Danny Kortchmar

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.
My guest today is guitarist, songwriter producer Danny Korchwater. Hey,
there are people I'm not good to see you, Bob.
So you're living in l A. You famously wrote a
song that first appeared on James Taylor's Columbia album j
T Honey, don't You Leave l A. So are you

(00:32):
an East Coast guy or a West Coast guy? That's
a really good question. I guess I'm bicoastal, a term
I hate, but uh I'm done. I was born in
New York City, and I love New York City. And
I've moved back and forth a couple of times ridiculously,
and and uh now I've ended about here because uh
well it's difficult, it is to to get things going
here in l A. It's even more difficult in New York.

(00:54):
There's like maybe two or three studios left, you know,
standing and uh, you know, the the the death of
the recording industry really hit New York even harder than
l A. Okay, so you're someone who lived through the
heydays of the seventies. You started in the sixties from
your perspective in your work. What is going on today?

(01:15):
Oh jeez, But that's you know, Unfortunately, I don't have
a very high opinion of popular music at this point.
I haven't actually a real low opinion of popular music.
At one time, popular music drove the culture, as as
you've pointed out in your in your columns, and and
at this point it doesn't exist. And it's just a
to me, an ocean of mediocrity, a symphony of mediocrity.

(01:35):
And uh, compared to the way music used to be
when I was growing up, and and of course, uh,
the the incredible people I got to play with, And
I don't see that happening now. As you've pointed out,
pop music no longer runs the culture, and it's no
longer very important in the culture, which is a shame.
But that's you know, that's the way things are. So
where does that leave you? Well, it leaves me the

(01:55):
same place I've always been. I have to play, I
have to write songs, and I had got to keep going.
So to me, um, whether it goes up, it goes down,
the pendulum swings back and forth. But I have to
keep playing and writing. That's what I do. That's what
I live for So what are you doing right now? Well,
I'm in a terrific band. I have a great band
with my best friends and the band is called Immediate Family.

(02:16):
And in that band is Pouning. My name is Steve Postel,
and the the other members are Watty Wachtell Lees, Clara and
Russ Kunkle and myself And these are my oldest and
dearest friends. Okay, but when you were in the section,
Watty wasn't in the second. No, it wasn't in the section. Okay,
So how does that work? It's kind of like, you know,
Keith Richards Ron would play sort of in a similar style.
They're both lead guitars. How do you work it out?

(02:38):
We don't. It's funny with Wa and I. We don't.
We don't work it out. We we We say very
little to each other when it comes down to playing together.
And we've played together for years in a lot of
different circumstances, and we don't discuss it. We just start playing.
We play very differently from each other, and our styles
blend beautifully. And there's it's amazing how how quickly we
come up with stuff without a lot of conversation. I

(03:00):
start or he starts whatever he's doing. I do something else.
Whatever I'm doing, he does something else, and they fit
together beautifully and they always have from the first time
we played together. Well, I've done a podcast with Waddy
and he told me about the immediate family. But now
basically about a year later, how much do you work? Well,
not enough unfortunately. Like for instance, Russell right now is
out on the road with Lyle Lovett and Leland is

(03:20):
only on the road gig now it is with Phil Collins,
which isn't an altar all the time thing, but we
do have to work around their schedules to some degree.
They're scaling down though, Uh, the two of them, which
is great, and that means we'll be able to do more.
But when we're not touring or not gigging, we're writing.
We're working on songs in the studio. I'm always writing.
So to what degree is it frustrating? Uh? Certainly people

(03:42):
who are boomer musicians are from that era. You know,
you could write the greatest song and it could go unheard,
that's right. What's that like being on your end there? Well,
that's always been the case to start with. But we'll
tell me how it's always been the case well, and
you know, you could write a great song and it
could not be heard back to end or now or
at any time. You know, it all depends on a
lot of different things, you know, an awful lot of

(04:05):
the variables in getting a song across to people. Now,
of course, it's incredibly difficult to get anything across to
people except for the the teen market, what I would
call the you know, the youth or teen market, which
all pop music seems to be directed towards. And you know,
uh Andy Warhol said everybody would be famous for fifteen minutes.
I think in the modern era, no one will be famous, right,

(04:27):
that's right, exactly. No one reaches everybody. So on a
typical day, do you play the guitar every day? Yes?
I do, really, Oh yeah, I play all the time.
And uh, I gotta keep my chop so I could
keep my hands moving so that when it's time to
get in front of an audience, I can I can fly.
But that's the fling. You get the feeling that you're
really flying when when everything is right and you can
hear right and uh, and the guitar feels great. It's

(04:50):
just it's just like soaring. It's it's it's funny, but
you know as well. Now I'm a big skier and
there's like an extra ten or a hundred percent, and
it's like if you ski thirty days straight, you can
just feel it, you can recover, etcetera. I think, you know,
it's analogous to what you're talking about, like if you
don't play for a while, you feel just a little. No,
we wouldn't tell the audience, but you can feel it. Oh,

(05:13):
you know, list if I don't play for a week,
it's like I never played the guitar ever. You know,
I have to almost start over again. I've gotta work
on to do scales and and finger exercises for like
a couple of hours, and then it starts to come back.
You know. I wish it wasn't that way, but it is.
How many guitars do you own? Not as many as
a lot of cats, I know bass players and all
more guitars and me I got maybe what seventeen or
eighteen guitars? And where are there there in my crib?

(05:35):
So they're always all there? And how many amplifiers do
you own at this point? Three? And well, if my
favorite one is Roland is making a new app called
the Blues Cube Artist, which is fabulous and Skunk Baxter
was one of the designers of it and they gave
me one and I love it. It's absolutely So what's
special about it, Well, it's just has enough variable so

(05:55):
you can tune it to any room. But what's really
great about it just sounds great. You know, you plugging
in right away, it sounds terrific and you can adjust
it to any size room or any size venue, uh,
which is absolutely terrific. And then what are your other ramps? Uh?
The other one I have as an old Fender Deluxe
from a million years ago that I've had forever, played
it on an awful lot of records back in the day.

(06:17):
So it's basically those two amps. And then is there
any session work at all? At this point? There is
for some people. For inst of my pal Jimmy Keltner
still does dates and yeah, and Leland still does dates occasionally,
but they both are gotten very peculiar about what they
take because after a while, you know, it wears you down.

(06:38):
Being a session musician can wear your ass down because
a lot of what you do is mediocre, you know, Uh,
you do sessions all day They're not all great. You know,
A small percentage of them are great. Most of them
are just just chopping wood. You just you just you know,
read the chart, look at your watch, and uh, you know,
wait for the break, wait, wait, wait till you can
get out of there. So I was never really I

(07:00):
never really wanted to be a session musician forever and ever.
I did it and had a lot of fun doing it,
but I got kicked upstairs, as you probably know when
when Don Henley hired me to produce. Yeah, we'll get
back there. But okay, going back to the sessions and
the charts. Can you read music? I used to be
able to read really, I just be able to side
read real well. But when I started doing dates, Uh,
I was never called upon to read actual a score.

(07:22):
We were given what it called lead sheets or rhythm charts,
which is basically just the bars and then what chords
they are, and then you're supposed to make up your
own parts. That's what you're there for, is to come
up with something great right now. And uh it's challenging,
but it's terrific. And uh that that's what I did.
I have a style, and I when when I get
hired it's for that style. And can you remember any

(07:44):
records that weren't with Henley or were with their uh
Linda Ronstat or James Taylor that you feel proud of
that you played on m I gotta think about that
for a while. My memory is not what was I'm
sure there are what one of comes to mind, has
Harry Nelson? Uh, I played on Pussycats and really subsequence

(08:04):
of records with with with Harry. Yeah. So if you
played on Pussycatch you must have met John Lennon. I didn't, Yes,
So what was that? Was the famous you know, West
Coast exile with me pang? What was it like? Right? Well?
I think Lennon was was highly misunderstood at that point
because I saw him every day for three weeks when
we were doing this, these these records. He was absolutely wonderful.
He never pulled rank, he never talked down to you,

(08:27):
He never acted like a star ever, very approachable. But
he knew what he wanted musically, and he was breasqu
about it. He didn't he didn't sit and go oh,
could you please? He just said guitarist, it was me
Jesse had and another guitar player. Jesse had did the
great Jesse had David and he said, I want you
to do this, and he would he grabbed my guitary,
would show me, said okay, that's it. That's what we did.
He didn't say he could you please, He just said this.

(08:50):
And after you made that record, you have any contact
with him? Yeah? I saw him once more. He called
me to come play on a Ringo say. He'd written
a song for Ringo called Cooking in the Kitchen of
Love and he had requested I come down and play
on it. So it was me and Jimmy Keltner and
Ringo and and I ke probably cut for Himan on bass. Okay,
other than yourself, who do you think is the greatest

(09:12):
guitarist of all time of the rock era? Oh, there's
no one greatest guitar player, but the first name that
comes from obviously Jimmie Hendricks. I think he had the
whole package, and I don't think anyone could touch him
then or now in terms of having the whole deal.
And the reason why he was so great is because
he came from rhythm and blues and soul music. He
was the second generation, his first generation. He found he
learned that stuff and knew it and I feel that

(09:34):
a lot of what you're here now was imitations of
bad imitations of what of the of the real deal
from back in the day, and other than Jimmy the
next people like the three guitars from the Yardbirds, etcetera. Well,
you know, let me see. I mean, John McLaughlin is
unbelievable as a guitar players just sensational to me. He
is the John Coltrane of guitar, and John Scofield is

(09:55):
absolutely brilliant with soulful and great. Jeff Beck of course, Uh,
jeez on, waddi my old pal. Okay, let's go back
to the beginning. So you grow up where I grew
up in While I was born in New York City
and then my family moved out to the suburbs about
half an hour outside the city, and that's kind of
where I went to high school. Well, what suburb was,

(10:15):
Large Mont, New York. Okay, we used to go to it.
I think I might have mentioned this. We used to
go to a Chinese restaurant there and it would take
us like fifty minutes to go, but for some reason
we went. And Uh, in any event, your father called tongue. Okay,
So what'd your father do for a living? My father
ran a factory. He owned and ran a factory that

(10:35):
met in the Bronx that made small brass parts for
for larger things. He did a lot of work for
the government during World War Two, and then he expanded.
He made a lot of parts for for sprinklers and
for fire alarms and for all this kind of stuff.
It sounds like he did pretty well. He did pretty well.
How many kids in the family. It's just me and
my brother. Your brother's older, younger. My brother's two years old,

(10:56):
was two years older than me is So he passed.
He's gone. Now. Yeah, what did he end up doing
for a little He did a bunch of different things.
The last thing he did was h He had a
boatyard out on Long Island and he would work on
wooden boats. That was his passion. That's what he did,
only wooden boats, and he would prepare them and work
on them. And he was one of the only guys
out there on Long Island that did that kind of work.

(11:16):
So at what point do you become interested in music? Well,
I'm gonna say all round, well I was. I started
as soon as I heard rock and roll. Mean I
fell in love when I Okay, well what what rock
and roll records? Whatever? Well, that's Elvis, uh doing a
hound Dog and Don't Be Crueled, little Richard doing Lucile
and good Golly, miss Molly chuck Berry that stuff. So

(11:36):
the first wave of rock and roll just really lit
me up, like it did an awful lot of young people.
And then later I started when I started started really
listening heavily to uh Blues, Lighten Hopkins, Muddy Waters, a
little Walter John the Hooker, those guys, and I loved
that stuff still do. Okay, how did you find it?
Did you? The first wave you're talking about, you know, Elvis, etcetera.

(11:59):
A little rich how did you discover that stuff? Well,
that was on the radio just turned over, and I
used to sit in my father's car and wait by
the radio for you know, Don't Be Cruel and one
of those great songs to kind of just sit there
and wait through the Patti Page and the you know,
the Four Freshmen or whatever until they hit an Elvis record.
What kind of car was that it was a show.
It was a Chrysler New Yorker that was very uh

(12:24):
large and quality car. So then Murray the k had
his shows in New York City? Did you go to those?
Unfortunately not. There's big shows where well, Alan Freed had
the first big shows the Brooklyn Paramount, which I didn't
get to see. Unfortunately, I was too young and my
mother wouldn't take me and I was terrified to go
by myself, so I didn't get to see those shows. Um,

(12:44):
but I subsequently later I saw a ton of music
and a great deal of music. I'll tell you about that. Um,
we went to Me and my buddies used to go
to the Apollo Theater pretty much every week. This is
uh we we're a little bit slower, so this is
pre Beatles. Yeah, and how many white people were in
the audience? Me and my three friends and you were

(13:05):
young enough not to be scared. Yes, that's right, there
was nothing to be scared. They treated us great. Everyone was.
Everyone there treated us great. You know the people in
the audience, did people that at the at the front,
at the front door, you know they all everyone treated
us great. I guess the novelty of these little white
kids come to see uh An R and B review
was sufficient. But after Martin Luther King was killed, no,

(13:27):
then you couldn't go up there anymore. That was it. Wow.
So when do you think the first time you went
up there was pre Beatles? Who did you see there?
James Brown reviewed? Okay, now, James Brown at the time,
it's popular reasons today that he rarely crossed over to
white radio. It was a black thing. So you remember
whatever he was in, you know, uh is before I

(13:50):
say it loud, I'm black and I'm proud. How did
you know about him? Etcetera. Well, my buddies we found
this stuff. We would find it, and you know, we
listened to the R and B stations at the end
of the dial and uh r L I think was
one and w L I B and I love this stuff.
So I heard the tastes of it then. And then
of course James Brown's live album Live at the Apollo

(14:11):
came out. It's still one of the absolute greatest albums
you will ever hear in my opinion, and um, so
I went up to see it. But I also saw
the Motor City review with the Miracles and the Supremes
and Martin Gay and and the Spinners. Unbelievable. We were
there practically every week. Every other week. We'd go up
there and me and my buddies would go up through me.
So everyone, everybody can imagine. It was incredible. You know,
I've not actually been inside the Apollo. About how many

(14:33):
people does it said? Uh, it's smaller than say the
b computer. It's you know, it's about I would say
a third smaller than the cost you how much to
get in back? Three bucks? Three bucks? Right? Ever? Okay,
so you discovered the blues stuff how because I don't
think they were playing that on the radio. No, they weren't.
Um I I think it might have been one of

(14:54):
my brother's friends had John the Hooker album, and um,
so I listened to that. I thought it was great.
And then I to J Corvettes. Was looking through the course,
you know, and I saw a lightning on Hopkins right,
and I said, I bet this is good. You know,
it looks really good. So I bought it and I
went home. That was it. And I just listened to
Lightning Hopkins and bought all his albums and everything I
get my hands on. So, uh, what was the first

(15:18):
musical instrument you played? Well? My mother insisted on piano lists.
That's why eight or nine something like that, and I
hated it, hated never practiced. No, I couldn't stand and
it was not it wasn't meant for me. So my
mother decided that I she thought I would look cute
with a guitar. So they got me a Stella guitar

(15:39):
for you know, thirty five bucks for it. Yes, it
was their idea. And you were how old? Ten? Really? Yeah?
So I sat there and tried to play a scale
board to death. You know why am I doing this?
And then um, and I think I took some guitar
lessons at the time, you know, again, just playing, learning
how to play scales, very slowly. And then I learned

(16:01):
a few chords, and then I found the three chords
with which you could play all the rock and roll songs,
right the one, the four, in the five chord. At
that point, the heavens opened the heaven, the heavens parted,
the clouds disappeared, and right then it was like a revelation.
And never and I never looked back. So what you're
playing the guitar in? What year? Ten? What year is that?

(16:24):
I can't remember? Man, mid fifties, late fifties. Okay, So
if you're in the late fifties, are you the only
kid in your neighborhood playing guitar. I think there was
my buddy, uh Dicky Frank played the guitar as well.
Because the only reason imagined I when I got into
it just before the Beatles, I took piano lessons, but
we were playing folk music. Did you ever play folk music? Trade?

(16:47):
I did, yes, to admit it, but but I did. Yeah. Okay,
so you have the stella guitar, you're playing at home, right,
At what point do you start playing with other people? Well,
the first thing he does. I had a little band,
or joined a little band that was playing bar mitzvahs
and church dances and stuff like that. And then I
got my first electric guitar. Now, my parents were appalled

(17:07):
by the idea of an electric guitar. It was horrible,
you know. Um. I used to look at the window
at the music store and see these stratocasters lined up
there and it was just like I just stare at them.
But they wouldn't buy me one. So finally they bought
me a big jazz box, you know, which they found
acceptable and uh with a with a pickup on it.
So I used that to play these dances, like I said,

(17:28):
And that was my kind of first electric guitar. What
was the amp you were using? Oh, man, I can't remember.
I think it was a premier amp, rush out of
business appin. And after that then I finally, you know,
went to Manage Music store of course, and traded in
him for you know, something that was more rock and rolling.
The thing that I just remember all Manni's is you

(17:49):
would save and think and they would sell it to
you like thirty seconds. Hey call you all the back, Hey,
bring it up. Oh Henry, Henry Goldrich, the famous Henry
who everyone knows and love. Is you gonna buy that?
Get out of here, you know, you know, waste my
time here? You want to buy it, and you don't
want to buy it, you know. And I, even though
I was a shy kid, I would still go back

(18:09):
every chance I got in there. And he would yell
at me every time. And didn't he have that yellow painted? Uh?
It was? It was a Dan Electro. I played it
many times, right be Could you you could check out
the Yes and the other stores on that street? Did
you check those out too? Well? Not? No, I would
just going to Manny's. I don't care about you know.
Manny's was the holy grail Manny's was, you know, Nirvana

(18:33):
for guitar players. You know God, So if you want
to buy something today, where do you go online? There
is you know, uh, Guitar Center still exists, but it's
it's catered entirely to from what I can tell to teenagers, beginners,
you know, not really professional and professional guys that seems
like their guitars there are not the best and they
don't have a wide selection. It's like I said, it's

(18:54):
mainly for beginners, people that are just starting off, you know,
kids that want to learn Metallica songs and stuff like that. So, uh,
what I do is, you know, I talked to the
deal I talked to the actual manufacturers. So okay, your
you get your guitar, you get the Stella guitar a
little bit slower. How did you hook up with the
other people in form a band? Well, there's just kids

(19:14):
in high school and there was a found a drummer
and found a trumpet player, and and the way we went,
you know, we learned a few tunes. What were you playing?
What songs? When the States go marching in was one?
And summertime? You know, standards, but the easiest standards to
play possible. You know, I didn't have enough chops to
learn something like it might as well be spring, which
is really involved tune. I just remember playing the guitar

(19:37):
and playing with other people and feeling inadequate because I
didn't have the skill. So you started to play with
other people who'd immediately feel this is my ditch. Yes,
oh yeah, absolutely. And you were in high school good student,
bad students, terrible. I hated high school and I just
basically phoned it in and barely graduated. Actually, so there
was no issue of going to college. Uh no, No,

(20:00):
there was one time. Actually, at one point I went
to a place called the Madison Conservatory of Music, very
highly thought of music school in Manhattan, and I went
in there. I've been studying classical guitar with a terrific
teacher that I had, who really taught me so much
about applied theory and and and classical guitar and and
jazz guitar a little bit. So I went in there

(20:20):
to audition and I looked around and it was even
more depressing than my high school. And the girls all
had fat ankles and they were under you know, I said,
I ain't doing this. I'm not gonna choose for four
years forget it. So I left and started a rock
and roll band, started rock and roll being playing what
R and B style of rock and roll? R and
B style of music. It's called the king Bees. Okay,

(20:41):
this is before the Beatles, know, this is after the Beatles. Okay.
So as someone who was a fan, were you a
fan of surf music surf instrumentals? Well, because it was
interested in anything that had guitars on it, certainly, so.
I liked the Ventures and and and stuff like that,
but I was mainly listening to Motown and Stacks Voll
and that stuff. That's what I really plus all the

(21:02):
blue stuff I can find. And what did your parents
say when you didn't want to go to college? They
didn't They knew I was not college material. Did your
brother go to college? He certainly did. Yes. So okay,
the Beatles appear on it solve and they break on
the radio with I want to hold your Hand in
a month before thumbs upp or thumbs down. When I
heard I had a little transistor radio, and when I

(21:22):
heard I want to hold your Hand on their radio again,
it was like the Heaven's Party. I said, there it
is there is the template. That's what I wanted there,
it is, that's it because what that what I sensed
from them, especially from their their albums. Remember they had
one on VJ and then when I'm on Capital that
here was a you know, R and B and soul
music at the time you have b threes and horns,

(21:43):
sections and back chicks, background chicks and so this was
just a guitar combo. And I recognize how they trans
how they how they interpreted soul music and R and
B and uh in a guitar combo. So I said,
that's the template there, it is, that's what I want
to do. I mean, and I didn't say it like
I'm telling you, but that's that's that's what I felt. Okay,

(22:04):
So you weren't playing live with the King beestill right,
well the Beatles out there on Sullivan Are you want
to be in? Then? Uh? I hadn't really started uh
my band. Then I must tell you that I saw
the Beatles live at Carnegie Hall. That was in Okay.
When what if they broke at the beginning of the year,

(22:25):
When did they play the Carnegie Hall gig? Man, I'm
not sure. I'm not gonna okay, could you hear anything?
Amazingly yes, And for some reason I called Carnegie hallan
got tickets, and for some reason I got one of
the boxes right near the stag car how that was
positive alight, just just the luck of the drugs. So
me and my girlfriend, my pal and his girlfriend were

(22:46):
up there in this box and you could hear them,
uh not not well over the screen, but you could
hear them. And they kicked off with rollover Beethoven. And
I knew bands at the time. I had heard local
bands and various bands around Westchester County. So and they
were murder they killed. It was obviously brilliant, brilliant, brilliant,
and uh, I went, I just knocked me back in
my seat. You know, I'll never forget it. It's incredible.

(23:08):
So you're really blown away, completely blown away. And did
you remain a Beatles fan until the end? Of course?
What about the Stones? Absolutely? I love the Rolling Stone.
There was no battle in your mind between the Stones
and the Beatles. They were different. You know some people
you know, I remember on w ABC, you know these
other battle right of course. Yeah, but you know that
that was for casual listeners. That was you know that

(23:30):
wasn't for people ever serious. Okay, So you saw the
Beatles you started The band was King Bees, the first band.
King Bees was the first band I had. Yeah, and
King Bees did the did you go through a rotation
of players or the players? We had the same guys
with us, uh for the duration of the band, which
wasn't that long, maybe a couple of years. Okay, were

(23:50):
those guys today? Unfortunately two of them are dead and
one of them, Richard frankis in New York playing gigs
still around. Yeah. Okay, So and the king Bees, you're
once again doing the wedding bar mitzvah circuit or at
that point we're playing. We started off in Greenwich Village,
playing like the Cafe Bazaar, the Cafe wall on those gigs.
Then uh, we got our biggest gig at the time

(24:13):
was the Royally Hotel and the Catskills and we were
they had seven bands there. We were band number seven
and we played were supposed to be the teen band.
But you know, at that point we were a very
bad influence. We were very unhealthy people to have. Next day,
your kids if they had known what we were really like,
because well we did all day was drink cheap wine,
and and and curse and yelled at each other and

(24:36):
you know, well you were you there for like a weekend?
Were like the whole summer. We were there for I
think three months, I know, three weeks, three or four weeks. Okay,
was it like the movies Dirty Dancing, etcetera, etcetera. It
was dirtier than Dirty Dancing, promised that And you interacted
with the guests a little bit. Yeah, yeah, yes, yes,

(24:56):
that whole scene is under Okay, you graduate from high
schoo Well, what point do you move out of the house? Um?
That was a cup Maybe a year and a half
later that I finally moved down to the beach. Um.
The first place I moved was my brother had a
loft downtown and this is a loft right near Union
Square and uh now it's probably worth four million dollars. Course,

(25:20):
but at the time it was a complete dump, like
you can't believe as a matter of so much so
that you get up and go into the kitchen and
the cockroaches going like that horrible dump. But I liked
it was you know what, did I know? I was
having a ball, so didn't bother me, you know, Okay,
so you played the Raleigh, and you played Downtown Greenwich Village,
any other you play out of Well, the next gig

(25:42):
we had right out of the Raleigh Hotel was the
person that was taking care of us or handling us
got us an audition at the club called Arthur. Now,
Arthur was the biggest discotheque in New York at the time,
run by Sybil Burton, and Sybil had just been you know,
Triburton has just broken up with there. It was a
huge cost to leave. All the celebrities were there, all

(26:04):
the all the glitterati were at this place, and we
got to audition there and we got the gig. So
we're there a half hour on, half hour off all
night and there we were in the middle of it
was covers um. Yeah, mostly covers we did. We had
some originals. Yeah, we had three or four originals. What
kind of money were you making? Oh fortune? Are you kidding?

(26:24):
I think we were making two hundred bucks each a week,
so that that might as well have been four thousands, right, right, So,
in any event, you weren't asking your parents for money
at that time. I stopped asking my parents for money
and never did again. Wow. Okay, so you're headline and
get Arthur. What's the next step after that? Oh? Every
dump in New York, every dump up and down the

(26:45):
East coast. We played biker bars, gay bars, alcoholic bars,
bars where the band stand was on top of the bar,
you know. Uh, just every dump you can imagine, you know,
up and down And what was the dream? But I
was the same dream everybody had. Uh. It never occurred
to me that I wasn't gonna get somewhere with this.

(27:05):
It never occurred to me to quit. Never Uh, and uh,
we just went on and on and on. We kept
playing these games, and eventually, of course, it burned me
out and I quit. And I had other ideas, which
I'll tell you about. Um, okay, my other idea was
a band with James Taylor. James and I were childhood buddies.
We grew up together. We would summer, our families would

(27:27):
summer on Martha's vineyard. Uh. And that's where I met him,
and we hung out together every summer and we came
tight pass and we still are, you know. Okay, So
but when you meet him then, was he playing the guitar? No?
Not really, not really. It's interesting because we just hung out.
We didn't you know. We were just hanging out, hitchhiking
places and and trying to pick up girls. And then

(27:47):
one time we hitch hitchhiking in someplace on the road
and he starts to sing. He sings and the song
I'll never forget it because he sings, Hallelujah, I lover
so Ray Charles Is. I looked at him like, what
you can sing? Oh my god, you know, because I
knew what good scene was, right, I was pretty you know,
I was. I was hit at that point, and uh,

(28:07):
I flipped. And at that point he had a guitar.
He wasn't very good, but he came back the next
summer and basically had his whole style, which is the
essence of what you're hearing playing now. And he's there's
nobody like him on acoustic guitar, you know. So the
theory about standing at the crossroads and making a deal
with the devil, No, you just go to the wood
shed and how to play. You know, there's no devil,

(28:28):
you know. Okay, so he comes you hear him staying.
The next summer he comes back, he can play. When
does he start writing songs right away? I think he
rose first. So many of the sixteen. That's when you
knew him. Yes, And did you immediately say, whoa, this
is a career path through either him or us together.
I didn't think of it that way, but I knew.
I knew we had to start a band together. I

(28:49):
knew we had to do. Okay, if you're in the
King Bees, what was he doing then? Uh? Well to
join the king because he was in the McLean's Hospital
hospital at the time, and so he escaped. He jumped
the wall and hitchhike down to Manhattan amazingly and crashed
up my path for a while, got his own place,
and we started the King Bees. We started the Flying Machine.

(29:09):
That was our band. He never had to go back
to mc lean's. Okay, so you started the Flying Machine.
Now that record, of course came out after James blew up.
But what was the perspective from your and so this
was a little bit of different kind of music than
what the King Bees were playing. King Bees were doing.
Maason Manager doing like R and B, you know, rock
and soul, that is what I would call it, right

(29:30):
And by the way, that stuff is available. Our c
was on our c a victim. We did a bunch
of Singles for Our Cia and it's available on on
Spotify now. We released it in Yeah, Columbia, Columbia bought it. Okay,
let's let's stay with the Kingpins. Excuse me. You had
a manager, you had an agent. We had a few
different managers. They all were terrible. They were all shysters,
and you know, it was a low We were pretty

(29:51):
low on the on the Totem poll. But we did
get to record, so that was great for us, you know,
so you must yeah, that must have been a dream
come true getting a record deal. Absolutely, yes. Okay, so
then you get together with James and what is the vision? Well,
you literally left the king Bees to do this pretty much? Yeah,

(30:13):
pretty much. I'd gotten tired of the the grind. We were
playing dumps all we're doing it's obviously weren't going anywhere.
And also I was getting tired of the guys in
the band. They were starting to really, you know, wear
me down, so as, which is what happens in bands.
As you know, so I can't believe you know, you're
a band. Let's send the band stays together. You know
each other from high school. Now it's ten or fifteen

(30:34):
years later. You gotta be on the road with the
same four assholes must drive you nuts. It can do, yes,
it can do. But like I'm in a band now
with guys I've known fifty years and we love each other. Well,
fifty years is enough to you know, wead out the
good in the bat. Okay, So what is the vision
that you're gonna go with James? Well, I thought it
would be more like a love and spoonful kind of thing.
In other ways, it would be along the lines of

(30:54):
what James already did. James was a wonderful blue single.
You can't believe you don't hear him do that now.
But he was a badass because great blue singer um.
But he was never comfortable. He wasn't comfortable in New York.
He was, you know, it's a troubled fellow at that time.
And I think that's when he got into using heroin. Um.
The drummer and our Bandwids was it was a junkie

(31:16):
and everyone down in the village that you know, most
people were on some you know, we're doped up in
somewhere or another. How about yourself? Not me? I was,
I'm a nice Jewish boy, I was. I was. I
think that's What saved me from from turning to turning
to dope is just scare the hell out of me.
And where the people you know dying? O ding? It's
that thing where they were a lot of them are

(31:36):
gone now, but at that point, I don't remember any
of my past dropping dead. Let's go back to James.
He escapes from McLean. He's known him for all these years.
Was he always one step left of center? Or did
something happen su should have made his experience bad? Um,
I'm not sure I'm an understanding exactly the question. There's
some people you said he was a troubled guy when

(31:57):
you knew him back in the vineyard. Was he always
a trouble old guy? Yeah, he had problems with his family.
He was you know, he was prone to depression. But
he was also hilarious at the same time. It's very
funny and charming fellow, but he also had this kind
of dark side to him, probably because of his family. Um. Okay,
so you're in the flying machine, he's hooked out heroin.

(32:17):
What is going on? Well, we're struggling and we're scuffling.
We played the Night at Cafe from a long time. Now,
the Night at cafe. They used to bring guys in
every day to audition, and we were there for a year.
Nobody could knock us out of the box. We were
really good. We had James down, so we're really really good.
And uh, how much were they paying, you know, um,

(32:38):
four fifteen bucks a night? Who else was in the
band at that time. Joe O'Brien was on drums, um
Me and James and a fellow named Zach Weasner started
with us on basis a pal of oars from Martha's vineyards,
and he couldn't play the bass, but James sat down
and told him exactly what notes to play on every
song and he did. He did fine. Well, okay, so
how long does the Flying Machine laugh? About? A year? Okay?

(33:01):
But you did make a record? Well, yeah, we had
hooked up with m chip Taylor and Al Goregoni and
they had a production company and and we hooked up
with them and went into the studio I think one day,
and uh, out of that one day came enough for
a single. And the single was night Out I'm a
Night Out Baby, backed with Brighton Your Night with My Day.

(33:23):
It was a very nice tune of James is lovely
tune of course on the first album. But that album
we never you know, we never intended that to come out.
Nobody asked us if they could put out an album out.
It wasn't it was. It was a lousy album. It
was a lot of filler and a lot of bullshit,
and they had no business making it and putting it out.
I still, you know, James, and I still loathe both
of them for having pulled that ship with us. It's funny,

(33:45):
like two years ago, I think it was I got
a check for a g thanks, you know, you know,
it's like, maybe you need this more than I do.
That was my attitude, you know. And uh, this is
typical of the music business York at the time as well.
You know. Okay, so the band breaks up, how uh
James just couldn't take it anymore. One of the reasons why,

(34:08):
along with with he he was having trouble with dope.
But one of the reasons why, I was the places
we were playing. There were no monitors on the floor.
He's playing guitar and trying to sing against this din
and there was no no monitors, so he couldn't hear himself.
So he's singing louder and ladder. James is not meant
to sing loud. He's not just ment to sing over
a rock band, so it's starting to drive him crazy.

(34:29):
And uh, after a while, he's just obviously, we couldn't
go on, We couldn't, we couldn't go on any further.
So the band breaks up. Where does that leave you? Well,
right after them, when the band broke up, I was
still in New York. So um, the Fogs were looking
for Sideman a lot and everything we want, any of
the records. I was on Tenderness Junctions. Okay, explain to

(34:52):
my audience, because unless you're insider, you probably didn't know
the Fox. Well, if you're in New York, and at
that time everyone knew them. The Fogs were three basically poets.
Sanders was the head head FuG was a poet and
he had a bookstore in the East Village and he decided,
like everyone did, let's be rock and rollers. Everyone to
be a rock and rar back then, you know, because
they were getting all the chicks, so uh, you know,

(35:14):
being a poet wasn't getting you babes. So they had
They were doing a show at the McDougal Theater one
of the one of the small theaters um in the village.
I think it was on McDougall Street, right next to
the Cafe Wah. So I went over there an audition.
Of course, got the gig right away. They had to
hire musicians because they stunk, and uh, they weren't musicians

(35:34):
at all. So as me and some of the other
cats that I knew from the village came in there
and we were backing them up, and uh we were
the Fuguets, I guess. And we made that one album,
Tender this Junction, like I said, And uh, after about
four or five months of that, I quit. I couldn't
take it anymore. But there's a lot of great adventures,
you know, from being in the fogs. We were at

(35:56):
the march on the to levitate the Pentagon. We were
there on that bar. Yeah, that's a long story. I'll
take you some time. But um, so it was fun
and Ed Sanders was hilarious. I found it to be stunning,
stunningly funny and hilarious. And um but I couldn't say
it was it wasn't musical. It was it wasn't a
musical act, you know, And uh, I wanted something way

(36:17):
more musical and more than serious, you know, musically serious. Okay,
so you quit with another gig lined up or you
just burned out. Um, that's a good question. I'm trying
to remember because at that point I joined a band
called clear Light. Now Clear Light was on Electra Records,
and they were supposed to be the next doors. There
were kind of a psychedelic rock band from l A.
They were playing at the Cafe Go Go down the street.

(36:40):
They had either fired or as their guitar player quit,
I can't remember which. They were looking for someone else.
I knew someone that knew them, and so I went
down there an audition from got the gig, and UH
agreed to move to Los Angeles at that point, and
I remember the We got paid um, seventy bucks a
month for rent and thirty bucks a week to live
on I said, and I said, I'm gone because I

(37:02):
was totally sick of New York at that front, freezing
my ass off. There was nothing going on. I wasn't gonna,
I didn't wasn't interested in doing jingles or playing in
in the pit band of Broadway shows. And those are
the biggest girl, those are the main gigs in New
York that everybody wanted still is still that way, by
the way, and um it wasn't interested in that, so
moved out to California, and of course the timing was
brilliant and uh moved right to uh Royal Canyon. What

(37:25):
was your experience of being in Laurel car yet, Well,
it was a lot likely to think. Um, everyone knew
everyone else and everyone would come over the fellow that
me and my wife at the time we're living once
a guy named Barry Friedman. Wait to th jo Barry
freedmanant being the promo guy for Atlantic Records at Barry Freedman.
But before you get there, when in this picture did
you get married? Oh? I got married in New York

(37:47):
while I was still in the king Bees. So I
got married way too young to this really good looking
woman who threatened to leave me if I didn't marry
it right away, and stupid me said, okay, but she
but she moved to l A with you, Yes she did.
Now you're a musician who's on the road. When you
were married or did you remain faithful? Well, that's funny

(38:08):
you mentioned it, because the first time I ever went
out in New York was with the fugs, and uh
Ed says, oh, you know you're gonna get some good
pussy when you got to the road. I said, no,
I don't do that, man, I'm married. I don't do that. Yeah. Well,
the next day we were in Boston. The next day
I was with a chick check. But your wife at
the time agreed to move to l a Yes, so yeah,
what was she doing other than being married to She

(38:30):
wanted to be an actress. Okay, so it's good for her. Yeah,
so you moved to Laurel Canyon. You say, Barry Freed. Okay,
Barry changed his name to Fraser Mohawk, of course, And
that's right. He was married to Ezra Mohawk. I gave
him that name. By the way, I came up with that.
I just was saying, James and I are always coming
with funny names and nicknames and stuff like that, and
that was one that I just remembered, and so I said,

(38:52):
you should call yourself Frasier Mohawk. And he took me
serious and did change his name. Anyway, he was a
real hipster there, and he knew every buddy, and you know,
everyone was coming by um to to hang out at
our place. The great engineer John Haney lived down the street.
Terrific singer named Penny Nichols lived down the street. Um
Jackson would come over. That's when I met Jackson. It's

(39:13):
like nineteen or something, and he would come over and
hang out. I'm at Crosby then, uh right, at the
same period of time it stills. Everyone was coming by,
uh Fraser's place when a really good pot for one,
really good dope one thing, and um he was. He was,
like I said, kind of a hipster cap that knew everybody.
So I started falling into it right away. It wasn't

(39:36):
ground central. I was at ground zero in Laurel Canyon
and I met all these people. And you remain with
clear Light for about four or five months. And how
did that end? It end with me quitting. I left
the band. I had to quit, And there did a
record ever come out? No, they did have one album map,

(39:56):
but this was before I joined the band, and there
was supposed to be the next Door. There was no
way they were gonna be the next Doors because we
had zero charisma and she didn't have the you know,
and you quit with another gig in mind certainly did,
which was what that was a man called this city,
Carol King, Charlie Larkin, and myself. Okay, now, of course
Carol King is legendary today for numerous reasons. Insiders should

(40:19):
be certainly knew her as a songwriter with her then husband.
What was the status and how did you meet her? All? Right?
I met Carol. I was friends with the guy Charlie Larky,
bass player who's playing in a band called the Middle Class,
and they were playing at the night Owl, kind of
alternating with this one night, alternating with our man. So
I became friends with him, and he was had started

(40:42):
to date Carol. Carol had broken up with Jerry Goff
and her husband, and he brought Carol down to the
club to see us play. And I was saying, I knew,
I knew she was, I knew all about her, and
I was shaking in my shoes to meet her. Oh
my god, Carol King. You know, this is the most
brilliant person I've ever met in my life, you know.
So I was thrilled. I called names. So he came
over and painfully shy, I said, this, it's Carol King,

(41:06):
and then he fled to the back of the club.
So I talked to her for a while, and then amazingly,
to my surprise, she started calling me to plan her demos,
her and Jerry's demos, and they were doing you know,
they were signed to screen James Colombia, so they were
writing songs continuously and demoing them. So I got that
was my first experience really in the studio was was

(41:28):
playing on Carol's demos, and she was a brilliant producer.
I learned so much from her, It's like going to Harvard.
I mean, she knew exactly what she wanted. She knew
exactly what to say to me for me to play, uh,
the right stuff. But I think I already was kind
of playing pretty much what she wanted. So I played
a bunch of her demos in UM in New York.

(41:49):
And also when she moved to l A, I was
already there a ton of them in l A as well. Okay,
when she moved, she did, she moved to l A
with Larkin Charlie. Yes, that's that's why she moved. Everyone
was moving there. I think she had hooked up with
Lou Adler, and Lou probably also convinced her and Okay,
so they're there, and from the moment you land, you're
playing on her demos. OK, So then how do you

(42:12):
decided to form a group? Well, Carol, Lou Addler wanted
her to perform and make a record, and and you
know he had been, you know, encouraging her to make
an album with her as the artist. And she was
very shy and very stage you know, afraid, had terrible
stage fright, and wanted to present herself in a group
rather than as a solo artist. So as it was

(42:33):
me and and and Charlie and her Lou Adler producing,
we went into the studio. This is this is the
first album I played on from beginning to end. And uh,
the drummer was Jim Gordon, the great Jim Gordon. Course,
so I was losing my I couldn't believe it. I
could not believe it because I've never been in a
studio before and I've never seen you know, Lou worked

(42:54):
his magic. He would Uh. At one point he put
tons of compression on the overheads over Jim Gordon said, yeah,
just put some comfft. What was he talking about? Is
he talking about? And I go into the studio and
listen to it in this big sound comes out. I
couldn't believe my ears. This is a whole other level
for me. And uh, it was incredible. I'll never forget.
It was an incredible experience. And it was the first

(43:16):
complete album that I played on. So the album comes out,
I assume you have high expectations and it's stiffs. Yes, Now,
did you go on the road with her? Never? She
she did not want to play live. We had a
gig book at the Troubador and she canceled it like
a week before the gig. She just was too afraid
to go on stage. Okay, so the album stiff, she

(43:39):
doesn't work. Where does that leave you? Um? Well, I
Suppo was doing the loose days of sucking around. I
don't know, not not great. I was, you know, scuffling.
I was waiting for let's go to right field here.
So how does it end with the wife? Well, just
as you could probably probably imagine, she was really good looking.
She wanted to be an actress. So what do you
think happened Gauntsville? You know, within about six or eight

(44:02):
months he was gone. He was absolutely gone, No surprise there.
I could see it coming, but I didn't do anything
about it. I was too young and stupid to be
able to deal with it correctly, you know, and that
dealing with correctly would have been what, uh, either leaving
her before she left me or tring to funk Off
or any number of things. And where today she's in

(44:22):
l A, married to a very successful film director, I think,
and she would she did some bit parts in a
few TV series and stuff like that, but she never
made it. Okay, So the you made the record to stiff,
then what then? Uh? The next then she was going
to make another album also for lou for Ode Records
Lose label with a different producer full named John Fishback

(44:45):
was did a lot of work with Stevie Wonder and
has the studio in New Orleans. Now, great guy, and
we went in. By that time, James had met Carol,
I had introduced, you know, he came back out to
l A and I put them together again or they
got together. Peter Esher was there by that time as well,
so um, we all knew each other and we were
all hanging out together, and we went into make an

(45:06):
album called Writer Carol King, which is also great, I mean,
in my opinion, fantastic album also tanked, as you right,
So now I'm kind of going well, I don't get it.
You know, she's great. How could this stuff not go notice?
He's absolutely brilliant. This is Carol King for Christ's sake,
you know. So by the time we did Tapestry, I
didn't have high hopes for that either, you know, Lou

(45:29):
he knew he knew it was going to be a smash,
but I didn't. Okay, when you're working on Tapestry, that's
before you're working on with the James again. Um good
questions all happened around the same time James had met
Peter Asher. James went to London after the Flying Machine
broke up, and I had given him Peter Asher's that
was pals with Peter. So I had given him Peter's

(45:49):
address and phone number, and he just showed up at
at his door one day. Uh knocked on the door
and said, I'm friends with Danny Kortchmar. They let him in.
He's saying a few tunes for Peter onward. You know. Okay,
So I love that first album where you did you
like the first album? I thought it was terrible, overproduced.
That's okay. So that album doesn't do anything really in

(46:10):
the marketplace. How does and James moves with Peter to
l A. Well, Peter moved to l A. James never
liked la never felt comfortable there, so he'd only be
out there to work and then he'd go back to
I think he leaves living on Martha's vineyard at the time. Okay, So,
at what point is he's gonna make Sweet Baby James?
At what point do we integrate with him musically? Well

(46:30):
at that point right there? Uh, when he came back
out to l A and Peter had then gotten him
a deal at Warner Brothers, of course, and they went
in to make Sweet Baby James. So I played on that.
I didn't play at all. I only played on maybe
two or three four songs on it. Did you foresee
that blowing up? No? Not really. I knew he was great.

(46:51):
I knew Carol, I knew they were all great, But
I had no idea whether it's going to go or not.
Stuff I loved a lot of times wasn't successful. So
when it was successful, would you think, I thought, well,
how great this is, you know, how terrific and um.
And then we started gigging, We started and that really,
you know, a little bit slower. So then Carol's album
comes out in seventy one. Sweet Baby James comes out

(47:12):
in seventy So you said that, Uh, Lou Adler knew
was going to be a smash, but but you had
been through so many stints you didn't think so all right, Well,
I didn't know. You know, Lou of of course knows
what the hit is if anyone does Lou Wood, you know,
after his uh, after his experience. Um, I knew the
songs were great. I knew she was great, but I

(47:34):
I went, well, I hope this does better. The last
two were great and nothing happened. So I didn't have
I didn't think it was gonna do like it did.
So she goes out, James starts to work with a band.
At what point is she in the band? What point
are you in the band? Um? Well, pretty quickly, uh,
Peter and James had found Russ Kunklin and Lee Clare

(47:54):
and put them together as they rhythm section. I think
he did a few gigs just with the two of
them then, and um I came in and joined the band.
And then Carol came at just as piano player. All
she was supposed to just play the piano and back
James up. I'm sure you know the story at the
Trude door where he says, listen, you've got to do
a couple of your tunes. Carol, Oh no, I'm gonna

(48:16):
they'll love you, and she was terrified. And then James
introduces this Carol Kinge she wrote this, that, that, and
so as soon as she starts to play, everyone freaks
and and her stage fright, dissipation. It goes away when
she realized it's okay. You know they love you. So
it took off from there her she's on the road
with you when her album blows up, right, Um, I

(48:39):
guess so yeah, I don't really like I said, I
don't remember the chron chronology that, so let's stay. So
you're so at that point, you're with James. You're not
doing anything else, No, not much snow okay, And there's
album after album that Warner Brothers and it's huge, all
good times for you. Oh yeah, I loved it. I
love that. James didn't love it, but I loved it.

(48:59):
And in Rusting Lee, we loved it. We I can't.
I'll never forget getting on stage and I looked down
and there's this thing on stage and what's that. That's
a monitor? A monitor what do you mean. It means,
you know, you'll be able to hear the drums and
the vocals. Wow, I was freaking out a monitor. You're
kidding me, you know. So, uh, everything changed at that

(49:20):
point and it was brilliant. My eyes were wide open.
I was loving every minute of it, you know. And uh,
I loved Russell and Lee and and it was just
a great experience. Except for James, who was morose and
was having problems and was not enjoying it. It's too
much too soon for him, as it is for a
lot of young artists. There is on the cover of
Time magazine. Wasn't ready for that, you know, in no way. Um,

(49:45):
but he scuffled through it. And of course so he
You're working down the road pretty much constantly at that point. Well,
I was doing a lot with James, and at that
point we also started see Peter Escher put our names
on Sweet Baby, James and lou put our names on Tapestry. Now,
if you remember, like the Wrecking Crew never had their
names of those records. Nobody knew who they were, but

(50:06):
everyone knew who we were, so they knew to call
us to get in touch with us, to get that
sound that groovy sound that we had gotten James and Carroll,
you know. So it was a great Uh, it was
really fortunate for us. So we started doing dates. All
of us started doing record days here and there. We
were kind of the next wave of the Wrecking Crew.
I guess, okay, then you form your old band, the Section. Yeah,

(50:31):
the three of us. Craig Dirgy came in replacing Carol
Calder want going to road anymore? So Craig Dirgy came
in replacing Carol, and we were always Jamed. We would
do a sound check and James would get his sound
that he would leave the stag when we would stay
up there and jam and jam and jam and jam.
And Peter was recording it on the front of house
cassette player, so he said, you guys should listen to this,

(50:53):
So he listened to the cassettment good and James gave
us the name the Section, and we were offered will
deal at at Warner Brothers. So we went in and
made an album and we started doing little gigs here
and there, but it didn't ultimately go over. Why do
you think it didn't? Uh, well, we were playing kind
of this weird I don't know if it's nothing. It

(51:15):
wasn't weird at all, but we were playing instrumental music.
It was kind of it was neither fish nor foul,
and we didn't really know where we fit in exactly. Uh.
We didn't sound like book Often and the MG's and
we didn't sound like Miles Davis either, so it kind
of it didn't really gel. I have to also tell
you that the section was very good, but I never

(51:35):
really felt that comfortable in this section because I wasn't
a jazz musician and I didn't consider myself ablazing. I
played really good souls, but I didn't feel comfortable just
as as as a guitar soloist. I was writing songs
and I thought on myself more in that way. So
you didn't view this as your opportunity to break through, No,
I did not. Okay, Now, eventually James goes, when do

(51:58):
you start playing with Linda? Oh? That wasn' until like
or something like that. How did that come together? Well? Um,
after what I had quit James's band right, Okay, before
we get there, he switches to Columbia and you have
a song Honey Don't Leave l A on his album.
How does that come together? Well? You know. He did
one of my songs on mud Slide, Slim and the

(52:19):
Blue Horizon the album right after Remind me, what's on
that machine gun? Kelly? You wrote machine gun? Kelly? Indeed,
that's the play those machines. I had a little thing
I would play three songs in a ride down a railroad.
It was right there. And then, uh, on the first
suddenly I can't remember the name of mission as me
on the jukebox is great. Nothing that hundred miles in

(52:42):
the pocket. But see how come I can't remember? But
in any event, how do you write machine gun? Kelly?
I was just sitting in my room. My wife had
left me, and like I said, and I was reading
a book about gangsters, and uh so I saw a
machine gun Kelly, and just I don't know, I just
started playing and singing. I wrote it very quickly. The
other track is you Could Close your Eyes. Oh, great

(53:04):
phenomenal song. Okay, so how does James end up recording it?
I played it for him and they went, oh, that's good,
let's do it just like that. You must have been thrilled.
I certainly was. And then how did uh, honey, don't
leave l a getting up on the j T album, Well,
the same thing after I when I wrote it, I said,
you know, James is gonna dig this tune. I knew
he would. Also, he doesn't right like that. You know,

(53:25):
that's more of a rock and roll song. James doesn't
write rock and roll songs, and so I figured this
would be something I knew he would dig it, and
of course he did. I played it for him, he
liked it. We recorded it right away. What was the
inspiration for that song? Uh, a woman. It's it's pretty literal,
but I'm not going to tell you what a woman,
but it's pretty literal. That's kind of what happened. Of course,

(53:46):
I made a big deal out of it, and I
made myself look good, as many of us do the
right songs. I made myself into the you know, the
the wounded uh groovy guy. But that's kind of what happened,
you know with this this particular one and and one
ended up happening with that romance, well, you know, I
don't know. I slept with her once or twice. She
was gone. That was it. Yeah, it was a really

(54:08):
famous individual. But you got a song, Yeah I didn't. Yeah, okay,
then how do you decide to quit James's band. Well,
that was way later. We had done several albums and
a bunch of albums now as the end of the seventies,
and the things I really wanted to play rock and roll.
I wanted to play louder and stronger and bigger and tougher.
And I knew it wasn't right too for me to
try to steer James in that direction. He wasn't a

(54:29):
rock and roller. I didn't want to be um. So
I felt like, I gotta do this. I gotta make
a change. I gotta do something where I can dig
in and play harder and and be more rock and
rolla and so uh Peter Coleman and asked me, I
found to play in Linda's band, and I said absolutely,
And yeah, what a what an incredible thrill that was.

(54:50):
So it was in the band when you were in
the band? Oh, let's see. It was Russ on drums,
Bob Cloud on bass, Billy Payne on keys, Kenny Edwards
was there. I think Andrew was there some of the time.
Dan dougmar was there some of the time. It was
kind of a revolving cast between them and me. And
how long did that last two or three tours and

(55:11):
a couple of albums, is okay? And anything else you
were doing at that time, You're pretty committed to Linda. Well,
I love playing with Linda, but I was you know,
I was doing dates, I was doing this in that
little off things. I was still writing and stuff like that,
but mainly I was you know, my my my main
gig and my favorite gig was ron Stand And so
it's then that you hook up with Henley. Uh. It's
right after that. I had produced a woman named Louise Goffin,

(55:33):
and you know, Peter Asher got me this gig producing
her first album. She had the one song on the
Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Did she did you do
that song? She? I don't remember that. I probably I
probably did. Yeah. Okay, So you make the album Louise
Golfin and are you happy with that album? Thought? Well,
I was thrilled to be producing, and I loved having

(55:54):
you know, these great musicians in there. It was funny
because the guys I I brought in were but there
were Louise's age and we're contemporaries of Louise's and uh,
I remember Peter saying to me, are you crazy, And
he said, what once you get like, you know, the
tried and true cats instead of these guys no one
ever heard of, Like Luke was one of them, you know,
Mike Lando, you know. So then at the time, I

(56:16):
mean Luca nineteen when I met him, you know, but
they were obviously great, you know, Lucas one of those guys.
You take one look at him, it's love at first sight.
He's just Steve Luca, incredibly love a book fell and great, great,
great musician, one of the best ever. Really, I'll tell him,
you said that, I've told him. You can tell him.
You can tell you do the album you think that

(56:36):
that's gonna go or you don't know which one? The
Louise Golford album. Well, I hoped they would, and there
was a lot of interest in her because she was
young and adorable and Coul's daughter and stuff like that.
The single went got I think up into the forties,
I can't remember, but then the whole thing stalled and
didn't go. And that's life and where did you leave you? Um? Well,

(56:57):
I was able to do. Uh. So they promised me
a solo album on Silent for myself, So I made
a record, Uh, on a solum it's called innuendo. Not
very good. But back to in the hindsight, did you
think it was good? Then? Um? Probably not? I was.
I was. I was very insecure about my abilities to
be an artist. Uh so, and it came out when

(57:19):
I when I listen to it now, I go, what
was I thinking? It's it's just not that great? You know.
I did the best I could, and I was really
infatuated with, uh some new wave acts that were coming in.
I loved Elvis Costello and other bands like that, and
I was really interested in that stuff. Uh So, I
wanted to make an album that it was kind of
fast and noisy and loud, but in retrospect it it

(57:42):
really wasn't the real deal. Okay, so you made your
own album and that didn't light up the chart. Where
does that leave you? So? Well, the next thing we
do is another Louise album, her second album, which also
went nowhere Again. That's one of the singles got kind
of on the charts, but it didn't explode so uh uh.
At that point, I was kind of fishing around it

(58:03):
and I didn't really know what to do, you know,
doing odds and ends, doing some sessions, here and there
still playing with Linda. Um. I left out Jackson, which
you know I was on that tour Ring on Empty.
It was on that tour. How did that? How did
you get the gig? Um? Jackson wanted the section to uh,
to do a thing with us, and he wanted to
make this total live album. You know the story right,

(58:24):
but my audience may not all right. So Jackson wanted
to make a live album where all the songs the theme,
all the songs were had themes of the road, and uh,
he wanted to record it on the road. He wanted
to record it backstage and dressing rooms. We did something
in the hotel rooms. We did a couple of tracks
on the bus, actually moved stuff onto on the bus
and recorded some stuff. And uh, you know Jackson, once

(58:47):
he gets an idea, that's it, man, he just goes
and goes and goes. And uh so we ended up
doing this Running on Empty and it was incredible. You
had a song on that album I did, yes, uh huh. Yeah.
We were in a hotel room and I'd written Shaky Town.
This sounds shaking now, which has a lot of references
to CB Talk, which of course now is arcane and
means nothing. But at the time it was a thing.

(59:09):
And um, so I said, I got this tune Jackson
and played it for him and goes, oh, we gotta
record that, and we did well. That was really as
I was a huge fan. I saw him at the
Philmorice with Laura Nearro before you gotta record out. But
despite the records became, there were four before that. That
album really broke him. Why that was a monster, right? Yeah?

(59:30):
And do you have any idea Running Empty was gonna
be so big? I didn't think that way at the time.
I just know I didn't. I just thought it was
great and it was we were having a ball. I
knew it would be heard because Jackson had a real
loyal you know, uh rabid following, and uh I knew
it would be heard, but I didn't know it was
gonna explode like it did. Okay, So you write songs

(59:51):
on these hit albums. Did you get paid? Okay, no,
no problem collecting your money. Okay. So you worked with Jackson,
you're working with there, you're working with Carol's daughter, and
then well I heard, um, let me see, I think
I just finished a tour or an album with Linda.
I played on a couple of her albums and did
two or three tours with her, and I loved every

(01:00:12):
minute of it. But I'll tell you about that later. Uh.
Right after that, I heard that the Eagles had broken up.
As you know, Glenn had made a solo that I
played on, really No Funnel. I played on No Funnel Loud. Yeah,
how did you know everyone? We all knew each other.

(01:00:33):
Everybody knew everybody. You know, there's l a We all
knew each other. It was a big community. I knew
Don and Glenn and everybody, like you know, I don't
want to name drop, but you know, Joni and and
Carol and everyone was around. Everyone knew everyone else. And
did you like the Eagles music? Uh? Not really not
and not not at first? There was there were tunes

(01:00:55):
I liked of theirs and tunes that I didn't like,
like take It Easy. I hated that and I thought
it was a total shit. But uh, I'm sorry, it
was a really good song. But uh um, when they
did I thought Witchy Woman was great because I was
more in my wheelhouse, you know, And their album One
of These Nights was way more R and B influence,

(01:01:16):
especially that track, and I love that. And also they
were great guys. They were really really nice guys, and
I liked them very much, so I was I was
rooting for them, but I didn't dig country rock. I
hated Banjo's and that wasn't my thing, you know, it
just wasn't. And again, it just wasn't my cup of tea.
It wasn't that, it wasn't you know. So is that simple?
And so Glenn had made this album, they had broken up,

(01:01:40):
Glenn and Don weren't speaking at all, and um, I
had heard that Don wanted to make a solo album,
and I had heard that he was calling people to
come up to his pad and hang out with him
and jam a little bit, and uh, some of my
pasts went up there and stuff, and I knew he
was gonna call me. I just knew he was gonna
call me. And I knew when I went up there,
i'd get the gig. Don't ask me why I knew them,
but I just knew it. And sure enough, that's what happened. Really, Yeah, exactly,

(01:02:03):
you didn't put yourself. You just sat by the telephones
going to get the gig. I don't know, I just
knew I was going to get that gig. I knew
he was gonna call, which he did after you know,
it took ten days or something. Then he did call,
and I knew I was going to get that gig.
I don't know why or how how I knew that.
It was just instinct, something something about it. Okay, this

(01:02:26):
is for the first solo album, or the very first
one with Dirty Laundry. Yeah. I worked on all three
three of his solo albums from the nineties, three in
a row, and that was this is So this was
the first one. And I went up there and played
him some ideas that I had something that has and
he said, said, well, do you want to work on
an album with me? I said absolutely, And you know,

(01:02:47):
we went on from there. We became very good friends
and we had a ball putting music together. And so
it was only the two of you know. We brought
Greg Ladoni in, the great Greg Ludonia, and he was
one of the best engineers ever. Also, he had a
rock and roll feel. He wasn't one of these lab
coade guys. He was a big beat guy. He liked
that big beat and he liked rock and roll. He
liked volume. We'd listen back at deafening levels, you know,

(01:03:10):
in the studio. And it was a lot of fun. Okay.
And Stan Lynch wasn't he involved a little bit? That
was way later. Okay. So you make the first record,
the first record as a gigantic kid, uh, Dirty Laundry.
But the album itself doesn't really make a gigantic impact.
And your role is what on that album? I co

(01:03:32):
wrote it and produced it, you know, co wrote pretty
much all the tracks, played on it, and produced it.
And what did Don say? Because Don is not Mr Happy? Well,
this is true. Although we had a lot of great times.
We had a lot of fun together, but uh no,
he's not Mr cheerful. Um, I'll tell you about writing
Dirty Laundry interested okay, So at him, I had a

(01:03:55):
far feast of Oregon and um one day I was
I ran it through an ecoplex and I started playing
the beat that you hear, I'm Dirty Laundry Dag dang dang,
and I said, wow, this is cool. I started playing
it and I had a drum machine going this way.
But this is the first Lynn drum machine that I had.
For some reason, we had we had all the latest
gear working with Don. That's what happens. You get every right,

(01:04:17):
and I'll never forget because here I'm playing this beat
and I'm going there. We had talked about dirty Laundry,
writing a song called dirty Laundry, and he had a
real bug up his ass about local media because they
had really raked him through the coals recently about some episode.
So um, I said, this is dirty. This is gonna
be dirty laundry. Listened to it, it it would be great.
There's a knock on the door. It's like maybe one

(01:04:38):
in the morning. It's Jackson. Come on, I gotta play something.
We were all hanging at each other's pads all the time. Uh,
So he came and said, dig this. I started playing.
What you hear is dirty Lawder. He goes, well, that's it,
just that, over and over again. I said yes, over
and over and over again. Now nobody was doing it
over nobody in my creek was doing anything like that.
They wearing songs on acoustic guitar. I didn't want any

(01:05:00):
of that. Didn't want anything that sounded like the Eagles.
He didn't want background parts, he didn't want acoustic guitars.
He wanted to go a whole other direction. And that's
why I fit in really well because I was that
whole other direction. And uh, sure enough we recorded it.
He came up with the lyrics very quickly. Uh and
uh away we went okay, that was a monster, and

(01:05:20):
he had Johnny can't read. He wrote down for Fay
as well. Yeah, okay, But ultimately the album was not
a huge success. How did Don take that? Uh? He um.
I don't know exactly how he took it. He wasn't
screaming and yelling or tearing his hair, that's for sure,
because we were we did really well with with Dirty Laundry,
and he wasn't going on the road. He didn't go

(01:05:41):
on the road to promote that album. It wasn'tuntil the
next one. Then he went out, Okay, so you make
that album, it comes out, it runs its course. Are
you still going up there every day? You're taking a break.
I'm seeing them all the time. You know. Don and
I hung out a lot, and I can't remember if
I went up there every day, but we saw a
lot of each From what point did he say, oh,
I'm gonna do another album? What was he working the
whole time? He was? No, he wasn't working the whole time.

(01:06:05):
He I think he already had it in his head.
He had to make another album. He wanted to have
a hit album, you know. Again A lot of that
had to do with competition with Glenn, of course. So
at the time I was working with Brown, we had
let me see, I's trying to remember all this. Linda
had just finished one of her tours and I was
working with Jackson on his album Lawyers in Love, and

(01:06:27):
as you know, didn't do that well. I love some
of the songs like for a ro Yeah, that's a
good track, you're right. So I played on all of that.
I actually wrote two or three of the tunes on
that album with him, which Knock on any Door was yeah.
And I had written um um Somebody's Baby with him,

(01:06:47):
uh and he but he didn't want to put it
on his album. It was it was too poppy for him.
He was, so we put it on Fast Times of
Richmond High soundtrack. That could be his biggest track because
he was he was. I thinking arristed about it because
it was so poppy. It was that such a great
you know, strictly a pop record. And I have said
before I Brown ain't offended, but there wasn't even one

(01:07:09):
Nicaraguin in the whole side. So he didn't you know,
he was embarrassed about it. Jeff and said you gotta
put that on the album, and he didn't, and the
album tanked, of course, but the single was huge and
you know, as you said, his biggest hit. Now he
plays it all the time. Okay, so you work on

(01:07:29):
Lawyers and Love. Then do you go on the road
with Jackson? Okay? What happened right then was uh don
then calls, he says, oh, let's make the next album.
Now I was supposed to go out with with Jackson
and tour that album. Um but at that point, you know,
I had just bailed with the choice between producing with
Heinley and and and touring as a sideman was there
was no no choice at all. So he was not happy.

(01:07:53):
He was not happy at all. And he actually, um,
I mean, he wasn't mad at me. We're very good
friends and we never weren't. But he took my name
off the album, and uh so had his guitarist Ricky
veto with the other guitar player. Ricky is a phenomenal player. Um.
Everyone he had pictures of everyone and their name. Of course,
he took my Picture in my Name off, so I

(01:08:14):
had I got no credit for it, even though I
didn't awful lot of work on that album, as he
will tell you. Okay, so but Handley calls yes and
take us from the beginning of building the Perfect Beast. Well,
he immediately started. The first thing we did was sit
around and talk about what we wanted to say. And
Don had a lot of ideas, so we throw ideas
back and forth. For instance, he had this idea he

(01:08:35):
wanted to write a song called Sunset Grill. He loved
the that little Hamburger stand on Sunset Boulevard, and he
loved the idea of the old man who ran it
made the burghers himself, and he felt this was wonderful
and a changing culture where everything was being manufactured unseen.
So he had this idea that he wanted to write
a song. Um but all the right. Yeah. So I

(01:08:59):
had this. I had a piece of music that it
was actually in sixth eight that since it grows in
four forward, I've written it in sixth eight. I was
trying to be Joe's a uh, and it had some
groovy chord changes and stuff like that. So I played
it for him and I said Oh, that's it, you know,
let's let's start recording it. And that's what he would do.
I play him a piece of music and go, I

(01:09:19):
can write to that. Bang we go in the studio
before the song was written and start recording and uh
then he would write to the track. That happened a
lot and you would work where, uh, well, at this place.
I had a little demo studio at my place, very
primitive demo studio at my place. I'd make these little demos.
Where were you going to the studio? Where would you

(01:09:41):
go to cut? All right, we would cut. We had
a few different places. One was definitely Record One, and
we loved Record One. We did a lot of work
there Vos place, Yes, and we lived there for a
long time. We also and then later in the process
we started cutting at A and M H A M D.
Which is also okay. Were you in charge of making

(01:10:02):
that happen? How so? How do you mean like you
were the one saying, OK, they're gonna record, let me call,
let me get a studio, etcetera. Or was don taking
action and would just call the office it say I
want to record, getting you know, uh, you know, you
just called Irving or whoever the guy was Boom, what happened? Okay,
So the songs on that album, that's Sunset Grill, which

(01:10:24):
I heard on the Reader just two days ago. I'm serious,
and you know that's great. And it's got the you know,
essentially the synth at the end, which is really great.
And but the most legendary track from that is Boys
This Summer. How does Boys of Summer come togin? All right?
So Boys the Summer was Mike, Mike Campbell, the Great

(01:10:44):
Mike Campbell came in and brought this very primitive demo
that he had made it home on a T four
track and played it for Don, who immediately loved it.
Was terrific. That just the track was great. So now
we have to re record the whole track to get
it right. And what degree was the track that he
brought in, like the finished track? Almost exactly, you know,
we added a bunch of stuff to it, but it

(01:11:06):
was it was basically a duplication of the original two
or three track thing that he brought in that Mike
brought in. And Henley, you know, being the stickler and
being as meticulous as he is, was driving Mike crazy,
because Mike is not a studio musician. So there was
a part that you played that opening lickid you hear
bang burned in? He had played that on the demo.
Don said you gotta play that, So Mike, it was

(01:11:27):
a guy that doesn't play the same thing every time ever.
You know, he's not a studio guy, so he was
going after it, but he wasn't playing exactly what Donn
wanted to hear. We were there for days getting that
one lip. You know, I'm not kidding, And we went
on on and on worked on it, and finally we
got it to the point where Don could sing on it.
So this is like ten days at least of continuous

(01:11:48):
work and um so Don goes out to sing it
and he was, um, wow, it's too low. He needs
to go up a half step. Oh my god. This
is before approach was where you just Keith jokes and
it goes up and we basically had to take the
rhythm and then recreate the whole rest of the thing.
So here comes Mike again. At that point, Mike went

(01:12:10):
into the hospital. I think we I think we put
him in the hospital. He had some kind of stomach
problem with that from the stress. No doubt trying to
get McDon happy, you know. And uh, finally we finished
it and I put some synths on and put a
bunch of synth guitar on it and stuff like that,
and uh, there there it was. He wrote the lyrics
very quickly. He knew what he wanted to say, Don,

(01:12:32):
he usually does, so he wrote the lyrics after you
were recording the track. Yes, And how long do you
think it took him to write the lyrics. I think
it went real quickly. It's funny with him because, uh,
sometimes we'll do a track and a year will go
by before he writes a lyric to it. And sometimes
I'll give him a track and uh, two or three
days later, it's done the whole thing, the whole lyric.

(01:12:54):
I mean, he's so meticulous. It's funny to hear that
he works that fast. Well, he works fast sometimes and
slow sometimes. But I think with the lyrics, once he
knows what he wants to say, he starts to write
and and things and and things start coming to him.
Let me go to left field for a second, because
I get this question for readers all the time. Let's
just assume back in the day, forget today. Okay, one

(01:13:15):
of your friends calls up and says, hey, uh, lay
this lick on this track? Would you do it as
a favor? Would you get paid? It depends on who
was it was my When any of my friends, I
would do it without asking. Okay, they would say, hey,
I want to pay you. I mean it was it
was a mutual thing. You would play on each other's
I'd do anything for my friends. I'd be glad to
plan on something from one of my buddies. But okay,

(01:13:37):
so you cut Boys of Summer, which becomes iconic? Did
you so? So you did all this sense stuff? Wow?
So did you know what was going to become iconic?
I thought it had a good chance of being a
hit record because it was so It's such a good
everything about it was terrific that everyone was graving and
I got this could do it. You know, this could

(01:13:57):
be a big hit. And it was a person and
all she wants to do his dance? What the stories
are with that? Let me see? Um, well, we had
one of the very first d X sevens. It's funny
because that is all right dad. The Yamaha d X
seven is one of the first synthesizers that had a
lot of different sounds on it, and it was used
on a ton of records that had a bunch of
different sounds. At the time, that was the instrument, you know,

(01:14:21):
the happening instrument. It was the synth du jour, and
everyone wanted one. But we've been here, we've heard about it.
One of the guys in Toto told us about it.
So Don turns to his aide de camp, Tony tab
and said, Tony, get one. Two days later, the only
d X seven in the whole world shows up at
our studio. So I took it home and I started

(01:14:43):
to screwing around with it and came up with the
sound you hear on on Dirty Laundry, which is a
sample and hold sound you hit the kind Uh, so
there's a key. I had one of the keys and
I went come back back one, Oh cool sample and hold.
So I slowed it way down on and I ran
it through a foot and ran through an amplifier to
make it distorted. And that's what you're here. We recreated that.

(01:15:05):
That's how the song, that's how the track got started.
So then I went to sleep. I woke up and
wrote the lyrics in about ten minutes, and Don immediately said,
I'm good. Yeah, that's right. And then what about this song?
I forget the name of that. You know you're no
picnic either, baby, that's one of the things I love
abou oh boy, not enough love in the world, Not

(01:15:27):
enough love in the world. Great, great too. How do
you know I'll remember how that comes together? Um again,
he had this idea and he started singing. The changes
were pretty obvious to me what they had to be.
Ben Mont was in the studio with us, and it
was very helpful, and um it was pretty obvious what
the chords needed to be to go on with his melody.
So I started playing him and h you know, I said,
that's good. He don you know, I play him some

(01:15:49):
changes to go that, I play another not that was
leaving another court that and you know, and after a
while you could see how they followed. I knew a lot,
you know, at that point, I was pretty good. I knew,
I knew about songs, and I knew how you can
you know what chords needed to go with the melody,
and uh so pretty soon it came about and there
it was. Uh. Benmon came in and helped us with him.

(01:16:09):
So from first going to and he says about Sunset Girl.
I want to write a song about Sunset Grill until finish.
How long a period of time is that? Um, well,
let me see. I made the demo. I had Benmont
come over and helped me with the bridge because I'd
run out of ideas and needed a new another wig,

(01:16:29):
as they say. So Benmon came over and helped me.
When we had the demo, played it for Don was
in the wrong key, so we had to change the key.
At that point, he called Randy Newman to come in
and do the the arrangement, and of course Randy genius
at that and he did this beautiful arrangement. Michael Bodicker
played the keyboards, you know the SyncE that you hear
on it, and uh, it came about and Don wanted um.

(01:16:54):
He kept referencing the theme two Roots sixty six, the
old TV show with the theme of which was by
Nelson Riddle, so he would reference this stuff, and uh,
we started putting it together. He wanted this real long ending,
which I was surprised about, but because it went on
quite a lot. Of course, we got Jerry hay in
to do the horn arrangements and we told him exactly

(01:17:15):
we want. I sang a lot of those parts that
he wrote down, and then I played what sounds like
trombone solo, which is played that on a guitar synth,
and then dy that I'm a guitar synth. You know.
But from the moment you start the album to the
moment you finished the album, how long a period it's time?

(01:17:35):
I say a year at least. Okay, so the album
comes out from an outside perspective, it seems like it's
an immediate success. And at what point does don say, Okay,
we're gonna go on the road. Then, so you went
on the road with him all that time I did
not know. No, you did not went well. I went
and rehearsed with him for a day or two. He

(01:17:58):
had hired some the the usual suspects, guys that could
you know. That's what they did, But that isn't what
I did. I never had to learn anyone else's guitar parts.
I've never called upon, and I don't learn other people's
guitar parts. I just play my own. So when it
came time to learn um Hotel California, I said, why,
what the fuck? I don't know this right? So that's

(01:18:21):
when we realized it's better if I stayed at home
and wrote more music. And then he went on the
road with guys that could play anything, because that's what
they did. They were sidemen at that point. Okay, the
next album didn't come out until eighty nine, or the
end of eight eight for that. Before you cut the
end of the Innocence. What were you working on personally?
I'm not sure. I can't remember exactly various stuff. I

(01:18:44):
can't remember exactly what I was working on, but I
was always writing. But your mind was I'm gonna do
another album with Don Right, Okay, So how does the
end of the Innocence album come together? Well, it starts
with that wonderful track that Bruce Hornsby did, which is
the basis of the Innocence, and boy, I couldn't believe
it when when what it happens? We started on some

(01:19:06):
other tunes, I can't remember what. Then I got fired.
I got fired two or three times. Well, well, fired
two or three times on this album were also on
all of them. What would the circumstances being fired be?
You didn't have to do much to get fired by
Don Okay, give me give me like an example of
how he would act or what he would say. Well,
there was one night. There was one time in the
first album. I was hanging out with Stevie Nicks and

(01:19:27):
stayed up really late and I was supposed to be
at the studio, slept through, slept past the time. I
get a call from Don You're fired. Hangs up like,
oh shoot, oh my god, what am I gonna do?
Two minutes later, the phone rings and it's Irving. Okay,
you're not fired. Get down to the studios as you can.
When I get there and he says, this was a
mere warning, you know this this had this been a
real he gave me one of those you know And

(01:19:49):
that was the first time. The second time, I remember,
it didn't take much. Okay. But you're saying, when they
do the end of the Innocence album, you gotten fired again? Yeah? Sure, Okay,
this is before it's made or while you're making and
of the Innocence. That was early in the project, early
in the UH album, after we've done a couple of tracks.
This is before UH end of the Innocence. Okay, you've

(01:20:10):
gotten fired. How long were you fired for that? A
couple of months, two or three months? And did you
back your mind say hey, he's gonna call me again?
Or do you think it was really done this? I
was really piste at that point, and I was writing
with with Jackson a little bit, I was doing other things.
At no point did I say, oh my god, my
life is over. I never said that, because I knew
nothing was gonna stop me. Uh and was there Do

(01:20:32):
you remember the reason he fired at that time? Oh,
let me see. I think it was because it was
my wife at the time's birthday. And we went to
the ivy and when the check came, everybody through their
credit card in like usual, and Don was enraged that
I didn't pay for the whole thing and fired me
and sent me a letter, you cheap bastard. You know,
I did something like this, and I was fired again.

(01:20:54):
I sent him back a letter equally victoryolic and calling him,
you know, reading him the Riot Act, you know. And then, um,
right after that, I wrote a track Stanley should come
to the picture that I introduced him to stand. Stan
was a great guy and a really terrific fellow, and um,
he and Henley Henley hit it off like I knew
they would right away. So I had written another track

(01:21:15):
which ended up being how bad do you want it?
You remember that? And so I sent that over to Don.
He said, oh, this is great, come on back, you know,
and nothing else was said, you know, but he did.
Uh that week, he did call my wife at the
time and apologized her. Wow, dig it, that's the kind

(01:21:37):
of guy, the complex guy. You know, it's been said
about done that he's an interesting bunch of guys, and
that is the case. Okay, So then how much of
that album were you involved? You know, a lot pretty much,
so just at the beginning you were gone, right, okay,
so your contributions were certainly that song. Uh how does

(01:21:57):
things songs like uh uh New York Minute come together?
All right? Well again, he's you wanted to write a
song called New York Minute, and he wanted to reference uh,
autumn leaves blowing through the park and all this stuff.
So I just started went home, started playing what you hear,
you know, the music, and then I came with the
idea of records even in the New York and I
sang that to him, played him, you know, the basic music,

(01:22:20):
and sang that line to him if we went so
let's record it, no words to except for that, you know,
And we started recording it with David Page, the Great
David Paige. Wow. And then how about the Heart of
the Matter. Heart of the Matter. I wasn't involved in
that one. I was on listed as producer, and so
I just got kind of oversaw what was going on. Um,
I think he wrote that with Southern and uh, Mike

(01:22:43):
Campbell did the original track and the bass part I
thought was terrible. So I got Larry Kleined to come
in and play a beautiful bass part on it, and uh,
away we went. You know, it's a nice it's a
nice tune to me. That's you know, that's one side
of Henley, and that's the site of his record company
always wanted the most truth. They considered him a ballad
deer and they couldn't understand at all the heavy duty

(01:23:05):
tracks I was giving him. You know, they didn't think
Dirty Laundry is going to be a hit, the not
at all. They were forced to put it out as
a single by the DJs. So that album comes out,
Henley doesn't make another record for eleven years. He goes
on the road, but you're essentially done at this point.
You're not going on the road, and the albums finished

(01:23:26):
you're on good terms with Henley? Yeah, I thought, so
where does what do you do for the next ten years? Well, um,
after that album came out, I guess he went on
the road. I was doing other things. I can't be
honest with you. I don't remember all this thing. I
remember I was playing all the time, working on all
the time. I produced co produced a John bon Jovi's
solo album, Blaze of Glory. Okay, I gotta ask Blaze

(01:23:49):
of Glory. The song certainly sounds like a remake of
Wanted Dead or Alive? As much as I like the track,
You're kidding? Was there any thought process or was left unset?
And you don't have to ask Johnny that. It's obviously
it's from the same family. Um, But that was We
had a ton of fun making that out. It was

(01:24:09):
really really a ball and it changed John's attitude about
recording and what the whole deal was. Why did it
change because he was working with the guys that they
weren't band members, they were like great guys, and Kenny
Aronoff and Brandy Jackson on bass, Waddy ben Mont. I mean,
he'd never been around people like that. He only worked
for this band. Man when he saw how badass everyone was,
but also how friendly. I fun it was. This was fun.

(01:24:32):
I don't think John ever thought about being in the
studio was fun, but it was. How did you get
that gig? I think, Um, he was asking a bunch
of people about who would be good. I think he
asked Jimmy Ivan, and Jimmy said, yeah, Danny's great. You know,
I was one of guys on the list, I guess.
And Um, when I spoke to him on the phone,
we started getting along and I suggested to him who

(01:24:52):
I thought should play on it. And uh, since you
had this great success with Henley, never mind the success
before that, did that make your phone ring more? Yeah,
a little bit more. But yeah, I got more production gigs.
But it's funny. I realized at that point that producing
with Don is not the same as producing just people.
You know. The next band I produced here such a

(01:25:13):
fucking pain in the ass that I you know, I
hated him, But the time the record was done, I
can't remember the name of the band, thank god. But
I used to get gigs like that, right, Jesus, they
would they would give me gigs. I would get gigs
and I would listen to the stuff, and I I go, well,
there's no hits here. But the A and R guy
was ready to go. I was ready to pay me
a great deal of money to start, so I said, sure,

(01:25:35):
I'll take the money. You know, you weren't worried it
might hurt your reputation if there were no hits. Uh No,
I didn't think that way. I didn't think that way. Okay.
So the next Henley album, inside Job, does he call you?
Not call your inside? No? I didn't do it work
on that, Okay. So you haven't worked with him since? No,
are you friendly with him? To degree you could be
somebody friendly with somebody like Henley? So basically you work

(01:26:00):
on the end of the Innocence and summer Camp friends.
You don't see each other again, right, Well, was the
last time you talked to him three or four years ago? Okay?
So what then? The Internet happens, Turn of the century.
Now you're producing records. Then everything starts to change. What's
your view about what's going on? Then? Well, you know

(01:26:21):
it was a sea change. But what was happening more
and more was all the musicians started to have a
home studios. Everyone had a studio in their garage. I mean,
if you drive through the valley, every house you know
in certain neighborhoods had had a studio in the garage.
So that changed everything changed, the whole as you know,
the whole paradigm changed once you had pro tools or

(01:26:42):
pro pro tools breaking home. And as you know, that's
how pretty much all records are made now, piecemeal, one
guy at a time, just you know, they type it
in corrected, et cetera. So I don't know how did
I feel about it. I missed live playing. When I
realized that there wasn't gonna be very you know, live
playing in the studio, I was really disappointed. At that time,

(01:27:04):
I was still producing that produced a Spin Doctors record.
I produced a guy named Martin Sexton, is a good singer.
I produced a guy named Fredy Johnston who's a very
good songwriter. So I was doing these these albums and
they were I did have guys play live in the studio.
Um and I actually I never made any more albums
where it was just you know, one piece at a time.

(01:27:27):
And then at what point do you say, WHOA, there's
a change. My generation is being superseded by the hip
hop and the pop etcetera. Well, you know, what can
I say about that? Only that musician, Like me and
like most of my friends, you don't give up. You
don't think about it like that. You've gotta keep playing.

(01:27:49):
You're gonna keep playing one way or the other. So
I never thought about being replaced or about, uh, the
time has passed me by. I was gonna keep playing
and keep doing what I did, and and not I
was gonna stop me um right around then. Let me see.
At one point, I moved to the East Coast. I
moved to Connecticut with my family. We had just had

(01:28:10):
my wife at the time, had given birth to my
first daughter, and I didn't want to bring her up
in Los Angeles. I just didn't want to be around
all those entitled, self involved you know, doing blow at
age twelve, having sex at age nine. You know, I
didn't want her in that environment. I just didn't. Now,
plenty of great kids come out of Los Angeles and
they're just fine, but I didn't want to. I felt

(01:28:30):
that I didn't want to bring my daughter up in
that environment. And also I missed the East Coast a lot.
So we moved back to the East Coast and did
it deliver on an emotional level for you when you
get there and say I missed California, No I was,
I loved it. You're in Connecticut. Does that sort of
on a distance level keep you a little out of

(01:28:51):
the loop. Well, yeah, but there was no loop at
that point. You know that, you know, the whole infrastructure
that that we've grown up with and that was prevalent
for us. Well, it was basically gone. It was over,
just like h and then when he decided to start
to work with James again. Um, geez, when I started
working well, I never not wanted to work with James,

(01:29:12):
but but at that point he had hired his backup
band that he has now he's touring band that he
has now, and then he has for many many years. Um.
The last time I worked with James was to do uh,
the Troubador Reunion tour with James and Carroll, which was
just an incredible experience. Um yeah, okay, So that brings
us up today. Is there any bucket list, anything that's

(01:29:36):
on the horizon that you specifically want to do. I
want to keep playing with my band immediate family. I
want to keep writing and playing and recording with them,
you know, I really Uh, I started writing like crazy again.
I'd stopped for a while because I had no muse.
Henley was my muse and it was something they could
write for. Not only that, but if it came up
with something great, we go in the studio the next

(01:29:56):
day and start cutting. Uh. Now, when that went away,
I kind of stopped writing for years. For a few years.
Then um, when I got together with the Immediate Family,
guys started writing like crazy again. So in this fracture world,
what would success look like for you with immediate family? Uh,

(01:30:18):
more gigs, more money. I'd like us to do corporate
gigs because a lot of bread there. Like us to
play all over the place. We've been to Japan a
couple of times. I'd like to play all over the
world with this great band. And that really is town
when you did a local gig. So I don't know
the set list is a set list all new material
or do you play some of the greatest hits of
the bands that every all the player has been involved in. Well,

(01:30:41):
that's the thing I introduced the band is saying we're
a cover band that plays all original material. That is
because everything we play, we wrote, we played on, we produced,
you know, all of it. We do some Zevon. Uh,
you know, as you know why. He was closely associated
with Warren and I played on a few Warren stuff too.
Loved him. I really missed him all the time. And

(01:31:01):
then we play all of my tunes. So the stuff
I wrote with Henley, uh, the stuff I wrote that
James did, the stuff I wrote jet with it with Jackson.
We do all that, plus we do some new material
that we've just written. So it's a cross section of stuff.
And who books it? Good question. We're looking for a
booking agent right now. We have a guy that helps
us in New York. We're about to play a ridium

(01:31:22):
uh this fall, and you know, basically we're looking for
an actual booking agent and you manage it yourself. No,
we have managers who were the managers, David health Fan
and Fred Crosh right right right, right right, and they're
taking care of whatever. Well, listen, it's been wonderful talking
to you, Danny. You're as alive as you ever were.

(01:31:43):
You have a great resume, you're continue it. Thanks for
coming to my pleasure. Thanks Bud. Until next time, all right,
it's Bob left sense talk to you next week.

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Bob Lefsetz

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