Michael Des Barres

A descendant of royalty, Michael Des Barres has had more record deals than seemingly anybody, from Silverhead to Detective to Chequered Past to solo, as well as acting in "MacGyver" and scores more movies and television shows. Recently a documentary of his life was released, "Michael Des Barres: Who Do You Want Me To Be?" We cover the film and so much more!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left That's podcast.
My guest today is Michael de Barr, who you know
from television, movies, records and radio. Now he has a
new documentary streamable on Amazon Prime. Who do you want
me to be? Michael? Well, who do you want me

(00:29):
to be? Boom? I want you to be your most
entertaining self, which you normally are. I'm not that worried,
but let's let's start. How did the documentary come into being?
Because I'm fabulous and I'm doing a TV show, um,
and guy called Josh Weinstein, brilliant comedian and filmmaker, and
he comes up to me and he says, you know,

(00:49):
I've been watching your stuff and I just read your
X wife's book and I want to do a documentary
on basically that's miss Pamela who wrote that I'm with
the band. You know, it's a fabulous book. And he
did that and for the next two or three years
we shot amazing stuff. And the interesting thing about it
was I didn't look at a frame of it until

(01:09):
it was done, so he had that trust. Why I
did that, I know, you know, you want to reduce
through anxiety, but that begs my next question, which always
going to ask are you happy with the finished product?
I'm just absolutely so happy about it because I'm seeing
people that I love, you know, saying these wonderful things,
and certainly some sort of descriptive lee on cool things.

(01:33):
But it's it's all part of the thing, you know,
It's all part of this wonderful I don't want to
be worshiped. I just want to be understood and seen.
And you know, a guy who stayed there has been
deliberate and delivered what was necessary, and I think that
that's very good for people to see, you know, after
fifty years of it. So what do you want people

(01:55):
to see? What image do you want to present or
what identity do you want to press present in life?
Whether it comes across from the documentary or not, well,
whatever it is, it has to be the truth. I
mean as an actor, as a singer, or whatever, as
a husband, as her father. Um, the truth is everything.
If I'm not honest about it, if if I told
stories like, for instance, my childhood was very traumatic, you know,

(02:18):
and that I went to these absurd mastemetry, hypocritical aristocratic
boarding schools and all the pedophilia in the world that
you know about, which is a British institution. Um, you know,
I went through and I wanted to tell the truth.
I wanted to tell people, you know, what happened to
me and how I would travis these things and change
these things and transition from that this marquis into a

(02:41):
working class hero. Because when I left those schools and
went to London and went to drama school, rock and roll.
Rock and roll was the aristocracy, and that you MARKI
meant nothing. Mick Jagger would get a better table in
the restaurant that Bill Wyman and then Prince Charles. Shall
we say, you know so as I had to reinvent
myself every couple of years. Okay, let's start at the end,

(03:06):
as we're all on the downward slope in terms of
past our median age. Do you feel comfortable with what
you've accomplished or did you want more? And is there
something you do or do not want to do in
the remaining time you left, whether it be thirty years
or thirty minutes. Fantastic question. Um A, I have no regrets,

(03:29):
be I have no dreams that I haven't dreamt, and
see there are no nightmares anymore in my life. I've
achieved something in myself that is important, and it doesn't
you know, it's not number ones, and it's not smash movies,
and it's not a series that runs forever. It's not Emmys.
All of these things mean nothing to me. The only

(03:51):
thing that means anything to me at all is enjoying myself,
expressing myself in any way that I can. I'm seventy two,
I have a twenty nine each way fast. Well, you
certainly are trim. I know that from interacting with you live.
But the fact that you are let's you know, it's
a bogus institution, but as a pinnacle. The fact that

(04:12):
you're not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
does that bother you none? In the Scientist, I don't
believe it unless the m C five gets into the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame down and be piste off.
How did you develop? Which comes through at the end
of the documentary, this perspective that nothing really matters. Not
really a nihilist, but saying, don't get hung up in legacy,

(04:35):
don't get hung up and what it means, just move forward,
Try to enjoy yourself, certainly within a moral framework. How
did that come about? Well, I realized that ambition was toxic.
So therefore trying to you know, reach scale heights that
don't exist is a fucking stupid endeavor. That's why. Okay,
but you're someone who certainly had peaks in your career,

(04:56):
even starting uh with to serve with love when you
were not even twenty years old. But how do you
make a living and certainly an entertainment where it's hard
you sustained over decades without having ambition? Well, it's not ambition.
The word itself is useless. It's this sort of desire

(05:16):
to go further. Well, it's not that corny to me.
All I ever did was what was in front of me,
and I did it well, and I did it again.
If you go, if you complexify that concept of a
trajectory of your career, then you are going to fool yourself.
You know, I believe in the moment, great artists can
only deliver the goods in the moment. You can't calculate

(05:37):
what you're gonna do when the guy says action or
the producer said sing. You know, I would just free
myself of it and somehow a it's a it's a
metaphysical thing. It's a feeling of confidence that's very different
from ambition. Okay, but one thing we know about you,
You've you've really hung in there. Most people had a

(05:59):
window in their on and so I always analyze this
with people, what do we know? They're very talented people
who never made it. So at most fifty percent is talent.
The other fifty percent is amalgamation of a number of things.
Hooking yourself up with the right people, but being able
to connect with people such they like you. You're a

(06:20):
very endearing, likable guy. Whatever the image of the rockery
is it someone to meet you personally? Is that something
you're conscious of? Is that something you wanted to achieve?
Do you understand that it's paid dividends? That is just
such a great question. I've been asked so many dems questions. Listen, um,

(06:41):
my currency is my charm? And was that inborn? Or
how did you develop your charm? I didn't develop it.
I was born with it. I never thought about it.
I just realized that to make people feel at ease, right,
and amused and maybe entertained and maybe if you know, desired.

(07:02):
I realized that that was the key to go further,
I mean I've I've I've spiritually hoard myself all these
years in a sense, you know, it's been a calculated
uh seduction and I am a seducer and uh and
I made it okay. I didn't make it like it

(07:24):
was sort of demonic, vampireing vibe. It was something that
I wanted to make people feel at home because I
never had one. My father was in jail and my
mother was in the looney bin. So any you know, situation,
I found myself and I had to create a calmness,
a funness, a sexiness that would attract what I wanted

(07:48):
a lot of time. That goes hand in hand with
a chameleon personality. Now for someone like me on the outside,
it looks like you have a singular personality, But did
you also find yourself a just in your behavior for
the situation. Well, well, when you understand what chameleon means,
which is you change your skin in order to settle
into the environment that you find yourself, David said. David

(08:10):
Boy said to me, I am not a chameleon. I
did exactly the opposite. I didn't change the color of
my skin to fit into the forest. I did quite
the opposite. I changed my skin when I was in
the forest to cement, you know, and that I agree
with the chameleon vibe is weakness. To me, fitting in
was never my thing I wanted to get I didn't

(08:32):
wanted to fit out. I wanted to create something new
that there was nuanced and loving and sexy and and
in the moment. You know, most people live have a script,
and they live by the script. Then not even that character. Okay,
let's start at the beginning, which you certainly do in
the beginning of your documentary, where there's long history going

(08:52):
back hundreds of years to the derivation of your blood
lineage and title. Please describe that. Well, it was eight
hundred years ago and home de bar was fighting the Germans,
and the king of France at the time was you know,
being pursued by three or four monsters in in silver

(09:13):
armor and game. De Barn killed them. As a result,
he was given a title the Marquis de Bar and
hence you know here I am. You know, how does
that sustain for eight hundred years? Well, you know Europe
is very different from Glendale. Yeah, so that history, you know,

(09:36):
in the fourteen fifteenth century, we were kicked out of France,
the Huguenos. It was a religious thing. They went to
Nova Scotia, they went to England, they went to Ireland.
So it spread across the globe, Australia and a lot
of my other marquees. I'm the twenty seventh. You know,
work cartographers were you know, people that were searching. It's

(09:59):
all about search, it seems in my life. Let's go
back to the blood lineage. So they've only been twenty
seven marquis and you are one of them. That's right.
How does one get to be a marquis? Obviously his
blood lineage. But is it the oldest son of the
oldest son. How does it work? Yes, it's the son
the oldest son. It's the you know, the classic sort

(10:21):
of honorary vibe as the oldest son. But how it continued?
It is, you know, when this guy was given this
land in France and he built his castle and he
lived in that, and then his son, and then his
son and then his son. What's extraordinary to me is,
you know we went from swords to Les Paul's. Okay,

(10:43):
but theoretically your son is the Marquis de sad they
pick I just love the fact that you slipped into
side by the way I adored a side. I'm writing
a musical about assud. Okay, but talking about day Bar,
your son is, I'm the twenty six, he's the seven,

(11:05):
to be honest, and other other than the title anything
go along with absolutely nothing, absolutely although you know there
was an enormous oount of money there, uh, you know,
for some wonderful reason, and all of this was paid
my education, which was considerably expensive. Well, let's slow down

(11:26):
a little bit because we'll get to there. And you've
never at a loss for words, So tell your father
is the twenty five marquet? Yeah? How where? What are
his circumstances? How does he meet your mother? He meant,
you know, he'd already been married four times. He met
her in a in a club. You know, she was
a dancer, which you know the classic quote I'm doing

(11:48):
a good time girl. And he met her and she
was seventeen and he was fifty and they had me,
and I was a bastard till I was thirty. Okay.
Two questions, He had no sons before that? And did
you have any other children? No? And what happened when
you were thirty to legitimize you. Oh, I was legitimized

(12:12):
by Sydney pot Bob you know. Um he. What happened
was they got married because of a legal situation. She
was born because she wanted to get out of the institution.
She was severely ill and dying, so he married her.
Thirty years later, they actually got married. I got a letter.
Take this, You'll love this. I got a letter from

(12:33):
the lawyers saying, well, Michael, you're not a bestart anymore. Yeah.
I said, no, you're wrong. You get um And I thought, wow,
and I this letter was so symbolic to me. I
kept it one of the very few things I've kept
because I don't like having drawls full of like old ship.

(12:54):
You know, that's has such a power over one. I
like to do it now, you know. But that particular
in a document I found amusing. Okay, you are born
or your parents together at that point? Oh no, no, no, no.
He disappeared pretty soon. You know, she had the baby.
She didn't want the baby. Uh, she went mad. She

(13:17):
was a stripper, you know, and she went to an
institution of schizophrenia. I was raised by her friends. This
is what happened show biz, right, So the girls that
surrounded that world took care of me until I was eight.
I was put down to these boarding schools when I
was one years old, and they looked after me until
I was eight. Now looked after me one has to

(13:40):
think about, because you know they were obsessed with Oscar Wilde,
Aubrey Beardsley and that whole romantic early nineteen How do
you say, don't ask me why my father is in
an opium den smoking, you know, opium with Chinese sailors
in London by the Thames. So you can imagine all
these influences and confluences were so extraordinary, and then to

(14:04):
be taken and put into this absolutely military, autocratic, crazy
institution was a a surprise. Okay, let's talk about from
zero to eight. So how many of those years is
your mother in the picture? Around in and out, in
and out. You know, she'd be in the six months,
out for a few weeks, have a you know, uh,

(14:27):
you know, she'd freak out, she'd go back and come out,
and you know, I mean I I forget him many times.
I had no memory really of of relating to her
at all. Okay, so you say you stayed with her friends,
would you go from house to house, from to city.
I go to the city to city because they were

(14:47):
working for girls. So what about school? Fox school? I read?
I read everything I was reading, you know, Aristotle when
I was very baby. I mean I read a lot.
And that's what when I went schools, everything, kicker, guard,
you name it, I would read it because I had
to stay there in the vacation. The vacation everybody you

(15:08):
know went home. Okay, so your father he did have
money before he went yeah, yeah, And so you're saying
it's a tradition in the movie that when you're born
they put away money for boarding school. Could you tell
us a little bit more about what's exactly what happened
the trustees of the de Barer State for every child,

(15:30):
you know, the the oldest child, the only child, they
had to I went to the schools he went to, Yeah,
Clamant Preparatory School and Repton in Derbyshire. Derbyshire was Wuthering Heights,
you know. I mean it was literally that foggy, smuggy, damp, depressing,
melodramatic gray clouds, which was completely the opposite to the

(15:53):
sequence of the beautiful girls that I've been raised by.
So it was you know, it's like some glam rock Maldlie,
you know, I mean it was Disney. So let's play
out your father's story. So it was in the opium.
Then how does he go to jail? And how does
he lose all his money? Embezzlement? He went into into

(16:13):
there because he a brilliant guy, and he embezzled an
awful lot of money and they busted him and where
he went for ten twelve years. So you're in boarding
school with the aristocracy. What's your experience? Hypocrites, privileged? Very

(16:35):
very interesting that we are now exploring these concepts in
the United States. But then the white aristocratic upper class
because of the landowners and the and the slaves essentially.
And I despised it because I was thirteen fourteen and
I heard Sonny with Williams said and that whole oppression

(16:56):
of the blues, and it fitted perfectly into where my
head was at. It was. It was a horrible experience,
but I detached myself, Bob, I detached myself. It was
almost like somebody else was living and it was just information.
I didn't get emotional about it. Okay, a couple of things, though,
I grew up in the melting pot suburbs, and I

(17:17):
went to college where forty of the people were from
prep school and irrelevant of their identity, what had taught
me was how to interact with those people exactly. So
I believe there must have been lessons you were taught,
however difficult it was to learn them that put you
ahead of a lot of the average people. Absolutely. I
mean I was my own teacher in a way, you know.

(17:39):
I would observe, you know, Christian medicine thing is, you know, observed,
don't judge. So I could see these dreadful things going on.
But I could also see a great discipline and a
great wit from the British, you know, and a charm.
All of those things I cupped and I included in
my own personality. So I learned a tremendous amount on

(18:00):
the from the hipocritical stance of these British aristocrats, because honestly,
they were titans of industry. There were royal you know,
royals in the presidents of other countries. Children. It was
a really it's a living in bel air, I would imagine.
So any of these people ever track you down after
the fact. Yeah, as soon as I hit the you know,

(18:20):
the screen. It was like, oh hello, I God, remember me.
I'm Gilbert. Remember Gilbert. I was the goalkeeper and he
was marvelous and fuck off. Okay, so there was money
for boarding school. Was there also money for university? Assuming
you went? No, no, just for boarding school? Sixteen? I quit,
I got out, I ran away. That was it. I

(18:42):
didn't go back. I went to London and I what
happened was I went to London to stay with a
friend of mine who I had met um god knows how,
but she was an actress and she said you should
go to drama school. UM, and I did. I went.
I got five hundred bucks. I did a commercial. Pounds

(19:04):
I got. I did a commercial. Somehow an agent, Hazel Malone,
got me this commercial. I had five hundred pounds. I
gave the school a hundred pounds for the you know,
and I did a monologue, a Hamlet monologue, and they
let me in and I got a scholarship and it
all fell into place. I started to play punks on
BBC television. Um, and then you know too, so with

(19:25):
love came. I was only seventeen. Okay, so how exactly
did you get that part? Well, Columbia pictures. You know,
some executives came to our drama school and we all
were there, and we all got up there and did
our speech on monologue, you know, and they picked about
eight kids out of the drama school class that I
was in, and away we went to Pinewood Studios and

(19:46):
three months with Sydney Porte, you know, with Sean Connery
doing ductor No in the next sence, it's crazy. Okay,
that movie becomes a big success, both the movie and
the titles song. Does that go to your head? It
went below my waist? That goes to another topic. Okay,

(20:09):
even if this late, you're quite the dashing gentleman, and
certainly when one looks at your pictures from that era,
you are a very attractive man. Hey were you aware
of that be? Did it pay dividends? See? Did you
use it to your advantage? Yes? To the latter. The
currency was beauty. Cheekbones are terribly important in anti biography. Um,

(20:38):
you know, look, it's all about seduction, the whole thing.
You think Julie Christie didn't seduce directors, you know when
I was Julie Christie or Terry Stam maybe you know,
I mean, I knew the physical beauty at that time,
because England was becoming that, you know, the d Andrew
and the velvet and this polka dot on the sidewalks

(20:58):
and Chelsea and King's Road and kind of be straight
in the Beatles and the Stones cetera. That was my
life and I wanted to be as gorgeous as narav
and as you know and saying like Mody waters. Okay,
now the Beatles broken sixty four in America really the
end of sixty two and sixty three in the UK.

(21:19):
To what degree were the Beatles big? And were you
influenced by them? What were you influenced by in that
ror their hair, but the air was the here and
the colonless jackets cannot be underestimated. No, I'm not underestimating them.
I'm telling you symbolically. That's what changed my life, was there? Okay?
Just so when there were you a big music fan

(21:39):
before the Beatles, huge the blues at school, this guy,
Steve Thompson, I remember his name. He said, listen to this.
I said, who is it is? John Lee Hooker. I said,
I know a lot about hookers, but you know, so
he plays is to me and boom boom, boom boom,
you know one Chorter so that this is the greatest
thing I've ever heard. It really got me, you know,
absolutely excited, and I took that with me to London.

(22:00):
Now at the same time, so is Ronnie Wood and
Keith and everybody else and Keith Ralph from the other
so on and off with you know, all about that
um and it caught me. Man. It was like an absolute,
you know, fever of music once to say with love
thing happened. I went to every club every night, Terry read, Georgie, Fame,

(22:20):
Chris follow you name it every night and met them,
you know. And I went to school with Mitch Mitchell.
So Mitch Mitchell says, what's sort of a line of
Ken Scott's House waiting for the bathroom with Mitch Mitchell,
So funny. Yeah, I mean, but this guy, he was
the sweetest guy. And we're in dramas, you know, really

(22:41):
sweet guy. And he says to me and Michael, I've
got this Skodish black guy and he's like really good.
He's like left handed and he's playing the market tonight.
You want to come down there. And I went down there.
My life changed like everybody else, and the first two Roses,
Pete Townsend and back. You know that story. I'm sure
Platon your listeners to clap, and everybody was there, every

(23:01):
single guitar player was in that front row. And the
next day they all got perms. Okay, at what point
do you you're an actor, at what point do you
decide my avenue is music? Well, the rhythm and the
lifestyle of being in rock and roll was so much
more attractive than going into repertory theater and doing much

(23:22):
to do about nothing. I wanted to do much, do
about a lot. I wanted to go to America. I
wanted to sleep with you know, the you know, the
Liberty woman. You know. I was just obsessed on an
Elvis level, because Elvis was the guy for me, you know.
And I just couldn't leave this guy with I makeup
and you know, in the fifty whatever it was, and

(23:43):
singer jail last right, Oh my god, I gotta get it.
And then with the androgen a of Brian and Anita
and all that whole thing was just too seductive to me.
And I had this girl, Wendy, my first wife, who
we looked very the same, the same hair, saying cloes,
and we would cause such a thing at parties. You know,
we'd make out, we'd make love. I mean it was

(24:05):
very in front of me, you know, the audience. And
I've done that ever since. Okay, so you're infatuated with
the scene in the music. When do you pick up
a guitar and say, I have to learn this, I
have to learn how to play. I did a nude
musical in London called The Dirties Show in Town, and

(24:27):
I played an androgynous rock star called Rose. And Andrew
Lloyd Webber came to it. He was doing Jesus Christ
Superstar with Tim you know, and I sang at demos
and he said that's good. He said, you've got any songs?
And I said, oh sounds sorry for a hundred socks.
I didn't have any songs. I was always playing guitar.
And he said, come to my apartment and perhaps you

(24:49):
can entertain us rock roll music. Because he was an
aristocratic guy, so I could easily fit into that, you know,
genre vibe that Jay and I went home and I wrote, uncle,
will you finance my rock and roll band? And he did, okay,
Andrew Lloyd Webber himself financed your band. Well, he got
me with Deep Purple Records. He got me a record deal, okay,

(25:12):
just a little bit slower. Prior to that evening at
Andrew Lloyd Webber's how long had you been playing the guitar?
Three weeks? Okay? And you go and you play, there's
no band, no, and what is Deep Purple Records? Deep
Purple Regors? Was was was Purples Records. The band Deep

(25:35):
Purple Purple have their own label, and they had their
own you know that, Yeah, they had their own label. Um.
And Ian Gillen had sung for Andrew on the on
the Jesus Christ Superstar exactly, so I'd sung with demos
so and you sang the demos for Jesus Great Superstar. Yeah.

(25:56):
After him seeing me in this this new musical, Andrew
and Tim Tim took my band. But that's another story.
So I get this vibe by saying for him, I
had no idea. I thought a p A was a
personal assistant. I had no clue about how this whole
band thing worked. But he put me with Purple Records
and they were great to me. Johan Collector, and Tony

(26:19):
Edwards and Ian Gillen, you know, and Deep Purple thought
I was cool and we put a band together to
put a note in them in the Melody Maker. Looking
for erotic musicians is how I worried it. And they
showed out, and I took the first four skinny guys
in the way we went silver Head. Okay, you kind
of pooh pooh Silverhead in the movie, but there are

(26:42):
some significant Silverhead fans. Oh yeah, I I you know,
I don't really pooh pooh the band. I really feel
that the band could have gone a lot further if
I hadn't been so messed up on cocaine. That's really
was the negative. The band was fantastic. I mean we
had nights that were we were the best band in

(27:04):
the world. And I think that's true of any musicians
that are listening to There's Any band is capable of
being the best band in the world on any given night.
I believe that to be true, and we were sometimes,
but I was distracted. Okay, how did your love affair
with cocaine begin? I consider the beginning of my coke

(27:24):
Habit was as important to me as the airring that
Keith Richard's wore. Very significant. Yeah, it was to you.
It is because you you understand the symbols rather well.
But it was de rigur to be the thinnest and
the most stoned person in the room. And that's what

(27:46):
I did, and that's what I was. Unfortunately, it doesn't,
you know, go so well with people that are living
with you and working with you and composing with you
and producing with you. Because I was late for everything.
I didn't show up all of that bullsh it, all
of that sort of just obvious rock and roll stuff,
which is I despise, you know, because you're wasting people's

(28:06):
time and lives. But I beginning it was like anything.
It was fantastic, and me, my Wendy, my girlfriend, my wife. Subsequently,
UM were you know, monkeys on coke and it was
it was got out of hand. Anything that owned me
was I thought was dreadful. In the last two years,

(28:27):
I was only getting high for seven years. The last
two years were hopelessly uncool, you know, with Led Zeppelin
and that whole dark period of zeven which I was
part of. UM and then I in one I go
stop it. I looked in the mirror. I think vanity
got me sober. Okay, but let's go back to the
initial days. Cocaine is not cheap, and you're living this

(28:50):
peripatetic career lifestyle. Is money just never an issue. There's
always enough money coming in. I could get anything for free,
literally the nature of being prominent. These people give you
things for free. But did you also ask for things

(29:12):
at four am on the third day? You know? I mean,
but I never, I never really had to do that.
It clothes where we lived always provided by very wealthy
people that wanted to be around rock and roll, you know,
I mean we were toys, we were prop stars. Has
that okay? And now you get off drugs in due

(29:38):
how did you get off it? I stopped? Um, Danny Goldbergy,
I'm sure you know who is my dearest friend. I've
got further to his children. And I met it through
Zeppelin and he realized I was getting just out of
control because he was with me through the Zeppelin years.
And um, he said, my my dear friend, Paul Fishkin.

(29:59):
Do you know Paul fit Chikin. I've met Paul. He's
a beautiful man to this day, on every day of
my birthday, as it were, you know, bright egg, I
speak to Paul, beautiful man again. And he was with
Stevie Nicks and he wasn't using coke and he wore shades,
and I thought, this is for me, and he took
me through a meeting and I just stopped. There was

(30:21):
no rehabit that time. I mean I was a pariah
on a rock and roll level pop you know, I
was a leper. Okay, so you stop overnight, but you
you do go to meetings? Oh god, I went to
two meetings for the first ten years a day. I mean,
I would you still go to meetings today? I do not.

(30:42):
I can stop about twenty years ago. I consider my
radio programs meetings. Okay. Do you ever feel the desire
for substances? No? Never, absolutely not. The only substance I
want is you know, love and honestly and romance. But
any buddy who has been had a love affair with

(31:02):
drugs or alcohol, even if you can physically stop, mentally,
it's very difficult. For no other reason. You don't have
this in your life. And what are you gonna do
with all this time? Substitute something? Your substitute? Do you
that guitar, that song, that role? You know I would
have worked constantly in my whole life. I mean, look
at my AMDB it you know it's massive. It's a

(31:25):
hundred and fifty years of American television and forty movies
and twenty albums. You know, So I worked that. Then
the drug became how can I be every second involved
in something spectacular? And it worked? I mean I happened.
So how did silver Head end badly? I? You know,

(31:49):
we were in London. We've done you know, massive to us.
I think we toured constantly to the Native shows a
year for two or three years. I was just exhausted
and skinny and strong out. And you know, I've met
miss Pamela, and I was already married to somebody else.
To Wendy's I've alluded to earlier and America. So I

(32:11):
wanted to leave the band and go to America. And
so you literally pulled the pull the ripcord yourself. I did.
The band were hired by the record company in the management,
and you know, they were on salary, and you know,
I was the guy, and I just said, I just
can't do this anymore because I wasn't used to. You know,

(32:31):
there's two albums made and we could have done a third,
and that could have been huge, but I didn't know
anything about that. I was an extremist. I dealt with
it right then and said, I don't want to do this.
I want to go to America. Prior to going to America,
you marry Wendy, your long term girlfriend. How do you

(32:53):
decide to uh tie the knot? I think out of
a question on uh of giving her the name. We
were together seven years and she said in the documentary
she's passed away since then, God bless her. I think
it was giving her that, you know, that marquise. You know,

(33:15):
she became a marquis. She was always obsessed with being
a marquis, which is a feminine part of a marquis.
And I think, you know, subconsciously, I was doing it
in order to give her that name. Okay, how do
you break it to her very shortly after you're married
that your in love with someone else and you want
to get divorced? And to what degree did that affect

(33:37):
her life? Thereafter? She became a professor emeritis of science
and wrote five books, so she did pretty good. Immediately
of me leaving, she had an affair with you know
who I do. It is amazing, you know, you know,
even then and so she was cool, I mean, she
was very cool. It was all cool, It's okay, you know,

(33:59):
all right, So he met Miss Pamela, the queen of
the group. Is great, go do that, and I'm going
to do this. And did she ever get married and
have children? Yes? Okay, so she lived a full life. Yes, okay,
So tell us how you meet Miss Pamela or the
g T. Well, I'm in New York and there's a movie.
You know, I was with the Warho Vibe and and

(34:21):
there was a movie being made and Keith Moon was
going to play this role in this movie, which Ms
Pamela was in. So they, you know, Keith went missing,
what a shark, And they were looking for a rock
and roll guy. So it was in town and I
think it was Wayne Forte, you know Wayne for I
heard from him today. Wow, Well I love this guy.

(34:41):
He's a pretty good friend. Fucking love him. But so
he's an agent. Yeah at that time, really represent Bowie,
a million other everybody. He was. He put me in
the power station. Um. But so he says, okay, get
this one, the mean mean empty big and they did it,
and I went and made this movie. And I remember

(35:02):
I've been up for two or three days this year,
as you and I walked on that set and Betty
Grabel was standing with her back to me. She was
in a sort of forties swimsuit, and I just felt it,
you know. She turned around and I fell in love
and I was with it for the next twelve years. Okay,

(35:25):
you know, just talking about her for a second, what
do we know? She would be a self described groupie
who Frank Zappa usher to a recording career with the
other women girls together outrageously. But when you met her,
what was the what was going on in her life?
Because she sounded like you know, it's a great question.

(35:46):
She symbolized America to me, but she was America to me. Say,
I was schooled on the movies and the music. So
she was this absolute beaming human, you know, with with
a smile. You've seen That's why you've seen the photoguess,
the g t O s. I mean, they were amazing.
Zappa had got hold of them and made a record

(36:08):
that Rod was on and Lowell, George and you name it.
So she had and I adored the resume. You know,
to me, pet they can Okay, you know a lot
of times people get involved with musicians for not only
the status, but the money and to be taking care
of Did she have a pot to pisson at that time?
Oh no, shoot, shoot, lived by making Jimmy Page cowboy shirts,

(36:33):
you know, which really meant, you know, thousand dollars for
their shirts. You know. Graham. She was a big, big
friend of Graham's and they just existed, these girls, and
they did a couple of gigs and Frank put them
on salary, you know. Um. And and she hung around
with Jim Morrison and Mick Jagger and you know she
was oult him on with mecha, I mean, and all

(36:53):
of these things made sense to me in the great
puzzle that I was trying to piece together, that she
was very much a part of that, you know, just
just mythologically, as well as the sexiest woman I ever met. Yeah,
in the Betty Gravel sweet suit. Okay, this beg This
begs the question you were just recently married, which she

(37:13):
involved with someone when you met Huh, Bob, that's a
therapist question. Um no, no, no, no, that wasn't the
scenario at all. We we left, you know, we we
we agreed that to part. It was very very pure.

(37:34):
We love it to this day. My wife now, Brenda A. Doors.
They did door each other, and it was it was
pretty soulful, the whole thing because I was sober, you know. Okay,
so you do this little movie, then you go back
to the UK, right right, I go back on the road,
you know. And she goes to l A and she

(37:55):
was going out with Whale and Jenny's at the time.
I said, going out whatever the phrase would be, um,
and I you know, I was doing a week at
the Whiskey Go Go in a month. So when I
got to l A. I called her up. I said,
you know, can we get together? She said, no, we can't.
So I knew her best friend. I told her his friend,

(38:16):
I'm going to stand on top of the Hightt House,
the Riot House, and I'm going to jump off the
fucking roof unless she comes over. And so the girlfriend
tells Miss Matter that she said, I'm coming over, and
she said, but I'll go see him tomorrow. She came
over that morning and we were together ever since. I okay,

(38:43):
you were obviously smitten from when we were making the movie.
When she walked in the door at the Highatt House.
What does it take to close her? That's so genius, Um,
we think the same. We have the same feelings both
above and below waste, we love the king, and we
just great man. There was this rock and roll kind

(39:06):
of blood in our veins, and they eventually her blood
was in my veins and my blood was in her veins,
and we wore leverskin. Okay, now it's after that that
you've decided you're done and you're gonna move to l A. Yeah.
I mean I arrived in LA with two hundred dollars
and a head dry, and your plan, other than being

(39:29):
with miss Pamela, was conquer the world, but but a
little bit more granular. But I knew that, you know,
I would be taken care of. See the thing is, Bob,
this life of mine, I have expected to be looked
after um and cared for. I've expected it, I've had it.

(39:51):
I knew there was something about it that was seductive
and fun, and I was always good and cool, and I,
you know, I to see her parents. I was in
a fur coat of silver jump suit. I had but
a sudden cup but here, but a suddain cup but there,
and I walked in and they Her father was a
stage Republican working at bud Wise, and her mother was
just from Kentucky and nice woman, and I just loved

(40:15):
them both so much. Yeah, their parents, and I fell
in love with the whole family, and I just sleep,
did they fall in love with you? Right? He loved
me right away? He loved me, and he was a
Republican racist, and you know, you just nod your head
at appropriate moments, you know, and uh and and and
seduced the family. What comes first when you're in l

(40:38):
a acting or music music, Because what happened was this
massive coat dealer I met, and mr Family immediately got
a soap opera in New York. She went up to
New York's. I couldn't drive. I didn't have any money,
I didn't even know how to pay bills, you know,
and this coat sort of took me under his wing,

(41:00):
as there were and I lived with him in Benedict Canyon.
I couldn't drive in all of that, so I was
kind of stuck. But he introduced me to Michael Monarch.
Michael Monarch was the guitar player and Steppenwolf when he
was seventeen, and he was great, and he said, well,

(41:20):
let's put a pan together, you know. So we did,
and already quickly the coke dealer paid for rehearsals, paid us,
you know, a monthly salary, and we just created some
songs and we played a couple of gigs and Jimmy
came to town. Um you know, the Seven came to
down there, all in Malibu, all in houses next to

(41:43):
each other, not talking, and I was the conduit between
them and UH and they came down to s I
R To watch us play and Jimmy said, you know
you want to be on the label. I said, okay,
how did you know Lad's up one? Well, Silver Had
is you know, a tough band that a lot of
people in music musos as they say, you don't really like.

(42:05):
So we're in a club in Birmingham one night and
we're playing. It was a great show. There's eleven people
in the club. Four of them will led Zeppelin because
were they there. Bonzo had a farm ten minutes from
the club and they all have to be rehearsing. That's how.
And BP Fallon, the legendary BP Fallon, who you may

(42:26):
or may not have heard of, is a brilliant sort
of Yoda rock figure at the side of Bonno and
plants and a lot of it. Mark Bonn and they
took us back to the farm after the gig, and
we stayed there for three days and nights, and you
can imagine um that we sort of got it together.
Plus Jimmy had already been with Ms Pamelas, so there
were connections all over the place. Okay, how do you

(42:48):
decide on the name detective? I originally wanted to call
it defective, but I was turned It had a sort
of searching forties Humphrey Bogot feel to it that I've
always thought was very rocking around. I thought bo got
was you know, the ship, you know, and he had

(43:09):
that that lighting, that black and white lighting always appealed
to me, and I always thought it was just so
powerful to be a private eye, to be a detective,
to search, to find, to conquer, to suss it out,
to to you know, put the dupths together. In all
of that, it just sent to me powerful and sexy. Okay,
So led Zeppeland has this amazing success. They formed swan song.

(43:33):
Danny Goldberg, their pr person, runs it in the US
first album out Monster Bad Company. Yeah, but nothing really
after that. Maggie Bell I think they did a pretty
things record, but you know, it was U Led Zeppelin's label.
Why did it ultimately not work for you? Vanity labels

(43:55):
do not work because Atlantic works. Swan song doesn't work.
When Bonzo owns the fourth of you, you've got a problem, right,
So there was nobody to turn to that, you know.
What had happened was clearly on it, you know, signed
the Zeppelin and gave them a label. And look at

(44:17):
the Stones and label? Did anybody ever become famous on
the Stones label? The Peter Clash record I think was
successful and was the only one, right, but Chris follow
and all the cats you know not didn't happen. Well,
it's the same thing with us. I couldn't get hold
of Jimmy, you know. Jimmy was you know, should we
say um, you know, under the weather. And it was
very difficult to get hold of him. So he was good.

(44:39):
The deal was Jimmy will produce the record. We waited
a year for Jimmy Page. And you give a guy
at twenty four years old a million dollars, what do
you think is going to happen? You know? And I
spent it as it all of those boys, and we
were so strong out and and and confused and just
you know, and I wanted to be married. It's a

(45:00):
come in and do it because I love to be
married and humble Pine. I'm sure you do too. I
think it's one of the grades, and that raw rock
and roll thing. I didn't really want to do the
sort of the butch bonzo Zeppeler thing. I wanted it
to groove a little more. But the band was the band,
and I think we lost because of that year. We

(45:21):
lost the really the heart of it. And were you
were you happy with the two records that came out
Antoine Song? Yes, you know I was. I thought they
were great, as though they were. They sound great, you know,
but they should. They cost a million bucks. I mean
we spent three hunder thousand dollars getting a drum sound Bob.
It was ludicrous, you know, the money and the decadence

(45:45):
of that time. I mean we spent most of that
recording time in the jacuzzi. Yeah, okay, but while you're
doing Detective? How many live dates to Detective? Ultimately? Do
everybody returned with kiss? Imagine her we kiss and playing
to kids dressed as Jane and Paul? You know, I

(46:05):
mean every we played with everyone? You're right? He you
name it, you know, and all of these bands. He's
arena bands and then at night we go play the
clubs and have you know, it would be different, but
it was always secondary. It was never primary, you know,
and that's no good for me. And again to how
did it end? But you know, very badly um and

(46:28):
stupid and lame and you know, shouting, and you know,
we had Tom Dowd come in and there was a
guy called John Cougar at the time and John mellon
camp and he had a song and he had a
love of World job crazy actually had a hit with
and yeah, and I turned it down like a schmuck.

(46:50):
And uh so we broke up, you know, like any band.
These two records that you know, it's sold, but it
didn't sell enough to you know, didn't make a real
dent in the in the luxury car of rock and roll.
And I just quit. I just said that's enough. And
then I plus I saw the Pistols, you know, I

(47:11):
saw the Sucking Pistols in Sarrancisco. I was there and
Steve Jones, you know, I saw the show. I'm in
the hotel there, in the same hotel Steve Jones coming
down the hallway. He goes here, Michael I stole silver album,
So this is a pretty good introduction, right, So then
I thought, okay, now, let's strip this down. Let's forget

(47:34):
the glamour of the seventies and the butch cocaine shop
edges of the you know, the late seventies, and you know,
let's get into this. And I got into that, and
I met Mike Chapman and he signed me as a
solo art and what happened to who produced? What would
happened on Dreamland? Right? Chairman produced my record, you know.

(47:55):
And I was writing with Holly Night. We wrote Obsession
and you know the rest history on that level. You know,
that was number one all over the world. Okay, a
couple of questions. Mike was the hottest. He starts his
own label, not one single thing, hits eight different acts.
Eight acts. I bet I could name them nothing but

(48:19):
Cinema good boy. That's fucking genius, you know. And Device, right,
I don't remember that device was Holly Night. I remember
Holly Knight, but I don't remember the name of the band.
That was the name of the event. But Holly went
under right love as a battle of course, of course,
so he put me with I wrote it. I wrote

(48:39):
the words of a session because I was just getting soap, okay,
a little bit slower. How does obsession? What's the motivation
to write a song? To begin with? This song came
out of the fact that when I was going to
meetings and every other word was obsession. But I made it.
Remember that movie The Collector with Terry Stamp. I did

(49:00):
not see such a beautiful movie. It's about a guy
who wins the lottery and kidnaps the girl of his
dreams and brings it back to the country and state.
So I took that story and put it together with
the word obsession. So now obsession is love, sex, whatever.
But then it was really written about narcotics, and I
just Holly was sober. It is so very played the thing,

(49:21):
and I say, who do you want me to be
here to make you sleep with me? You aren't upset?
Boom there it was ten minutes. Okay. Was it written
for the movie it was in? Or it just placed
in that movie. Danny placed it in it. Danny Gober
was the whatever they call it, you know, the guy
the right So he puts it in this Christopher Atkins

(49:43):
playing a chip and Dale stance, so it Leslie Warren,
who I dare to this day movie not a great
movie song, huge and our guy. I want that for
my band and Emotion and Emotion cuts the song as
massive one. Okay, how come me out of Motion had
the hit and your version, which is superior, was not. Well,
you're very kind to say, no, I thought that back then.

(50:03):
I'm not saying that. I don't know why. I think
because it was a very new wavy vibe, you know,
it was unthreatening. Our version was dark, you know. But
that's why I liked it. Of course, that's why you
bob libs, so, you know, because you understand darkness, but
in fact you shine a light in the darkness. But
I I just love the fact that working with Holly,

(50:26):
because when you were with somebody that precise and that
clever and that melodic and that's sort of smart and spiritual,
you come up with good stuff, you know, and we
did and it was divine. I'd love it. Listen twenty
seven countries it was number one. That's okay. That begs
the question. Since you had a deal with Dreamland, who

(50:47):
owned the publishing Mike, so he spent all this money
on records, did you ever get paid on obsession. Obsession
has bought houses for two lives. Okay. So if there's
a hundred percent of the song, fifty of it is
Holly's of your hundred percent, which is fifty percent of

(51:09):
the song, how much do you have? Three million dollars?
Not a different question? What percent of the song do
you own? Well? You get okay, Mike gets fifty. We
got fifty. We cut it up. It's still made me millions. Wow.
So i'd been okay since then, I'd been okay. Yeah,

(51:30):
well yeah, so does it still rain any coin? Oh
my god? Yes. You get the Spanish version, you get
the reggae version, you get the Flamenco you name it.
Man who just cut it? Um karen O, just cut it? Okay.
There are a lot of people, uh in our demo

(51:52):
who sell the rights. Would you ever sell? Stupid? Don't
do that. I agree with you totally. But that's why
I'm asked keep it. I kept everything, and you know,
and I make it. You know I do good. Okay.
Just to go one step further, if you remember, was
your publishing interest cross collateral lives on your record deal? Uh?

(52:14):
It was not because you know my Nikki chin right,
chen is Chairman's Yeah, Chitty Chap didn't write a word,
was on all the song. Yeah. So Nikki Cher was
a good friend of Peter Graham. Why British gangsterism, They
were both gangsters. Peter Grant drove you know, Don Arden

(52:39):
around don't hard and was the Crate Twins guy Don
Harden held Stevie married out the fucking window for the publishing,
if you want to talk about publishing. So I was
hip to all of that. I knew Nikki. In fact,
Peter wins Evan spent up. Peter said fun Kim fuck them,
you know. And Nikki Chi was the only guy that
could tell Peter say, look I want to I want
to have my and and and he gave me, you know,

(53:04):
he gave me. Can you imagine that gave me to
Nikky chin Man. That's the head of a story, you know.
And Mike was great. It was just a brilliant producer.
I did a solo record with him, you know, and
it was fantastic. It didn't sell that, As you said,
a dream then was a nightmare. Okay, since you know
some of these characters, to what degree was Peter Grant

(53:27):
responsible for Lad's upland success. I think he was responsible
for guiding an incredible band. I mean, if you listen
to that first record, that first record is the key
record in terms of hard rock and roll, and it's
dynamic and it's absolutely so. You're in office, you know,
you know full well the impact that Jimmy Page's production

(53:51):
was on the fucl lived Stairway Heaven from that of
the band and all of these silly excuses, and it
was about the first album. Yeah, absolutely, the first album
is what I'm talking about. The first album changed things. Now,
Peter took this said right, Okay, no middleman, no promoters,
fuck off merchandising. You better fucking put that t shirt

(54:12):
down your bustard. You've seen it in the movies. It
was that's who he was. He was this gypsy pirate
captain who loved and I'm not exaggerated the word loved
Jimmy Page. There was his son. I mean, he would
have and I've seen him, you know, I love I
was part of that tribe for a little bit, man,
you know, and it was exciting beyond belief because it

(54:33):
was so violent and it was so dramatic. Okay, now
you have continued to create Jimmy Page, once past his
peak in a couple of four days in the eighties,
has not. Why do you think that is? When you
reach the stratosphere, you want to stay there. So therefore,

(54:56):
every time you go out and try and do something,
you're active that your modus overanda is to be as
good as you were. It's impossible, so you find that out,
but you still do it. Now that creates a storm
and drang in your psyche, and I think that's what happened.
But what Jimmy did was not do that for these

(55:18):
last ten years. What he did was he turned to
the library and recreated these records and that's I think
were exactly what he should have done. The beautiful photograph books.
You know, I have the deepest respect for Jimmy Page.
You know, both as an artist and as a man.
He became sober. Okay, and it ends with dream Land.

(55:41):
Then you have checkered past. How does that come together? Well,
it came together quite quickly in that um. You know,
I was working with Chairman. That didn't work, but I'm
still with Nigel Harrison. So I thought, well, Nigel, let's
put some band together. I'm only human and the album

(56:01):
that I made with Mike was a hit in England.
We went to England, we played a few shows. I
was really really stoned. Um this is came back to
New York and I was living in New York and
Nigel lived there. So we got Frank Infancie from the
original Blunde, Nigel and Jonesy. Jonesy was in New York,

(56:21):
strung out, broke, post pistols. Malcolm took all the money,
fucked up claim the greatest drummer in the world, you know,
for me was available. We did one gig at the
Peppermint Lounge. We and all the punks that they're packed
because of Jonesy and the vibe you know, Blondie and

(56:41):
all of a sudden, so we opened with Vacation by
the go goes okay, you know, I know Jaffe Valentine
that that's her in emotion obsession. So how did you
decide to open with the gage because they pissed him
off because it was bulls and it was like the
perfect lace my idea. Yeah, oh, we have but one

(57:02):
say vacation to get away and the punks going and
and but by the middle of the song and Steve
is like kicking as and claims going wild. It was perfect.
It was like some subad or Dully three good rock
and roll pistols meets Belinda carlyle Man. It was. It

(57:23):
was just so arty, you know that they kids just
went nuts and the band went. Okay. So we go
to l A and we got another guitar with Tony
sales from Tim Machine, Soupy's son, in fact, junior rehearsals.
When we got stuck, we get Tony to get Soupy
on the line and make us laugh so we could
carry almost from and again that's what happened. And you know,

(57:46):
Tony was genius, so beautiful looking, and it was a
great rock band, great live album sucked. Yeah, okay, so
you've had four record deals. Oh yeah. In the in
the movie you say that Danny Goldbrook says your time

(58:06):
is up. What are you thinking? I disagreed any and
I'm going to prove it to you. But but but
what happened was my acting career, you know, and the other,
of course, the other thing that happened was a little
band called power Station. You know, because what happened was
in eighty four something. Obsession was over everywhere. I'm in

(58:29):
Texas with Don Johnson and he's making a movie. And
you know, we're all become such big buds with Don
Johnson because I met him in seventy two snorting coke
in Hempstead. That's how in London, and I known him
for years, way before Sunarly Crockett. So we I go
to this you like this. I go to Marshall, Texas.

(58:50):
He was shooting The Long Hot Summer, which is the
pot Neman movie. And we're in marshal to Ava Gardner.
Ava Gardner walked in one day with the with the
white towel and a buttle of vodka. Fa tastic. So
I get a call from Wayne. Wayne says, what are
you doing this summer? I said, I man joined the
luxury being number one all over the world. What you're doing?
And he's this, this is a band that needs a singer.

(59:12):
I said, what bad? He said, I can't tell you.
I said, oh, I'm mysterious. Okay, will you come to
New York and meet this band? And I said, if
you send a limo for me in and you know,
and I'm at the car Alyisle. Yes, he does all
those things. I arrived JFK get in the car, go
straight to the office up to seventy for Wayne Forte

(59:33):
and John Taylor and Tony Thompson are sitting there looking
extraordinarily enoughous. They have a six month to a book.
There's hundreds of millions at dollars Bob and I go,
oh ship Man, okay, so this band is number one,
something like a hard Indeed, they take me to the studio.
They take off Palmer's vocals. I get on the concorde.

(59:55):
I fly to London right away, no sleep, to meet
Andy Taylor, who really ran that band. So Andy comes
in eight hours late, billowing marijuana smoke, two bodyguards. I'm
in the control room. You know your dirty street and
Yeoma girl, get it home bag. You go okay, press
the button, but let's go shopping. We go shopping. I

(01:00:19):
go to Vivian Westwood. I get twenty dollars worth of clothes.
I get back on the concorde. I got to New York.
I get to New York at the Carlist Dons in town.
We decided to go to she was to have dinner.
The phone rings. I pick up the phone. You're out,
You're out, I said, can I keep it close? And

(01:00:42):
they said no. So they're only boxes and the thing,
so that I thought this is very simple, Like I
kind of casually looked over, you know, like oh yeah.
And and so we go to dinner. You love this
where in a restaurant she was Mamber, she was in
New York was and we're having this, you know what,

(01:01:04):
wonderful meal and I'm sobbing. And who who looks in
the restaurant John Taylor. John Taylor walks at the restaurant,
six tables away. Don Johnson goes over to the table
and says, John garo were we even Can you come
outsand the sidewalk and you can talk to you? And
John says, well, yeah, all right? And how they go.
He comes back to the table ten minutes later. I

(01:01:26):
don't ask him what went down at all. I don't
even talk about it is too depressed. Go back to
the hotel. Seven am. The phone ranks, You're back in
What how come? Because Danny Goldberg had gone to Palmer's
people said give me more of the merch, give him
more the fucking merch and MTB and boom phone call

(01:01:52):
we need you at noon. Simple as that, well a
little bit slower. Why did they not want you? No?
They didn't want me because Palma dropped in again. He
Palmer dropped him again. It was a device. Ah, it
was all scared. I think. So I'll leave it to
your listeners right to figure it out. But I mean, right,

(01:02:16):
you know, I'm there, I'm sucking in New York, ready
to rock. I'm skinny, I'm Leana, I can sing my
ass off, and why would you know? So that's why,
you know. And they knew also they only had ten songs,
and they knew that I came with a bunch of songs,
you know. And so the live thing was all about
the life. There was so much money involved and live aid.

(01:02:38):
So Palmer said very cleverly, and I respected and I
love him and I loved him ten years before we
got hide together. I loved his Ben Vinegar Joe, you
remember that band, He'll keeper Brooks, loved his word Marvin Gay, gorgeous, brilliant,
and and I dropped in and noon there I was.
And as I go to a story of studios in
New York, they say, well, you know, there is big

(01:03:00):
gig in four days. It's kind of a big concert.
I said, what's that? I said, live age. I said,
that's a big concept. Okay, you know, and I remember
that moment, you know, because a lot of people say, well, Michael,
when you terrified about that? And they asked, It's absolutely not.
I was made for moments like that. And I sang

(01:03:24):
and I rehearsed, and I learned everything, every note, every
syllable of Robert Palmer. I sort of did effect simile
of it, but not really, you know, because I sing
in a Steve Mary arrange and he's sort of down here,
had that good jug and I'm way above that. So
we did. We rehearsed, and we did live age. Okay,
and you go on tour, you have this great success.

(01:03:46):
Why does the power station not sustained? Oh, because it's
so coked out that the kids, you know, I was
thirty something and John and Andy were twenty two years old,
and they were top of the the Beatles. I've never
a scene anything like that. I've played with a lot
about yeah, and a lot of audiences, but I have
never seen that tsunami of sweat and topless teenagers, twenty

(01:04:12):
thousand girls screaming their asses off. In fact, the first
gig that I did, I walked out in the middle
and I felt like child and motherfucking Heston as Moses
when the Red Sea parts, because they all went over
to John's side, they all went over to Andy's left
with this big trough, you know. But that was I
didn't worry about that stuff. The one time I got

(01:04:34):
upset was one guy, and I was very wicked about this.
But one guy comes up with the Robert Palmer album
in the front. Always one guy, and that's the guy,
you know, obsessed about it, you know, but not me,
not me. I kicked him in the face with my capizios,

(01:04:57):
which probably didn't hurt very much because only way like
ninety two pounds at the time. But he yeah, he
got what he deserved. And and then once I didn't
really hit him, you know, but what happened was the
girls around him jumped him and started to scratch his
face and it was so fulliny, you know. And that

(01:05:17):
was one of the very first gigs. And John and
Andy were over looking and looking at me, what has happened?
Amazing episodes, but that was one of them. But the
live and experience by Bill Graham, who was a monster
on anybody's determination, would you agree, well, he was fantastical.

(01:05:39):
The finances worked for him. Shall we say he introduced
acts and music to you know, hundreds of thousands of people.
The problem was he was a monster while he was
doing it. You know. What happened to us was we
came on to do the thing and Andy's amper blown
up and Bill Graham was reaching, I mean really screaming

(01:06:03):
at us. I smiled my way through. You can look
at the thing on YouTube, but I'm just grinning from faith,
you know, because nothing was going to get in my way.
And then we get the right amp and Bill Graham,
you know, you'll never eat lunch in this town again,
you know, and uh, you know, God bless you, but
get out of my way. And I just sang ten

(01:06:24):
minutes and it was beautiful and enjoyed every fucking minute
on me. Okay, when power station comes to a close,
where does that leave you? Emotionally leaves me in a
white Rose RoCE driving to Paramount Studios to audition for mcgever.
That's how did that? How did that? Opportunity wright? My agent?

(01:06:45):
My agent called me said they want an assassin for
one episode. You want to go up to Vancouver and
make Tim Grant? I said yeah, and I go, okay, Well,
well how did you get an acting agent? Um, well,
everybody wanted me at that time because I spent there
was five months, six months making relationships. I got tickets

(01:07:06):
for people in different cities. When I played New York,
I got people at the Ritz, you know, a surprise gig,
and I made relationships with agents and publicists. I knew
I had to think of something to do after this.
When I came to l A, I had a lot
of people come and see me free. I got the tickets,
got them at Lamin at the leamits simply said get

(01:07:27):
it off. Yeah, because I would hand them out to girls.
But that's another story. So they all come in. So
I've made relationships book, I'm not an idiot, and they
you know, an agent, said Articia, And uh. The first
gig that they you know that the auditioned for was
to play Murdoch on mc ivor, which went down very well,

(01:07:48):
and I did it for the next five years and
other As you referenced, Drulier IMDb credits are very long.
How did all these other opportunities come as a result
of agent relationship or your work on a diver? Both
the agents? Would you know? Because I became the dere
Goo rock star. So I did that everywhere, Rockford Files,

(01:08:10):
just shoot me, you know all of it. I played,
you know, rock and rollsters forever. But then I started
to get this high cheekbone Jeremy Iron's bad guy English cheek.
But you know what I mean that that you didn't
mind being type cast? I love the cast. Who cares?
Who gets what the type is? Baby? You know, I
just want to be cast. Okay, So how does it
end with Miss Pamela? Well, you know, horrible Nick was

(01:08:33):
twelve just breaks my heart even to this day. You know,
we we were good friends, and she's good friends with
Britt and my wife, and but it was very, very painful.
But I had to do it. I had to become
a singular human being for a while and not depend
on everybody. That's what the real trip is. You know,

(01:08:54):
permitted everything for me. You know, I never never, as
I said before, and I say it with any sense
of pride or you know, any of that stuff. I
just couldn't work the system, and I had to learn
I couldn't drive a car. My son had a few
psychological issues, and we put him in a beautiful place

(01:09:17):
to work stuff out, and it was way way way
from me, and I learned to drive in order to
see him and be with him, and I started to
grow up. And that's what happened, and that's what I
learned from my time with Miss Pamela. And she knew that,
she knew that I had to break away to become,

(01:09:40):
you know, a man. Then how did she take it? Badly? Weeping?
You know? So long did it take her to get
over it? If she ever got over it? Nobody ever
gets over leaving me, Bob. I don't think anybody gets
over no matter even if they're not you. You have
to make it more difficult. Now, I've always stayed in

(01:10:01):
touch with people. I don't just drop the thing, you know.
I always try, you know, with everyone to ease it.
I've never been wicked about it, you know, I just
have a short attention spa. Okay, So how do you
end up poking up with little Stephen and getting your
radio show check it past? Supported Stephen with those five

(01:10:23):
out you know, those five incredible holms you made, and
I think it was the second one, and were supporting
him and I got to know him and I just
fell in love with his commitment, as everybody does. Because
this guy is the most important guy to me in
my life, and I dore him, you know. And what

(01:10:44):
happened was I had an internet interview show and I
was interviewing Marianna Williamson and Maureen van z and his
beautiful wife saw it. Andrew Lou Goldham, who was the
DJ at Little Stephen's undergand Garage, as you might recall,
brilliant man, love him. Um, you know, I had to

(01:11:06):
leave for various personal reasons, and Stevie was stuck with
Who's going to be the morning Daja in New York
and Maureen I had seen this thing and said, you know,
whispered in Steven's he get him, you know, And he did.
And I've been there almost seven years. Wow. And it
continues that long because because I'm really good at it.

(01:11:30):
What makes you so good? Because I give context? That's
a good answering. I have no response to that. Okay,
how much acting or how much interest in acting do
you have? At this point? They pay me a fortune
to do the reboot of mc ivor a couple of
times this season, but right now that's moot. You know.
I've been working on the two things. One a book

(01:11:51):
of poetry, two, The Sadest, which is a musical about Desode. Okay,
so in this long career, what did you learn? Be kind,
be cool, be courageous? And now that you've lived through
you know, there's a There was the Elvis period and
then of course the Beatles started the British invasion and

(01:12:14):
blew up the business. All this sixty years of music history,
maybe seventy years. What's your perspective on it now? Is
supposed to living through it? Oh wow, but come on, man,
that's fantastic. My perspective on music now is very much
buried in the in the in the past and bringing
that into the present. These songs that I play on

(01:12:35):
this radio station, Stephen did the playlist for our mantras,
and I treat them as such. I believe that, you know,
you keep me hanging on from Vanilla Fudge uh Reinterpreting
the superin is a fantastic thing. I love the temptationous,
I love about his writing. I left generally hook up,
but I also love Turned Resident and you know, and

(01:12:55):
Jack White and you know, we play that and we
play new baths. We have interduced used a thousand new
bands on Little Steven's underground gross since its inception, and
you know, do play this music and giving this music,
you know, two people as a gift rather than taking
you know, the crown and the gold records and stuff.
Do I listen to contemporary music, Yes, of course I do.

(01:13:20):
I love it. I'm a huge Billy Ilish man obviously,
and lyrically. I think that, you know, black songs matter,
you know what I mean. I mean the rap world
is absolutely incredible dialogue from them, so I'm very fascinated
by that. But you must remember that I'm doing a

(01:13:42):
three hour a day radio program. Yeah, you know, you
work your ass off. I don't even know how you
do it. I don't know how you watch Netflix so much.
You do so much work as I do. You know,
I'm always working and that's the way I live my life.
But I don't really spend much time on current music.
I really just as ocup otis redding, you know, and
and give it back to the people. Okay, I'm Little

(01:14:04):
Steven's underground garage. He picks the songs that you play. Yes,
his playlist is static. Every now and then new songs
will come in. He has a label called Wicked Cool Records,
so he has new bands on that and and certainly
some bands that have you know, other bands and they
create you know, clamors in a thousand bands, you know

(01:14:26):
clamb and he puts out this extraordinary rock and soul music. Um,
he's got signed a new artist called Jesse Wagner. So
we play new music. You know. I just did a ballad,
made a ballad Adamantic in the UK, which which Stephen produced,
which we used an orchestra with that song because of
what's going on, um to quote Marvin Kay. So there

(01:14:48):
is a contemporized action. But the playlist is very biblical
and very clear. Okay, Now you made these records for
Wicked Cool Records. Uh, that's a fun experience and there's
a certain amount of exposure through your friends and the
radio station. Is there any personal plan to try to

(01:15:09):
make that bigger? Well? I the monetization of the songs
that I've written a incredible because it sounds exchange, which
I'm sure you're aware of it and you listen as
you know, that is a thing that gives you the
money from satellite you know, another internet play. Yeah, and
I make a lot because I've done a lot of
songs for Stephen, you know, and yet another reason to

(01:15:32):
love him right now. In the movie, you also say
I always ask to some creative people because uh, like
the A C. D C song A long way to
the top. Most of them been ripped off and underpaid.
But you say, you have enough money to get to
the end, get stopped today. No, I have that a
long time. You know, I've got my ass out over

(01:15:54):
the is. And you know, I wonder if he has
an American television that means somewhere you're gonna see me
as a major? Do you as a rock and roor
as an assassin in Sweden? You know, if I get
three dollars, but those three dollars mount up and uh,
you know, residuous royalties, all of these things. My incredible
radio experience. You know, I have five million listeners every

(01:16:17):
day and they buy things from me. And for you know,
I'm an imposition, having for quite some time to not work. Yeah,
but then what would you do with yourself? Exactly? And
you finally married your girlfriend? What was the motivation there?
She wanted to be married and I wanted to marry her.
It was at the winter solstice I proposed to the

(01:16:38):
hunted in Hartford. It was spectacular, but because she wanted
to get married on the winter solstice, the only place
and that day that was open was a facility in Compton.
So we go to Compton. It's brilliant black a woman

(01:17:00):
married us and the witness was a young back girl
and it was one of the most unbelievable. Nobody there
nobody that, no celebrities, no nothing. Don Johnson wasn't my
best man. Gabriel Burn did not give a bouquet to
my wife, none of that. And I could have done
all of that bollocks, but I thought, let's do this,
Let's just do this together. Then we went to an

(01:17:22):
English tea restaurant owned by Edmund, who wore a green
velvet jacket with slightly ripped on the show. But you know,
it gave us the worst sandwiches ever, you know, with
a crust cutter. But it was a beautiful day. And
I'm so proud to be married to my wife. And
we're a great team, especially now where we've got to
be on a good team. Oh absolutely, in isolation. Thanks

(01:17:45):
so much for telling your story to my audience. I
know you have a lot of fuel left in the tank.
This has been great to have you, Michael. Thanks so much, Bob.
I've been looking forward to it tremendously. I love everything
you do, I read everything's and for the most practically Okay,
on that note, till next time. This is Bob leftsas