopard, and
I got us on that one Deaf Leopard Sticks Tesla
package that was out that one summer, and then we

(28:22):
did two more. But at that point I think I
felt that if we were going to take the band
any far farther and try to grow that thing, I
needed to get with a big manager right now, mind you.
I called Peter and Cliff back in the beginning and
they were like, no, it's okay, we're not into When

(28:42):
we got back together, went on into nostalgia and I
understand that. How did it make you feel, though? Well?
I hurt my feelings at first, you know, when Cliff
said that to me. But Cliffs are genius and Tesla
would not be what Tesla was without Cliff Bernstein. Cliff
Burnstein was one of the dry be forces. Well can
you stop there for a second and say what Cliff

(29:03):
added or what Cliff did? Well, Cliff, outside of being
a business genius, has a really good musical ear and
and Cliff he was like our A and R guy.
I mean Tom Zutat was there the first record and
he took us to Cliff, but after that Guns and
Roses had exploded and he wasn't really you know, it

(29:25):
was Cliff. It was Cliff and Peter we were sending
our songs to. Tom was involved to a degree, but
not like Peter and Cliff, and mainly Cliff. Peter was
more the touring guy, you know, the stage, that guy
the muscle and if you wanted to talk about, you know,
doing a track with a symphony or something, you know Peter,
I mean Cliff was that guy. And their relationships there's

(29:49):
there's the two of them and you know both of
them well, but um, being on your end, it I've
never been represented by them. Uh, they were the best.
What was the band happy with what they said? Or
would you tend to argue with the two of them.
In the beginning, we were happy to what they what
they said. And the problem is is that once the

(30:10):
band becomes successful, then they don't want to listen anymore.
And there was one bad mistake that was that we
never let Peter and Cliff or Tom Zoo tat ever
forget and that's that. The three of them never wanted
to put Love Song on that album. They said, it's
three songs, it's not a song. And we fought tooth

(30:33):
and nail, and so anytime we after Love Song that
we said something they didn't agree. We said, well, you
didn't like love Song either, and I'm sure they got
tired of hearing. Now. Look, we were a paid in
the asked to manage. You know, we never really cracked
it like Guns or Metallica or Leopard or Motley. We

(30:57):
were in the second level of the band. You know,
I'd like to say we we were the B B
level bands. We had a couple of hits, but never
massive and at a certain point, I guess, you know,
for those guys, it was just too much trouble when
it was worth. You know, we had problems with the
guitar player, and you know, we were dysfunctional, and you know,

(31:21):
I can't blame him. But at the time when Cliff
said he wasn't in a nostalgia me being naive and
being the positive guy that I am, I thought, I'll
called Peter, Will call Cliff, Will call Thompson, Barbiuro We
get the whole band back together. We'll just pick up
where we left off. No, No, that's that's not what happened.
So what year were in when you're having these conversations.

(31:44):
Two thousand, Okay, so it's not not that long. It's
five years after the band break Yeah, it's five years
after the band broke up. Okay, let's go into a
few things here. You were, you know, Thompson and Barbierro

(32:04):
you had mixed feelings about yeah, yeah, and then ultimately
you felt Thompson I believe added something. And first what
the guy doing, but in retrospect you said he was
a key influencers approach. Yeah, and again it's it's it's
that thing of being young and and nowaive. You didn't
really get what Steve was doing until you look back
on it later, you know, because we associated everything. Unless

(32:27):
you were turning knobs or playing guitar, you weren't really
doing anything. Well, Steve didn't play the guitar, and he
wasn't an engineer, but he'd come in there and he'd
speak in these these metaphors like I want you to
inject some energy here, and we're like, okay, great, what
fucking key you know what I mean, and you know,

(32:49):
so yeah, at the time, you know, and we and
I and I also say we had a phone out
with with with barberro In in the end of Psychotic
Supper where he walked out and me and Frank had
to finish mixing the album. You know, those those were
just things you go through when you've got success, money, drugs,

(33:12):
people telling you how fucking cool you are. Um, although
I did feel that we had outgrown him by the
third album, I felt that it was time and I
think we all did to try, you know, something different.
But I was at the point when we got back
together I had seen all that and realized that, and

(33:33):
you know, it was like and the thing that Thompson
and barber Erero said to me was well said to
the bend, was we'll we'll do a record if the
songs are good. And that kind of was like, well,
what the funk weren't the song is good the first
time around? You know that kind of again, we're passed off,
you know, for a day. But you know, the funny
thing about it is I speak to Steve quite often

(33:55):
and Mike I don't speak with too much that I
think Mike, you know, he harbors a little ill feelings
to me because he says I wouldn't let them go
mix the Guns and Roses record and walk off Psychotic
Supper and that, you know, I cost him a lot

(34:17):
of money. And I said, Mike, but you made four
of the records that were multi platinum records in that
same time for hime, I cost you anything. I mean,
why why would anyone say, oh, yeah, go ahead, we'll
stop you go ahead, you know, ACXL, Slash, Mike, Steve,
Tom everyone, you know. I mean, you can imagine how
how he felt. But I think Mike still to this

(34:38):
day kind of harbors a little bit of that fell feeling.
I hope he doesn't, but I since he does, because
I don't. It's never been really quite the same between
me and Michael. Let me and Steve are fine, okay.
You know, to the outside observer, they would think a
song by love Song would be what the label and
the manager would tell you to do a ballad. So

(35:01):
what what is the story of how love Song was created?
What was it from the band's side, Well, we were
just in doing demos, you know. We we had this
little rehearsal room and we had a a track tape
machine set up, and we were just writing songs for
the next record after Mechanical Residents, and we had Heavens

(35:21):
Trail and Hang Tough and and and and what It
Is and What You Give was even ready for that record,
but Jeff didn't have the lyrics together. And but the
one that we all thought were like was the the song,
the one that we thought was the hit on that
record was love Song. And we played it to Peter

(35:44):
and Cliff and Tom and they said, we don't like it.
It's it's just sounds like three songs. And Jeff Keith
literally started crying, like fucking crying tears and all, and I,
how can you say that, you know? And and I
think that was the first time Cliff ever saw Jeff

(36:04):
that emotional, which he got to see much later in
our career. And they were all kind of taken back,
and we're like, you know, guys, we really believe in
this song. And and uh, you know, we had to
twist some arms and really kind of say, look, well,
we'll throw off fucking lazy days, crazy nights. And that's

(36:26):
Cliff Bernstein's favorite song. I just gotta mention because I
was gonna bring that up because that's one of your
that was the only very successful track you hadn't mentioned
yet and certainly my anthem and he and he remember
being at backstage at the meadow Lands and def Lepper.
We were playing with Queens Rich and we were working
on the second album and and we said, you know

(36:52):
what we're putting love song on? We don't, we don't
fuck it. We'll take we're taking Lazy Days, Crazy Nights
off the record. He I'll buy that song from you.
How much you want for it, I'll buy it. I
want that song. He said, Okay, okay, calm down, okay,
because he really, he really loved that song. And but
you know, that was the thing that they just didn't,

(37:15):
you know, all the powers to be didn't wanted to
put it out, and that's why it came out on
that record. I don't know if you remember, we put
out Heavens Trail first, and then we put out Hang
Tough and it's stalled, and everyone's like, oh, that's it
for Tesla and uh. At that point we pleaded with

(37:36):
Tom Zootat to go to Eddie Rosen Black and give
us one more track, and he said okay, and it
gave us love song and took Peter and Cliff's credit.
At that time, they were doing the Steel Wheels tour,
and I know they bartered, you know, tickets for uh

(37:58):
shots like mash Trash. If you give Teslas Master trash,
let it see if people fans react to it, you know,
we'll give you tickets or whatever. There was some of
that going on. So in the end they did believe
in it and and help make it a hit. It
was it took like fourteen weeks for that track to

(38:19):
to build up to what it came and then it
kind of blew up for a while. But in the
beginning they did not want to put that on the record. Okay,
have you always been the business guy in the band?
How did that happen? Minch? You know, Peter took a

(38:40):
liking to me and he said, look, I'm gonna make
sure that you're not one of those guys that don't
know how to to book a plane flight or a
hotel room. And so I kind of always paid attention
to what they were doing and ask questions and advice
and stuff, and I caught shipped from some of the
guys in the band. They used to call the manager's
boy and stuff, you know, because I would say, guys,

(39:05):
I think we should listen to him. You know, you know,
you're always agreeing with him. Well they're successful, I mean,
you know, um, so yeah, I always wound up wearing
that hat and I still do to this day. And
you know, it was originally five members. Now four original members.
How do you keep the band together? You know, there's

(39:30):
just something, there's a brotherhood there, okay, And I thought
the other guy was part of the brotherhood, but you know,
he chose drugs versus the band. The whole band got
clean for him, you know, tried to support him, and

(39:52):
he just couldn't. He couldn't do it. He couldn't hang
and the four of us did. And then I think
when we were play faced Tommy with Dave Rude, he
was such a perfect replacement because it could have went
the other way, we could have wound up breaking up again.
That we all just realized that it's a special thing
we have that doesn't come easy to two people, you know,

(40:17):
being able to play and have people buy your concert
tickets and your t shirts year after year after you're
a special thing. And we realize it. I mean, sure,
we fight now and again like brothers do. But we're
brothers and you know, we have other outlets now to
where we can do other things where it's if we

(40:38):
don't feel like, you know, we want to do something
that's outside the framework of what teslayers because it's a brand.
Tesla is a brand. You expect a certain sound. If
if we deviate too much, your fans bitch at us.
You know. So we have things that we can go
do outside, but we always come back to to Tesla
and quite honestly, it's how we make our living as well.

(41:02):
I mean, we were never the level to where we
all became like multi meonionaires, right, So we're working band.
That's how we that's how we earn our living is
going out and playing a hundred shows a year. It's
a nice living, don't get me wrong. But you know
you stop it for two years for Corona, it takes

(41:23):
an effect on you, your your your bank account. Trust me, buddy, Okay,
how do you feel about changing the band's name to Tesla,
and especially in light of the car at this point, Well,
the card the car didn't come around ntil two thousand
and six, so it's funny, Like I call someone today

(41:43):
and go, Hi, this is Barnian Wheat from tests and
they go, oh the car company. No, I'm with the
band you know started And you know, when Cliff brought
that to us, we said, what the Fox of Tesla?
You know that was Jeff exactly words and what the

(42:05):
Fox of Tesla man? And he told us who Tesla was.
We never in a thousand years would have picked that
for a name for the band. We didn't know anything
about him. It wasn't taught to us in school. And
none of us were like science fanatics, you know, we
were music fanatics. Um as far as the car, I

(42:27):
think the car is cool. I've reached out to Ellen
a couple of times, tried to get him to a
a show, uh, because I saw a picture where he
was wearing our T shirt at Sundance, you know, and
had our faces on it. And Okay, he obviously knows
who we are, right And so I got hold of
his executive p A and sent message and he said

(42:49):
some shirts, some Tesla shirts. We sent him some more
Tesla band shirts and we were never able to get together,
but I'd like to meet him some day. He seemed
like he's a pretty cool guy. Speaking of high profile people.
There are a lot of stories about you being friends
with Jimmy page. How did that happen and what is

(43:12):
the nature of your friendship. Well, Jimmy is a really
good friend of mine. Um, I met Jimmy with Ross Halfin,
who's a really good friend of mine. And Ross Halfin's
like Jimmy's brother, and I met him backstage at Hammersmith
onean at our David Lee Ross show. So Ross said,

(43:34):
I was there mixing busting nut with Terry Thomas and
Frank Annon. Ross call ups today, you want to go
see David Lee Roth. Yeah, sure, I ain't got nothing
to do. So Jenny's coming out. Don't be stupid, don't
be a fanboy, they said, don't be a punter, right,
I said, yeah, I know a hand of myself. I'll
be okay. And you know I'm not gonna gush all that.

(43:56):
So Jimmy came in Ross and induced me to Jimmy.
I said hi, Jimmy said hi, and then everyone flocked
Jimmy as they do. And then when all that settled down,
I said, Jimmy, I'm gonna go get something at the bar.
Do you want something? He said yeah? He said okay,
so I came back and I gave him his drink
and he said thank you. I said, you're welcome. He said,

(44:18):
I really like five Man Acoustic Jim, and I think
it's great. And I went, what he said, five Man
Acoustic Jim. I think it's a great album and no
one talks about it. And I went, Man, I didn't
even think you knew who I was. Of course I
know who you are. You're in Tesla, we're on the
same label. We're on Guffing because he had Outrider, and

(44:42):
and then when he toured with Page Plant, I would
go see him. You know, he'd reach out to me
if when he was in the States, his his assistant, Hey,
Jimmy's gonna be in town. You know, you want to
come to see him, see him? And I just developed
this friendship over the years, and really we got to
be really pretty good friends in the last ten years.

(45:02):
More um, because I was going to England a lot
with Ross and seeing Ross, and Jimmy was always around,
so we'd go we'd go out, you know, record shopping
or whatever. And he's actually the one that got me
into collecting vinyl because I had given up all my
vinyl and him and Ross would go to these record
shops and and freak out a re Vinyl and I'd go, guys,

(45:25):
I'm gonna go to a coffee shop. I listen to
the CDs and Jimmy said, no, Brian, he really missing
it here, man. Vinyl sounds much much better. And one
night I was over there and I had given him
a Hoffner for his birthday I don't know, six seven,
eight years ago, and so me and my wife Monique

(45:46):
went to his house to pick him up. And he's like, well,
we'll go to this place to Troubadour and and they
have some food and they do poetry and stuff there,
and he put on Johnny Burnette trio train kept rolling
on vinyl. And because we're just sitting in his living
room getting ready to go, and he's showing me this
where I'm showing him the base and he's going, okay, cool,

(46:06):
and he put I was just like, whoa. And at
that point in when he's right, it does sound better.
And then I started collecting vinyl. So I've been lucky
because my two heroes when I was a kid with
Paul McCartney and Jimmy Page, and I've met him both.
Paul I just met, you know, he he has no

(46:28):
clue who I am. But Jimmy I developed the friendship,
and that that's something that's really special and cool to me.
And what is the friendship based on? Why do you click?
We both like, we both like chicken, we both like
are we we both like going to weird places, we

(46:48):
both like vinyl records. We're peers. I know that's funny
for me to stay right, but they'll say you're a peer,
you're a fellow musician, Brian. You know, so just all
of at and I think the fact that he liked
me for some reason, I didn't freak out and go,
oh my god, you're Jimmy Page. You know, he he

(47:09):
liked me, and he because he easily could have just said,
you know, whatever it was, you know, it was on him,
and he extended it out and we just became friends.
Now you're painting that you're obviously a talkative guy with intelligence.
To what degree do you spend every day emailing talking
to people or are you more of a hermit when

(47:31):
you're not on the road. Who are you keeping contact
with all these people? Recently? I spent a lot of
time talking well, you mean, like to my friends or
just in general. I didn't you know, what kind of
person are you? In general? Uh? I have a small
group of friends, you know. I have two guys that
are in bands, Joe Eliott and Jimmy Page that I

(47:52):
would say, well, they're my friends, no acquaintances or peers.
And then I got some other kind of people, Ross
and you know, a doctor, different different people, different walks alive.
But I got maybe ten of them, and I don't.
I don't. I speak to a couple of them every day,

(48:13):
you know. It depends on where I'm at. Like my
friend Marvin and Tommy here in Texas. You know, if
I'm in Texas, I'll speak to them every day. If
I'm in New York, I might speak to him every
three or four days. Where I have a friend in
New York named Mike, and I speak to him every
day when I'm in New York. It depends Ross I speak.
I spoke to Ross this morning. Jimmy I texted with

(48:34):
on his birthday last week. Um. I used to hang
with Ross a lot in the eighties, and the last
time I saw him was with Jimmy. If he was
warning me about something about similar with Jimmy and then
I ended up not even talking to me. It was
at the premiere of it might get loud, you know,
just like everybody's hanging around Jimmy, I'm not gonna go Yeah. Yeah.

(48:55):
Ross is really protectively Jimmy. Yeah, but you making I mean,
I know, Ross, But you make a point in the
book that you have flown all over the world with Ross.
Can you tell us about that? Well. Ross is one
of my best friends, and I love Ross Helfing. I
know there are a lot of people can't stand them.
They hate it. And I look at Ross and I go,

(49:17):
I'm surprised you've never been punched some of these ships.
You say to people, the ship that comes out of
your mouth, Ross, and he goes, you know, I just
do it because it blows their mind. They can't believe
I said it. I said, one day, you're gonna get punched.
He's like a brother to me, you know, um he um.

(49:39):
I met him first when we did that first photo
session for Mechanical Residents, and he said, you know, don't worry,
I'll put you in the back. You're not the lead singer.
And I thought, what an asshole, you know, And I
told Peter Minh said, you know, this guy's a fucking dick.
He said, just tell him the funk off, you know,
that's what he likes. So I did, and the whole

(49:59):
band did. And then what happened was we wound up
on on tour in England with Leopard on the Hysteria
Tour of England, and Ross was their photographer, and he
just connected with me. You know, I like UFO. He
was friends with Pete Way. You know, we we kind
of bonded over UFO, I think more than anything, because

(50:19):
Pete Way was another hero mine and we just developed
this friendship over the years. And and I'd see him,
you know, all through the nineties until we broke up.
And then I didn't see him for four or five
maybe six years, and we actually didn't talk for maybe
three or four years. Not that we were mad at

(50:40):
each other anything, just saving saving happened to me. I
know what you're talking about. People are on different different
And then I remember calling him because we were we
were in the studio making the real the real records,
and and I just I saw his blog or something,
you know what I should call him, And I called him.

(51:02):
He goes, oh, what do you want? I'm like you know,
I mean, what do any what I want to call
to say hello your cox sucker um. And we just
kind of picked back up where where we left off.
And there was a point where he was going through
a bad period in his life and me and Monique
flew over to help him out and be with him

(51:23):
because we didn't want him to be alone. And I
think that that struck something with him, you know, And
he's just he's just he's just like like I said,
he's like a brother. The book that you take to
go to Asia with him. Yeah, when we were talking
this morning, he's like, let's go back to Bangkok. I said, well,

(51:44):
and he was just in Dubai with kiss. I said, well,
let me get this hernia surgery out of the way
because I gotta have a hernia surgery and he just
had one yesterday. I said, And we'll go somewhere in March,
you know, we'll either go to Dubai or you know
wherever people allie us to go right now with all
these travel restrictions, Uh, we'll go. So it's funny because

(52:07):
just this morning, you know, come on, you should come
over and we should go. You know, we should go here,
We should go there. He's been going to Egypt the
last couple of months and he's really been into Egypt, so,
you know, and so from going with him, I'd always
take pictures on my iPhone and I'd say, Ross, you
may be the greatest rock and roll photographer, but I'm

(52:28):
the world's greatest iPhone photographer, right, need to say, I'll
fuck you, Brian. So one day he gave me one
of his Lias to play with while we were out
on one of our trips, and I started taking photographs
of travel stuff, you know, and he said, Brian, those
are pretty good. You got a good eye list at all. Thanks.

(52:50):
I know nothing about a camera, BOK. I'm not the
technical guy, aperture all that stuff. I'm one of these
points shoot guys. And uh. I just started taking pictures
and I got really into it. And then he gave
me one of his Nike on D three's, so then
I got more better at it, and he let me

(53:11):
use some of his lenses and I got into it.
But again with him, it's it's anything from photographs to
food too KFC, to vinyl records to going to really
weird places. I think you know. We went to Burma,
which was pretty trippy. That was kind of that was
kind of an eye opener. We were in Hanoi a

(53:33):
couple of years ago, which was really cool. I love it.
So he's my travel buddy, and you know, he's he's
a he's a friend, he's a dear friend. Okay, you
mentioned Monique. Now in the book you talk about your
first marriage, So a couple of questions, how do you
keep a relationship together when you're on the road, and
to what degree have you taken, whether it be earlier

(53:55):
in your career now taking advantage of the so called
perks of the road, are you Are you alluding to
women on the road? Yes, I am. Okay, Well that's
not my style, to be honest with you. I um,
I had a super cool wife and I had a

(54:15):
super cool first wife. My old there is, if you're
gonna do that, you don't need to be married. And
I did plenty of that, Bob, you know, from nine
eight seven to nine when I married Sandy Serea and
then you know we split up in ninety three or
ninety four until I got back to got together with Monique,

(54:36):
and you know, I I was like a guy in
a smart news board, you know, Okay, but how do
you know the first wife it broke up. You say
it was because she wanted a career, but you know,
I remember when Cliff was telling me about Metallica or
some many they all went on the road for two
and a half years. They all came home and got divorces. Uh,

(54:58):
how do you keep the relations ship together when you're
away so much. Well, that's the thing I had the
advantage of. It was hard to keep the relationship together
with my first wife because she was on do in
her career in Peter and Cliff managed her too, and
I was off doing Tesla, and then you know, she

(55:19):
wanted a family. All these things point we were just
young and wound up getting a doors like most people
do when they were young. Well, it wasn't too long
after we got a divorce. My band broke up, so
I wasn't on the road for another five years. So
I spent five years at home with Monique basically, and

(55:42):
then when I went out on the road, I went
out all the road with Soul Motor, which was like
for three months. And it wasn't until two thousand that
Tesla got back together that I actually went back on
the road. But going back on the road in two thousands,
you know, you're not talking, you're gone for six months
at a time, or you know, a two year tour

(56:04):
where you have a break every eight weeks. Now, in
Tesla tours, unless it's one of those big summer packages,
we'll go out for a month and we come home
for a month, and then we go out for a
month and we come home for a month. So he
wanted at me and gone six months out of the year,
but we're home every other month. And I think that's

(56:27):
been easier on on all of us because I've been
with Monique now twenty six years. And did you ever
want to have children yourself? No? No. That was part
of the problem with me and Sandy was she wanted
to and I didn't really want to. I thought I did,
but I really didn't want to. And Monique that doesn't
want children. I don't want children. I had to sector

(56:48):
me at like thirty something years old because I didn't
want her to have to take birth control pills anymore.
And we have Jack Russell's there are children we have.
We have three of them. We've had had seven of
them total. What's the specific reason you don't want to

(57:09):
have kids. I mean I don't have kids either. I'm
just asking, well, I think you know a lot of reasons.
I don't think I would have been a good dad.
I didn't have a dad, so I don't know how
to be a dad. Right. The other thing is unselfish.
I want to go when I want to go. When
you have children, you can't do that, right, And that

(57:30):
was that was the thing about me and Monique. We
both wanted to, like if we wanted to pack up
and go to London, you couldn't just do that if
you had two or three kids. It's not that simple.
And there's the financial part of it as well. Kids.
You know, kids are expensive, cost a lot of money
to provide and take care of children. So those those
things were it. But really I just never I never

(57:53):
thought because I didn't have a dad and I came
kind of from a dysfunctional family, not even kind of
was this action that I didn't want to, you know,
that was the one thing in therapy the doctor said,
you gotta break the chain, Like you know, your father
gives you his bad habits, you give your children and

(58:14):
just keeps going down the line. And I didn't want to.
I didn't want to hand off whatever bad habits I
man had or whatever to a kid. Either. There's a
lot of factors, but that not to make me it. Okay.
The other thing that you have a huge interest in
is Victorian homes. You first bought one downtown Sacramento. Why
don't you tell us about your interest and especially what

(58:34):
happened with the one in Sacramento with a fire, et cetera. Yeah, well,
I love architecture, you know. And when we were kids
starting out Tesla, when we're city kid, the place we
used to play was this place called the Oasis Ballroom.
It was in the oldest part of Sacramento, kind of
the historic district. There's all these cool Victorian homes. They're

(58:57):
from eighteen fifties eighteen sixties Sacramento. You know, it was
a gold mine town. It came after the gold Rush.
And I used to always say to Frank, one day,
I'm gonna own one of those Victorian mansions, man, And
he'd said, well, cool man. And one day I finally
got to buy one. So I bought the one on

(59:18):
on J Street in n three, and you know, I
restored it and did all the things that you do
in one of those houses. And in two thousand and ten,
I had built a building and back because I had
the it's a deep lot, it was, and this is

(59:38):
like in the kind of Greenwich Village neighborhood of Sacramento,
that kind of feel and those you know, those kind
of big, deep lots, and I had built a recording
studio back there. Well, I had a fire, and I
actually have a fire. My neighbors had a fire and
it you know, those houses only five ft apart, and

(01:00:01):
it jumped from his house which was five next to
my studio, went up the wall and caught my my
roof on fire on the studio building, and it destroyed
that building. And then the embers, because I had a
wood shake roof on the old Victorian house, caught that

(01:00:24):
roof on fire. But they were able to put that out.
There was water damage in the house, but the studio
was completely demolished, and uh then we just re rebuilt
the studio, fixed that house. And I had that house
until about two thousand and fifteen or sixteen, and then

(01:00:49):
I was just I belonged to these groups on Facebook,
you know, like vinyl collectors groups or Victorian homeowners groups
or bathrooms or whatever, and this picture came up with
this really nice house in Texas. This is where I
am now. It was a Victorian built in nineteen hundred.
Mine was built in eighteen when Sacramento, and it said

(01:01:12):
two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. And that was what
I just gotta be a mistake, right, because you know
Victorians can be very expensive, especially in San Francisco. They're
really expensive. So I looked at it and just you know,
I was getting tired of California. You know, I lived
there in my whole life. We really have a really

(01:01:33):
bad homeless problem in Sacramento. I mean really bad. And
it got to where people were, you know, shipping and
piston on the side of my house, camping on the
side of my house. And I am with this two
million dollar Victorian mansion and nothing can be done about it.
The city won't do nothing, you know, the mayor. I

(01:01:55):
just got fed up and I just said, fuck it,
I'm gonna leave. And this house was in Texas. This
other house for almost as nice, needed a little bit
of work, at least I thought it was almost as nice.
And I'll get to that in a minute. Um. So
I called money, because today would you but you can

(01:02:17):
consider moving to to Texas. She said yeah, because she
grew up there. I said, okay, So we we moved
to Texas and we left the house in Sacramento. We
rented it out and but we didn't realizes once we
got to Texas, we got rattlesnakes in our backyard and

(01:02:40):
it killed one of our dogs. Right, So that never
really quite fit. So it was decided, then, well, we're
gonna have to leave Texas because Jack Russells and Texas
don't go. So then it got to looking for another
place somewhere in the country. And I was looking for

(01:03:03):
a place that didn't have state income tax, but couldn't
find that I did like that in Texas. I gotta admit,
who wouldn't, right, Um. So I found a place in
upstate New York, in in the Finger Lakes area in Auburn,
New York, which was John Doulas's Senator John Doulass house

(01:03:25):
when he was a kid, where the family lived there.
And it was just really beautiful, beautiful Victorian mansion. And
I mean my other houses were houses, you know, there
were five six thousand feet. This thing is like ten
thousand feet. And I'm like what's wrong with this picture?
It was like five hundred grand, right, So I said, Monique,

(01:03:48):
I think I found the place. So when I called
the real estate, do you got rattlesnakes? There? No? No rattlesnakes. Okay,
well do you have tornadoes? No? No tornados haill storms. No.
So we wound up finally moving there about a year
and a half ago and we love it up in
up state New York. But you told me earlier before

(01:04:10):
we turned on Mike's that you live the winter in Texas.
We did so long. What happened was because I live
in Texas and Texas is my main residence. I you know,
I don't have to pay state income tax? And are
there rattlesnakes in the winter? No? Okay, let's go back,

(01:04:31):
you know. So one of the stories that kind of
amaze me, based on my personality is your original house
was downtown and you would have these parties where all
kinds of people came by. Were you weren't you worried
they were going to trash the house and steal stuff? Man,
I was high, you know at that time. That's pre Monique.

(01:04:52):
Once Monique got there, she ran everyone off, like, hey, man,
you ran off all my friends. She said, no, those
who are your friends. Um, you know, I, I my nephew,
my my sister. She's the second oldest. Her son is
only four years younger than me. He lived with me,

(01:05:13):
so he kind of kept an eye on everything. But
at the time I was, you know, I was at
the height of of being high, and you know, I'll
go to the club down the street, get get get
some blow. You a wasted. Everyone will just come back
to my house and stay there until six seven in
the morning. It was insane, but you know, it just

(01:05:34):
goes show. You live through it. You live through it.
You mentioned how a recording studio. That's another big thing
in the book, how you get invested in recording students.
What's happening with that today and what can you tell
us about your rein running a recording studio. Well, I
I have, I have, I still have a management company
and a and a and a small label that you know,

(01:05:57):
I have distribution and stuff, and I go out now
and I try to find young bands to develop because
I don't think people are doing an R anymore really,
not like when I came up what a R was.
So I have a really nice recording studio. I'm a songwriter,
I'm a producer, I'm a mixing engineer and mixer. Um,

(01:06:20):
I manage bands. So I've got this little company that
I go look for young bands and try to mold
them and help them get to the next level. And
kind of everything's under one roof. Generally speaking, that's a
labor of love. It's hard to make money doing that.
It's a labor of love where where you may mean,

(01:06:42):
maybe we'll make some moneys if you pop one of
these bands one day, and how much of your time
is dedicated to that. When I'm not doing tesla, that's
what I'm doing, I'm either I mean, I mean they're
painting because I do the thing with the painting and
the photography, or I'm doing stuff, you know, with with

(01:07:03):
the bands, or I'm doing tesla, or I'm doing nothing. Okay,
do you still own a recording studio? Yeah? Yeah, I
still it's a beautiful studio. Say to the art that's weird.
That's in Sacramento. Okay, Now the band also rehearses in Sacramento.
You'd not even bother to rehearse. Uh, we still record.

(01:07:25):
We've made the last three albums in that well. The
last five album has been made in my studio, but
two of them were before Burnt and then the other
three were in the new facility. Um. I still have
a house in Sacramento I rented out as an Airbnb,
and then when I go to town to work with
bands or work with Tesla, I stay in that house

(01:07:46):
and don't rent it out. Okay, that just because I'm interested.
You know, it's hard to move is when as you
get older. So do you have any friends in Texas
or New York? Or is it generally with the internet
your friends could be in where No, No, I have
friends in Texas. I have two good buddies here in
Texas where I live, in the town I live in.

(01:08:08):
I have two or three really good buddies in Auburn,
New York. And then in Sacramento. Because I'm there, I'm
there quite often as well. Now because I've been in
this COVID, I've been going about every other week, every
two weeks back and forth to work on projects. Have
been producing some some records for for young bands. You

(01:08:29):
also go into the breakup of Tesla. You know, from
an outside observer, it would appear that the band's arc
was going down and that would break up the band.
But you say, you just made a new deal with
Geffen and then all of a sudden the band imploded.
Tell us about that. Well, that's the funny thing, you know.

(01:08:49):
We we we had just made a new deal with
Geffen and we put out Bust to Nut and it
didn't reach platinum and only went gold. I think it
was six hundred thousands. And uh, we were hearing rumors
that Geffin was gonna drop us. You know, we're going

(01:09:11):
How could you in my mind that we're all of us.
I think we're just you know, this whole grunge thing came, right,
we were having internal problems at the same time. Right,
I won't say we weren't. We were. The grunge thing came.
We weren't on the radio like we had been the
previous five records or four records, um, and we were

(01:09:35):
being labeled as as a hair band and and your
your your your record company is you know, we're around
the campfires as you're getting you're getting dropped. And even
Cliffs said to me said, look, I'm sorry to tell you,
I think it's over for you guys, And I could
I meant I could not wrap my head around it.

(01:09:58):
It just sucked my head up, you know, and I
think it sucked everyone's head up. And then, you know,
we lose the guitar player, right, this is the first
time you've been asked to leave, because he'd been asked
to leave twice or three times. I lose track. Jeff
has an incident in Reno and falls falls apart, and

(01:10:22):
it just next thing, you know, we broke up and
what were your feelings then? I was I was probably
piste off, you know, piste off. Obviously I wasn't in
my right mind at that time. You know. I didn't
do any drugs until the last part of that first

(01:10:45):
part of Tessa's career. I would just drink alcohol, so
I started experimenting with drugs towards the end before we
broke up. I don't know, I guess deflated, you know,
really's is how you how you could put it? He went,
you know, wow, how can you go from you know?

(01:11:09):
In two years? It was literally, of course, to two
years because Busting Nut came out and what fo Yeah,
Psychotic Supper was and we toured for two years on that.
We came off that tour thinking this next record was
going to be the record that was gonna be like
the Black album you know from Metallica. That's okay, we're plois,

(01:11:32):
this is this is it, you know, and uh it didn't.
It should have been called Busting Up instead of busting nut. Okay,
for five years the band is on hyatta hiatus. What
are you doing for money? Or did you have enough
money that you made? No, I started mortgage in my house.

(01:11:55):
You know. Um, there was still you know, I was
still it was some publishing, but there, you know, there
obviously wasn't T shirt money. There was no live gate money,
which that that was the bolt and the record money
because we had done a new deal with Geff and
they had given us quite a large advance. So we

(01:12:15):
did have some money, but not not enough. Probably the
last five years we thought we were rich, but you
know we weren't. So um. You know, you just hustled, man,
You're out there hustling, you know, producing bands, demos whatever. Luckily,

(01:12:38):
my expenses weren't that high at the time, you know.
I mean Jeff, poor Jeff, he got a job as
a DJ and a strip club when we were off
for five years. Um, Frank, I think he was doing landscaping.
Troy was roofing, and I was, you know, live off

(01:13:00):
the equity in my house. Wow. Okay, So when you
go on the road a hundred days with Tesla, these
these days when it's not COVID, do you enjoy it
or you're earning a living? No, I still enjoy it.
I still enjoy it. And you know, Code is kind
of a blessing in the sense that I think it

(01:13:24):
we needed a little bit of a break because we've
been going twenty years straight since we got back together,
and we may have been getting a little bit tired,
but it still was you know. Look, one thing I'll
say about the band is we never phone it in
that hour and forty minutes on stage. That's that's the
real deal. It might be a pain in the ass

(01:13:45):
the other twenty hours, you know, said, here's someplace just
going on. You know, what the funk are we doing? Here?
Was parking lot? You know. But the playing is always
the thing that kept us together. But I think the
good thing is when we do get to go back
and play again now that this COVID thing, it would
be like a shot in the arm again because we

(01:14:09):
realized again it it took the breakup to make us
realize how much we really did cherish it and how
we fucked it up. And with COVID, it's just another
thing going. Look, we really do miss playing with each
other and doing this. I mean, we're okay for for money,
a lot better financial situation than we were in in

(01:14:31):
n You know, you ever think of giving up and
going straight? What do you mean leaving the entertainment, leaving
the circus behind? Well? Would I do? Okay? That that's
the thing. I mean, seriously, you know, Bob, the only
job I ever had was I was the manager of McDonald's.

(01:14:52):
So I mean really, it's like you know in yeah,
I mean it crossed my mind, but only for a second,
and I thought, you know, what am I gonna do?
So I did what I the only thing I knew
how to do was I started another band and I
got signed by Sanctuary, you know, Tom Lipsky signed me
to another record deal, and I was trying to put

(01:15:13):
that together and it was we were starting to make
some headway. And then you know this guy in Sacramento,
Pat Martin, that's the DJ the have been there for
many many years, was at dinner at my house when
Knight said, if the other guys would agree to playing
for one night, would you do it? And they went, yeah,
as long as Tommy skille Is is in the band,

(01:15:34):
I want the original five just gonna be for one night. Yeah,
And then that turned into us being back together for
twenty years. But honestly, if you asked me today, I
don't know what I do. If I stopped today, what
would I do? I can't go to a work for
a record company, you know what I mean? There's there's
no I mean, does that even exist? Really not for

(01:15:56):
people who are over the age of thirty five? But
can you eat? Can you still eat a filet of
fish or quarter pounder? Are you burned out forever? No?
I can't eat that ship man. I like to diet
coke though. That's the only thing I can eat, Okay?
And to what degree today? Are you clean? Drugs? Alcohol? Oh?
I haven't done any drugs and fourteen fifteen years alcohol.

(01:16:22):
If I go to my house in Italy, I may
have a glass of wine because those people love to
and I love Italy. I think I talked about that
in the book too. I have a house in Italy
and I really loved going there. I might have a
glass of wine. And I'm usually there twice a year,
once in the summer for a month and once at Christmas.

(01:16:44):
So usually around Christmas as a festive period, I might
have a glass of wine, nice burnello, you know. But
but that's it. I it just kicks my ass. That's
why I stopped. Really, it wasn't that, you know, I felt, Oh,
I'm a funk up. It was just a minute, just
the hangovers got So what happens the other ten months

(01:17:04):
with your house in Italy when you're not there. My brother,
my oldest brother, who was like my father buddy, Um,
he stays there about six months out of the year.
He goes there for three months and then comes back
and then goes for three months. He so he gets
to really enjoy it and it just sits. You want
to go, let me know, give me the keys man. Wow,

(01:17:25):
that's quite an invite. But people would say, you're living
on the street and you can't really see anybody's bank account.
You've got four houses. You're doing Okay, I'm not. I'm
not saying I'm broke. All I'm saying is that that
Tesla Earnest living from playing, playing and going back to

(01:17:49):
your other question that you asked earlier. Do I feel
it's better now without all the big record companies and stuff.
There there's your answer. I'm doing better to day and
the second half of my career financially than I did
in the first step. Okay, let's talk about rock. Hip

(01:18:09):
Hop has a huge place in the market today. What's
the status in future of rock? Man? I don't know,
you know, I just try to do the best work
I can do, you know, and Tesla whatever we're we're doing.
We try to make the best record we can. But
you know, it's not like there's many platforms for it.

(01:18:32):
You know, there's not an MTV anymore. There's fewer and
fewer fewer rock radio stations. And I still think that
radio is the biggest mover of music, especially rock music.
You know, Um you have these these spotifying and iTunes
that you know, artists get nothing for putting their music

(01:18:54):
up there people and people now are being conditioned that
they don't want to buy music. So I don't know
what the future of rock is. It made me really
happy when I've seen Paul McCartney had a number one
record at seventy eight years old. The other month. That
was pretty cool. Um, but I mean, really, I don't know.

(01:19:17):
You you probably could answer because you're it's it's not
optimistic that that would take an hour for me to explain,
you know as well documented. You know, I'm a huge
Tesla fan. I think a lot of people would like
I think we have to go back to the roots
of what blues based. You know, all the English musicians
to talk about Jimmy Page, etcetera, were influenced by Robert

(01:19:38):
Johnson and all the other Delta blues people. We've gotten
so far from that. If you listen to the active
rock radio channels that still exist, there's not much melody.
There's not a lot of the basics that form the loan.
You know. That's funny you bring that up, because you're right,
it's more it's more hip hop based. You know else,

(01:19:59):
it's you know it, it's more it's moving more into
a thrash direction, and inherently that is a marginalized place.
I'm not judging it, but it's not gonna appeal to everybody.
A couple of vinyl questions. Do you press vinyl to
sell on the road? Now? Absolutely always how much you

(01:20:20):
charge and how much? How many will you sell a
gig um? Well, I don't know what they're charging because
our merch deals through Live Nation, so we're kind of
at their mercy, you know. Once I signed up uh
on those Live Nation tours and we you know, kind
of went that way before we were doing it ourselves,

(01:20:42):
and and you know I was, I was, you know
Jim Cuomo no oh okay, he used to run Ricco
distribution and and stuff. So when Tessa started our own
label and oh six and we were we were doing
stuff with Jim Komo and Rico. I mean we would
sell maybe a hundred a night at twenty bucks apiece,

(01:21:07):
and you know, we were more in charge of what
the pricing was back then. Our last couple of records
have been on Universal with Andrew Dawes, so we're being
kind of part of that model. But now we're free again.
We're free agents again. So I think that once we
start playing again, we're allowed to get back and play.

(01:21:30):
I know Frank wants to get together and do another album.
We'll explore, you know a bunch of stuff, but always
doing vinyl. Yeah, okay, of your collection, what are the
two best sounding vinyl records? I'm not talking about the
quality of the music you just put sound. I have
an original pressing a Revolver, first pressing it sounds a

(01:21:52):
min and I have a first pressing a Rubber Soul
that sounds amazing. Probably those two. But then when you
listen to you know, Abbey Road, I think, you know,
it's hard to top that, but I think Revolver, to me,
is is the one for for me, just you know.

(01:22:15):
And then you got Pete Floyd and you know, and
there's so many sonically great records, you know, Alan Parsons,
Le Zeppelin. I mean, there's just some e L. I've
been into e L a lot lately, and you know,
you just listen to some of those records and this
space that he, Jeff Lynn was able to create with
all them instruments, you know, but of course he got

(01:22:38):
it from the Beatles and George Martin, jeff Emery. I
came friends with jeff Emery before he died, and that
was really cool. Well, I used to hang with him
a few times. We were in uh Rio inighteen and
Jack Douglas used to put together these dinners before he passed.
And yeah, you know the funny thing about jeff you
never know is you know, hanging with famous people. One

(01:23:00):
of the rules is you're talking about Jimmy, you don't
play fan and you don't ask him about that stuff.
But I was told that Jeff likes to talk about
the Beatles. He would go on about it. It was
just great. One of the one of the coolest things
was how I met him was he was holding this
camp at a recording studio where you got to spend
three days with them and talk about and because I'm

(01:23:22):
an engineer and stuff, I wanted to pick his brain. Well,
we hit it off immediately because he knew who I was,
and I knew people that he knew. And the coolest
thing was sitting with him one night and he said, Brian,
let me tell you something about all those Beatle records.
He said, they were all meant to be heard in mono.

(01:23:42):
He said, the band was never even there for the
stereo mixes. He said, with the exception of Abby wrote,
every one of those records was meant to be in mono.
And he played me the mono version of Sergeant Pepper.
And I'm sitting with him and we're going through the
whole thing, and we're air drama and air guitar and
and every single measure of that album is a hook.

(01:24:08):
Every measure is a hook. If it's a high hat part,
it's a hook, you know. I mean, it was just
it was one of my all time rock and roll experiences. Okay, Brian,
this has been fantastic. I could see why you have
a million friends. You're obviously a great guy, you know,
great talking. I could talk to you for days. So

(01:24:29):
there's certainly plenty in the book we haven't covered. Uh,
certainly like you, I can't wait for Live Vieuse to
come back. Thanks so much for doing the podcast, Thanks
for having me, and thanks for always you know, saying
kind things about my band. I've watched and the Wings
through and and Voyered, and I really appreciate that well.

(01:24:49):
As I say, you know, we're doing this and I'm not.
I mean, I'm a huge Tesla fan. You know the
way I used to put the way it is lazy
days and crazy night love songs. You know, once you
got a CD player, you could program it punching those
tracks and put it on at infinitem and just play
it forever. And of course you know the acoustic record

(01:25:12):
were could go on. But for the sake of our audience.
Once again, Brian, thanks so much for doing this. Bob,
thanks for having me pleasure. Until next time. This is
Bob left sense