MicK Jones

That's right, Mr. Foreigner, who also co-produced Van Halen's "5150," Billy Joel's "Storm Front," and more. Hear how Mick struck gold with French superstar Johnny Hallyday and then conspired to create the chart-topping rock band whose songs are indelibly imprinted upon our brains.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bobble Left Sets podcast.
Truly a treat to have my guest today, Bick Jones, producer, songwriter,
Mr Foreigner Mick So glad to have you. Hey, good
to be here, Bob. Okay, how did you end up
producing Van Halen? Did I do that? Yes? Okay, yeah,

(00:30):
unforgettable by the way, But really I believe it was
sort of put together by John Kalodner. Of course you've
been familiar with him, of course, of course, but Kladner
at the time was working a Geffen. Oh that Sammy
Hagar was with Jeff. Yeah, so I go a long

(00:54):
way back with Sammy to the days when he was
in a bank called Montrose of course, Ronnie Montrose. And
how did you know him then? Because I we toured
with him. I was in a band called Spooky Tooth
of course. Uh. And I came to the States basically
around seventy three, seventy four. I've been before, but to

(01:18):
to settle down here right way. And I remember on
the drive up to the studio he said, Mike, he said,
you and I have been through some pretty wild times,
you know, they said, but not like this. He said
to get ready, and that was his kind of warning

(01:41):
that I was about to enter into this different kind
of world. It was it as different as he built it. Um,
not really, but you know, I've had I've had quite
a lot of experience in the in studios, you know,
so I was kind of ready for anything. And it

(02:03):
was just I mean, they they had their their repertoire
down the songs really, so when you went in there,
they had all the songs. Um. Yeah, there were a
couple of a couple of like dream dreams, and I
worked very intensely with Sammy on that. Vocal performances are

(02:26):
my sort of specialty. I can get seemed to be
able to get the best out of people and okay,
a couple of things. So was it a clotner? Of
course Sammy was on Geffen, whose literal idea was to
get you involved. Um. Well, I think Sammy was something
to do with it. Um. I can't recall having an

(02:50):
explanation for it, but it was I think, Um, he
felt that I was a good choice as far as
you know, um, the vocal performances on the songs, and
he I believed in me, I guess as as Okay, well,

(03:11):
I guess Ted Templeman had done the David Lee Roth records.
This was the first record with Sammy Hagar, so it
was a whole new thing. So what was it like?
How much input did they let you have? Um? Pretty much,
I could say what I wanted. I wasn't restricted or
intimidated by anything. Um, it was for me. It was

(03:35):
branching out the first kind of major project I've done
outside of a foreigner, you know. And there was you know,
they had just gone through the departure of David Lee Roth,
so there was an air about it that said, we're

(03:55):
going to show him kind of thing, you know, and
and I picked up on that. Uh. And I've I've
met David before, you know, and always got on quite
well with him. But uh, Sammy had to fill We'll

(04:16):
not fill those shoes. But it had to be you know,
pretty rock into you know, to do that first album
with him, and I settled in pretty quickly. Again. Um,
there was an engineer, Don Landy, who had done most

(04:37):
of their hed, done all the engineering with Ted Templement
and so I was I realized what I a little
bit about what I was, what I was getting into,
you know, And there was a little animosity there because
they hadn't they were breaking away from Ted, and I

(04:58):
believe Don Landy was sort of assumed that he was
going to take over the mantel. So that was a
tricky little period. But ah, as the project went on,
I think we started to develop a respect for each
other and we ended up being the best of friends.

(05:20):
Wonderful engineer. I was so happy to work with him.
You know, he did some classic stuff and he knew
what he was doing, and you know, it was very
much an analog type album in the studio up at Eddie's,
and uh, it was it was I'd say, I heard

(05:49):
about their father. I don't want to go too much
into the family roots, and he came up to the
studio one day and the brothers were kind of fooling
around and it turned into a bit more than that,
and their father was kind of geeing them on to

(06:15):
kind of fetified with each other and kind of like
cheering them on and say get him and all that
kind of stuff. Really yeah, I mean he seemed to
be a perfectly nice guy, you know, I know he
was apparently a good musician too. You know, my favorite

(06:35):
song on that album and you may not have stories
about every song is best of both worlds with the dynamics.
Can he tell us anything about that? Um well? Actually,
one of my main thing areas I thought could be
improved upon was the drum sound, which I had to

(06:57):
be careful because I didn't want to change it right,
but I wanted to get a better sound that would
kind of a nucleus for the others to the playoff.
Slightly different approach, you know, I you know, not to
concentrate on the on the drums, but they are the

(07:17):
foundation of everything, and I felt that I could bring
something a little bit extra in that department. And but
working with Alex, it was it was an experience. You know,
he's a fun, crazy guy really, and I hear he's

(07:41):
doing well these days, you know. You know, I know Eddie,
I don't know Alex, but I know that Alex is
really more of the business guy. I hear he's doing
pretty well, but I I don't encounter him. Yeah, but
were you talking about making the drums differently or having
him played differently, No, not play differently, more more of
sound wise, you know, And was he amenable to that

(08:03):
or was he like, hey, don't mess with me. Um Well,
he didn't hear it, you know, completed until the album
was almost complete and the mixing was that was really
the moment of truth and he said what he said,
drum sounded great, man, Okay, thanks okay, And uh, what's

(08:31):
your favorite foreigner song? Mm hmm, Well it sounds corny,
but it feels like the first time was the one
that started it out. You know. It was the first
song I wrote for for for a band which I
didn't know anything about, and I when I kind of

(08:54):
put the band together, I still didn't know what we
were gonna do. Were we gonna do it as you
know where We're gonna form a band that was respectable
and good and could maybe sell a few, you know, records,
And so that was very uh that that I was

(09:18):
listening to an album that Lou had done with a
bank called Black Sheep back then, and I was listening
to the little demo I Don't Have feels like the
first time, and I suddenly heard the band. The instrumental

(09:40):
track was through you know, channeling him somehow, and I thought, well,
he might be the voice that I'm looking for. Okay,
so he wasn't in the band when you've written the song,
no well, all I remember is I remember hearing that
song on the red This is you know, people talk

(10:00):
about certain things, one about hearing a record in a radio,
record record in a record store and then buying I
had that happened once with Genesis, Wind and Wathering in
terms of hearing a song on the radio and literally
driving to the record store buying the album because I
had to hear it over the mead. It only happened

(10:20):
with me once, and it was feels like the first time,
the first one. I mean I remember where I bought it.
I'm music honesty and will sure, but it's now a uh,
you know, workout equipment store. But I literally was up
on the wall. I had to buy it. And at
that point the only people we knew were, you know,
the people who ended up not being in the band
after a period of time, so it was all new.
But the sound of that record, I had a good

(10:42):
stereo at that particular time, you could crank it up
on the j b LS. You know, I was just unbelievable.
I mean this type of did you know it would
explode like that? Well? I had an experience. Um I
was doing an interview with Scott Muni and um, he said,
I'm driving over the tribe of Bridge and I hear

(11:06):
this song a man, he said, that's music to roll
the window down and floor it. And and there was
a there's a big hit on the Tom Toms in
the beginning, and it takes the signal at a radio
station and it disappears for five seconds ten seconds. But

(11:29):
you know, it sounded good, sounded great, and just that
moment with Scott, you know, was like, wow, this must
have could this be something? You know? And up till
then I figured we try and put a band together
that wasn't comprised of of journeymen, you know. It was

(11:55):
three young Americans, pretty green, and then of course Ian
McDonald and Denniss Eliot who did have experience, you know,
and and then Lou and then we were off to
the races. Okay, let's go back to the beginning. You're
from where in the UK? I was born in the

(12:17):
West Country. Are you familiar with Let's put this way,
I'm familiar, probably a little bit more than most Americans,
but that is not much an Americans. We only focus
on America, so give us some reference points. It's in
the West Country, the kind of the toe down there
right underneath Wales. Yeah, so what what would what town

(12:38):
was this? Uh? Where I where I was born was Glastonbury,
Glastonbury where they at the festival. And then where were
you raised? I was raised in moved several times and
I was raised basically in South London sorry, which is

(13:00):
a a county kind of about ten miles from the
center of London. Um. I later found out that Eric
Clapton came from town five miles away from me, which
I didn't know about at the time. I had a band.

(13:24):
I had a little band. But what we did do
was open for the stones a few times. It was
a place called the Wooden Bridge. It was a pub,
I mean, but the stones before they were the Stones okay,
the wooden Bridge. And that was in Surrey. In Surry, Okay,
what was that? Did you say, oh, this biond has

(13:44):
got a future and to say, oh, they're never going
to make it. Well, the band that I had was
it was kind of a bluesy band with a bit
of R and B. It was called hog Snort Rupert.
I didn't come over that name, but good musicians and

(14:06):
you know, gradually started to feel that hopefully I wasn't
just going to do a regular job. You know, I
was how were the stones that night? Those two nights
they were They were sensational. Long John Bouldry was was
in the on the bill. Really, yeah, that's quite a bill. Okay.
So you grow up, let's you know. And how many

(14:28):
kids in the family? Now there are seven? Now the
kids in your family in English? Just my brother? Does
your brother older or younger? Younger? And where's he today?
He is in New York. He lives actually he lives
in Miami. Okay. And you became a musician. What did
he do? Um? He he was a great guitar player,

(14:51):
but I don't know what it was. I couldn't quite
get him out of his shell. He was. He loved music,
you know, he had a great taste in music. Used
to turn me onto things that I hadn't heard. And
very very cool guy working with me on the road

(15:13):
quite a lot. And so I up until the age
of eleven, I was an only child. Oh he's eleven
years younger. So what'd your father do for a living?
He was a what he'd call now a but not

(15:34):
public relations um. A guy that would interview people for
jobs HR, human relations, human resource and what did he
do that for what kind of company? The company that's
supplied England during the wars with food and beverage, anything

(15:59):
to do with that area. So it was renowned for
its tea. It was the worst teas worth tea in England.
What was the brand name, Oh gosh, back then it
may have been PG chips or something. It was home brewed,
I think really, and it was my you know, just undrinkable.

(16:22):
So you're we're sort of a middle class family, I
would say, sort of yeah, okay, and you grow up.
Parents have a lot of involvement in your life where
you're running around the streets doing whatever. Um. Yeah, to
a certain extent, Uh, I lived in this little hamlet,
you know, five miles from Glastonbury, so it was really

(16:46):
steeped in history where you know, I lived in a
little village that was you know, years old, and it
was it was pretty desolate. It was you know, on Sunday,
I was in the choir so we did that and
then um, the rest of the day. It's kind of

(17:10):
foggy for me what I used to do. But um,
there will be nobody in the streets and I'd be
walking around and saying when am I going to get
out of here? And I used to go and see
my more of you know, my family. They lived in Hampshire,
which is down south too, and we used to have

(17:34):
all our celebrations Christmas and everything down there with the
big family. And I used to I used to get
so down and we had to get in that car
and drive back to you know, this little place in
the middle of nowhere. And did your parents play music
in the home. My father was a pianist and he

(18:01):
he loved he loved jazz, right. He was a huge
Errol Garner fan, so he used to hear a lot
of that in the in the house. Um. Otherwise, Um,
they were, they were very musical. They were music fans.

(18:22):
But Dad had a secret inkling that he wanted to
sort of try, and he had a friend who was
a professional musician. Um, and I think he he would
have taken that shot, you know, if it was just him.
But he'd just come back from the war and there

(18:45):
was a lot to do to get a life back
together at that point. What did he do during the war,
same thing, but he was then he joined the Marines,
which is kind of like the American Marines a bit
tough guys. Yeah, usually they're out there getting killed easily frontline.

(19:06):
Did he see action? Yeah. Do you think that affected
his life thereafter PTSD that kind of stuff, Yeah, I
think so, I think. Um. I mean he was well
respected within our family. He was the best educated. Um.
He wanted them to give us a life that was

(19:31):
comfortable and wanted me to have, you know, a a
good education. So he was he was a wise man,
you know. So he said he was educated. He went
to what you would call university. Um. Yeah, he he

(19:51):
went to university and in a city called Portsmouth. And
how about yourself? No, I skipped that. So what did
he say, the wise man who wanted to provide a
better life for his family. Well, he and my mother
sat me down one night. They'd seen a couple of

(20:14):
gigs I've done with this band. They said, Michael, we
have to Michael. They called, uh, we have to have
a little chat. You know. We know you love this
music and the rock was just coming in, you know
and everything, but we don't feel it's a career that

(20:34):
has very much lifespan to it. And I thought, oh god, no,
they don't believe that I can do it. And I
started to believe. I don't know what, but it I
took a serious hit too, you know, feeling that they

(20:57):
didn't believe in me. But that all changed later. Okay,
So when did you start playing a musical instrument when
I was the first time was probably when I was
about six or seven. My grandparents had a piano um
which I used to play every time I went to

(21:19):
see them, and I just learned what I My father
started me off on anchors away that military background and
the holes of Montezuma right right, because you know I
had I had an EP that was in second grade
that had all four of the military anthem so I

(21:40):
know those pretty well. Yeah, that's funny, um. And I
just you know, I found my way around the piano
a bit, all on the black keys, and that made
that made it easier for me. But I remember, and

(22:01):
I carried on on those black keys all the way
through my my piano career. And I remember when I
was working with Billy Billy Joel, he said, how the
hell do you play cold as ice in those positions
on the black keys? I said, I don't know. That's

(22:24):
just the way I started started, and it stuck, you know,
what was it like working with Billy Um great. I mean,
have a tremendous respect for him. He's consummate musician. He's
um very creative. You know, we got on very I

(22:47):
had a few little confrontrations with him. From were the
confrontations about um, just a couple of songs um what
became aim We Didn't Start the Fire started out as
a song called Joe Lene, and I thought, just a minute,

(23:08):
I know that song and it was a similar kind
of feel on it, and I felt it. I had
to tell Billy, you know, said I'm scared that this
is going to be controversial and you know, plagiaristic. And
he looked at me and walked out of the room.

(23:32):
And the next thing I know, he's ordered that all
the time Life magazine is from nineteen when he was born,
which was must have been He's a few years younger
than me, I think. And he sat down, set himself
in a room, and came out basically three days later

(23:55):
with all the lyrics too. We Didn't Start the Fire,
which is a chronological order, in chronological order of you know,
the events, major events that happened in the world, And
did you think that was going to be a monster hit?
I knew it was going to be different. He wanted

(24:17):
to rock rock up a bit, you know, he wanted
to let loose a bit, and that was one of
the reasons I think he wanted to work with me,
and also the fact that I was a songwriter too.
He respected what I had done, and again I had

(24:41):
to go into a situation where Phil Ramon had done
all his You know, I knew Phil, So how did
what was Billy's decision not to use Phil? Um It
wasn't really anything to do with me. It was just
a choice. We we met up in a Itsunian restaurant,

(25:05):
just like the song, and we hit it off of me.
We'd we'd seen each other around. You know, I kind
of knew him a little bit, but um, yeah, I
I I got a few um outside musicians to come in.

(25:25):
I think he wanted to break the it's not formula
but the style, just as I said to, you know,
to make it a bit rock rockier. Okay, let's go
back to growing up. So you play on the black keys,
and when do you you ever have any piano lessons?

(25:46):
And when do you pick up the guitar or is
there another instrument in between? Uku lele Uku Lately now
ukul lately, Okay, we're I realized radio was different then
because you have the BBC and there was a limited
amount of stuff, But it wasn't you know skiffle was
big then, was it? Were you always into the popular music? Yeah,

(26:09):
I am. I played a little skiffle band for a while.
Lonnie Donegan songs it was it was actually they were
big here too, Does your chewing gum lose its flavor?
And wonderful hits they had. So how did you learn

(26:30):
how to play the ukulele? My dad taught me. Taught
me three chords and that was it. Immediately he taught
me to play. I remember one of them was Anti sweet,
just walking down the street and it got me and

(26:54):
I learned those chords and I played them over and
over again. I discovered about how the instrument worked, you know,
and that was actually a very important move he made
to give me that and to give me a couple
of lessons, and that was the first time I felt

(27:17):
music really, especially like Buddy Holly Ah, who was my idol.
Completely like a lot of English guitar players. I'm sure
you've interviewed, he was, you know, it was it was

(27:41):
like I'd seen a light, you know, there the awakening
of it. And I went from there to to playing
in a couple of local bands. As I said, you
play the ukulele. You were playing ukulele in those people.
Oh no, No, like a Spanish guitar. Okay. So you

(28:02):
have the ukulele. What's the next guitar you get? It
was a believe it's called a Hofner Senator. Okay. And
you know, I had had a a friend at school
who was a great guitar player. He played with Georgie Fame,

(28:28):
and he kind of took me under his wing a
bit and gave me a few pointers and lessons and stuff.
And he played with Buddy not with Buddy Holly, well
he did, actually, but he played with Jerry Lewis, h

(28:49):
Eddie Cochrane legends. And he used to take me up
to London when a tour was starting so I could
hang out by the bus and see all my idols
getting on the bus. Hey, listen, that's a thrill when
you're that age. Oh man, it's a killer. Okay. So
you had you had the Hofner and then you say

(29:11):
you're playing Spanish guitar in bands? You know, acoustic guitar. Yeah,
at that point it was more rhythm stuff, you know,
because you can't really I you can't really play for
me right on an acoustic It's difficult. But um, so

(29:34):
where were we? Okay, so you're playing in uh, you're
playing you're in high school or whatever the equivalent what
they're calling that in England. You start in the bands
with Spanish guitar. When did you get an electrical um?
Once I had formed a little nucleus of a band,

(29:59):
which was pretty pretty cool little band actually, and I
got a burns which looked a little bit like a
les Paul. Wasn't anywhere near right as good as a spoil,
but it looked good and it was cut away, and

(30:20):
so I the first few months I I I played
with that, and eventually my father bought me a s
G les Paul s G and that was the beginning
of hey, this is this is a ship. You know,

(30:45):
I had the treasure it. My father was playing credit
for it, you know, on credit um. And then with
that guitar another year it started off for me and
I joined a band, a professional band whose name was

(31:09):
Nero and the Gladiators. I don't know whether you're any
I don't think I can remember that one. They made
a name. They were like, um, they made a name
by taking classical pieces like in the Whole of the
Mountain King and playing them instrumentally, and they had like

(31:32):
two number top five hits. Really what year was that?
Oh gosh, it's got to be sixty, probably even earlier.
They had already been a band for a while, so
early sixties. And what did you have for an amplifier? UM?

(31:57):
I I was advised and I met a guy called
Peppe in London who used to convert amps and customize them,
and I got I got one of those. Uh somehow

(32:17):
it did a deal and I ended up with that.
Later in my career, I I ended up blending Steve
Cropper that amp when they were doing the Stacks Motown
Review and Paris, and I was like, wow, Steve Coffee

(32:40):
right exactly. He was one of my early idols too.
And but yeah, and then I bought UM. I've moved
on from that guitar and eventually bought There was a

(33:00):
quite a well known session guitar player in England called
Big Big Jim Sullivan. He used to play on a
lot of BOT records, and and that was his guitar.
Later I got it stolen, but so it was literally
his guitar, the same style. Oh really, what kind of
guitar was it? It was a Gibson Stereo. And how

(33:24):
did you get it? Um? I bought it in a
store in London. Okay, let's go back to school. Are
you a popular guy or you're the loner? What kind
of person were you growing up? I think, well, I
have to say I was pretty popular guy. I got

(33:47):
chosen kind of to represent them, the weaker, you know,
side of my class my year when it came to
fights or put acting them and stuff like that. So
I took a few hits on that that I wasn't well.
My grandfather was a boxer, but um yeah, I was

(34:13):
called upon from time to time just to warm people
to stay away. Okay, so you play with Nero and
the glady Eaters and what's the step after that? Um?
I was with the band for about three months and
gigging with them, wearing Roman right, No, Nero bore the toga? Oh?

(34:39):
Is that what it was? What are the gladi Eaters
were centurion skirts. We had chicks coming up to the
front of the stage. I remember, you know, all looked
trying to look under our skirts, and I kind of
felt kind of weird when I got myself into here.

(35:03):
And but we we were approached to play about a
month tour in France and backing a a very well
known rock singer who we went by the name of

(35:27):
Dick Rivers from one of the Elvis movies. I think
a lot of French artists chose American names. You know,
it's weird. And we set off for France, and before
I knew it, we were touring around France. I loved

(35:50):
it because I that front French was my best subject
at school, and my French teacher would reward his pupils
by merit if they if they had done well in
the class, he would give them copies of a magazine

(36:14):
called Perry Match, probably familiar. And so you're in France
backing up these people with Deary and the Gladiators. Yeah, okay,
but then you end up being in France for a
long time. How does that it come to be? I

(36:34):
was in France for a long time. I was in
France for about seven years. Okay. So meanwhile, you know,
across the channel rock music is going insane. How do
you feel about being in France? Um, it was a

(36:55):
chance ready to kind of grow up, cut my teeth,
you know, kind of thing. Playing in the band wasn't bad.
That was supporting her. We had a few of her
musicians in the band. Um, and that's where I started

(37:17):
to get to experience in the studio. Um. I h
but I'm just trying to recall. It's a long time ago, Bob. Yeah, right,
But you ended up working with Johnny Holliday and writing songs.
How did that all come to be? Um? I had

(37:39):
a partner, his name was Tommy Brown, who had been
the drummer with the Dick Rivers part of it, and
we just somehow started writing together and in French. In French,
well not in French, there was always a translator, yeah,

(37:59):
which was very weird too. Every every hit in America
or England got covered lyrically, and you know, the French
translator would make like more money than the original writers
and the song although he had nothing to do with

(38:21):
it except right the French rics. But yeah, I with
Johnny we started to he kind of I had been
with playing with his wife. What was the wife's name,
Sylvie Batan, and she was the star over there of

(38:48):
the yea Yea. They called it the yea Yea period.
It was time of there were riots in France and
stuff like yuh. And that was that was the introduction

(39:10):
to his wife, who saw me playing a part in
a movie that she was in. She was singing songs
in it and I was playing and her brother, who
was the bandleader, came over to me and said, would
you like to come down and work out with Sylvie

(39:30):
and some songs? And of course I accepted it. It
was because I was like broke, I didn't have anything
I was. I used to spend my afternoons at pinball
in the cafe, you know, and make a Coca cola
last for a couple of hours. And so I jumped

(39:52):
at the opportunity and cut a long story short. I
started to work with Johnny and he also was part
of that group that would sing American rock songs in French. Um.

(40:16):
He was a really exciting front, you know, lead singer.
Was he already Johnny Holiday sort of speak at that point. Yeah,
it was kind of like joining Presley for for France
used to blow me away, you know. His his stage
act was sensational, you know, he was a real rocker

(40:36):
at heart. He swear black, leather and and and a
very powerful voice, not not what we would call a
voice that would appeal so much in America. Why well,
he had a um, a little deformation in what do

(40:59):
they call it in his mouth the palette, I don't know, Yeah,
something to do with the palette. And unfortunately it was
the rs that were difficult for him to pronounce. He'd
seeing it, you know, we were and of course walk

(41:20):
and wall it was a very important term. So he
had trouble with that um. But he he worked very
hard at it, and we started to write Tommy and
I started to write for him. Decided to then that
went into producing his his albums, and before I knew it,

(41:45):
we'd we'd had about five or six top ten records.
And you know, that was like the first time I
had seen money, That's the obvious question. And he kind
of took me under his wing as like a younger brother.

(42:09):
It was, yeah, it was you know, you could could
say his lifestyle was James Dean and and Presley, you know,
so it was kind of like living that little subworld
under that. And how did you come back to the UK? Well,
I figured um. I was doing quite well, and I

(42:33):
remember I was playing golf in a country house in
Normandy where I had ended up renting a house, which
was like unbelievable, and I was starting to get come
a little comfortable financially, and suddenly I felt came over

(42:58):
and sort of felt weird it. What am I doing?
You know, one of my I'm here and I'm getting
quite successful, but I'm not really I'm going to go
very far off, you know, with this, and I want
to you know, really get into a band and and

(43:20):
pursue you know, music that I wanted to do, and
so I you know that part of that was the
writing and everything, and I thought, I can't do this anymore,
you know, I've got to make my way back to
England and start over. And basically that's what I did.

(43:42):
I I was playing in Paris and that night it
was a kind of a bar where musicians used to go,
called the Rock and Roll Circus, and I was introduced

(44:05):
to Gary Wright and to Jimmy Miller, who was a
producer at the time. Did the Stones, did Traffic legendary guy,
But he did the Stones, He did Traffic jen legendary guy.
Oh he He was like kind of sort of an

(44:27):
idol for me. UM and he had worked closely with Gary.
They were actually school friends, and somehow through that introduction
we all got on really well, and Gary asked me
to get in touch with him, and before I knew it,

(44:52):
I was playing with Gary Wright in a band at
that time called Wonder Wheel, which was sort of gary
solo project. Um the and then I joined Spooky Tooth
and that was that became quite an important part of

(45:15):
my They were a pretty soulful band. They were progressive,
but soulful, and they had a groove, you know, they had.
It was a pretty big prestigious move to be chosen
to be in that band, and so it was. It

(45:42):
was a good experience for a couple of years. And
then UM some relationships within the band had not been
healed from when they broke up the first time, and
gradually it's sort of disintegrated and I was left high
and dry in New York, Um basically relying on money

(46:06):
that I was getting still from France. What did everybody
see in France? Like Johnny Holiday when you left? Um,
he was pretty upset. In fact, a few months ago,
I before he passed. Yeah, I had dinner with him

(46:27):
and I kind of asked him. I said, do you
forgive me? And he said, well, I said I didn't
at the time, but I feel like that. I was
pretty upset, but I believe you made the right move. Okay,

(46:48):
there's so many great guitars come out of the UK.
How good guitars were you in that era? Um? I
was a little different, you know. I I had developed
a little bit of a style. UM. I wouldn't rate myself,
as you know, any kind of particularly gifted guitar player.

(47:18):
I played like a combination of rhythm and read. That
was good. I had a good rhythm, but as far
as um you know, being a prodigy or anything like that,
had to leave that to Eddie. Tried to teach me

(47:38):
how to tap? Will you ever get it? Kind of
we ended up like just you know, laughing and fooling around.
It was funny. Okay, so you're high, the beat, spooky
tooth breaks up, You're high and dry. In New York
that was and then um I can't remember how it started,

(48:06):
but I was being managed by Bud Braeger. Okay, I
do Bud. How did you hook up with Bud? Basically? Um?
He Bud was a partner with Gary Kerry first also
passed away. Yeah yeah, unfortunately, and they had both together

(48:31):
managed Mountain and they broke up and somehow Gary ended
up with Phoenix Popularity, and I mean Bud filled it
up with Phelix representing him and then Bud represented them Leslie,

(48:53):
which was a kind of a bizarre sort of way
to end it. Leslie was much friendier, more friendly with Felix,
and he didn't really know how to handle Leslie. Okay,
just so I know, wait I thought, because Bud said
Felix was his best friend when they broke up, kurf first,

(49:15):
and uh that Felix went with kur first, okay, and
Leslie went with Bud. And how did you end up
with Bud? Um? I joined the Leslie westband. Ah, so
who was in the band at the same time, just
really Quirky Lang and the bass player I can't remember

(49:39):
his name, Quirky Lang with all the iterations. Okay, So
then how do you then? Okay, so you joined after
New York, you end up being in the Mountain Band,
and then what's next for you? Well, we we did
an album which wasn't wasn't a bad album, chob was

(50:00):
that it was called the Leslie Westbound. Some decent songs
I wrote or co wrote most of them, and that
was another stepping stone, a bit um and working with
Leslie wants to He's great guitar player. I still admire

(50:21):
him a lot, and so I picked up a few
little things from him. I always, you know, I'm I
am a I like learning. I never feel that I
know it all, you know, I feel that try and

(50:44):
stay humble about it anything. But life became unmanageable with
Leslie at that time, unfortunately, and he was m just
impossible to heal. Whether he was I don't really want

(51:07):
to go into what he was doing, but not good.
And all that started to break down. And one day
we were stuck somewhere in Florida, and what Lessardy would
do would be to take the money from the promoter

(51:28):
and leave us kind of high and dry, and then
he would steer a guitar from the opening act, jump
on a plane and go down to Manny's and sell
it all to support is Trugs. And it became a nightmare.
And I told I confronted Bud one day and I said,

(51:52):
what kind of fucking manager do you think you are
what we've got to do something for for for Leslie,
you know, he's so um. Bud was kind of a
bit miffed at that, and I said, look, if you
you want to be a manager and prove yourself, because

(52:14):
I don't think you have yet, I'll bet you I
can put something together within a year with with your help,
you know, financially helped out. And it became a competition
as to who could be the most successful, will achieve
their dream as it were. It was kind of bizarre

(52:37):
in a way, but it was the motivation. And he said,
you'd better start writing some songs then, you know, And
suddenly I'm on the spot and started writing songs and uh,

(52:59):
basically from there, uh, the song started to come. And
that's where it all kind of took place, the formation
of the band. Felix had had a studio up in

(53:20):
Bud's offices on Broadway, and he had a studio in
there that he used to record um bands, up and
coming bands, or you know, just as a rehearsal space.
And I kind of took that over and Bud was

(53:40):
next door and so every half an hour he bob
his head and yeah, it's a funny relationship. But he
Without him, I don't think I would have had the
motivation and you know, the moment of well, you have

(54:01):
to brood yourself here. And so that little pact we
made became the backbone of our relationship, and the combination
of his experience and mine somehow seemed to gel and

(54:22):
we exchanged you know, um stories, and we'd would be
in the office until ten at night, you know, just
coming and trying to come up with things that would
make this thing a special And so he kind of

(54:50):
how to talk with his wife because we needed money
to put this together, and he kind of talked her
into giving us an initial sum of money, which was
about somewhere like eighty grand at the time, to pay

(55:12):
all the musicians. You know, it wasn't a great big budget,
but and everything happened in that little room. So you
cut the first album in that little rooms, Okay, cut
the demos, so essentially everything from the first album pretty much.

(55:33):
We um. When Lou came down and became integrated into
the picture, I knew that he was a writer too,
and I invited him to participate in the writing too,
and that started our sort of writing relationship and how

(55:54):
did you the rest of the band come together? Um?
Through m kind of word of mouth Um, Ian McDonald
I knew already. I had met Dennis Eady at the
drummer um when I worked a little bit with Ian Hunter,

(56:16):
and to me, he was perfect fit. And then we
had a local guy from New York. He had been
in a sort of an e LP type band and
he was a really good keyboard player and he also

(56:40):
was a writer. He later contributed to a few songs.
Um ah. But that next period, you know, was we
we made the demo. We uh, I had I had

(57:01):
no you know, I had an interesting circle of friends.
I was friendly with Jerry Moss from Yes, we had
an interesting circle of friends. You knew Jerry Moss. Yeah,
that whole sort of stable Jerry Moss and the A

(57:21):
and M Records crew and the left handed trumpet player.
So people used to you don't know, Yeah, and they
had a great thing going at A and M and
that there was a really artist friendly, warm kind of feeling.

(57:46):
You know, you've felt like you were sort of special.
And that's who I sent the first demo too. Unfortunately
Jerry had just left it for the Mediterranean on vacation.
And he never got the package. He told me later

(58:09):
and he said, I really said, I kicked myself. I
would love to have done this with you, and I
would likewise of like to do it with him. Um,
so that was one down Clive Davis. I wanted, for

(58:33):
some reason to test myself because I knew he was
like a song man and I really kind of wanted
his um impression of it. And he said, well, he said,
the only way I can tell you is if you
come up here with their acoustic guitar and play me

(58:54):
some of those songs, I'll give you my opinion. And yeah,
I didn't hear back from now did you sing the songs?
Did losing the songs? No, we didn't. We didn't do it.

(59:15):
Oh yeah, just I was a little bit miffed that
we had to do that. It got my ego a bit,
But later I became you know, I've become very friendly
with Clive over the years and I learned quite a
bit from him. Um. Then we I had always Atlantic

(59:44):
Records had always been my dream label, you know, right
from the first time I heard Ray Charles all that period,
you know, M R and B and H. So we
sent there was a guy called a and R guy
called Jim Delahan at Atlantic who got the the demo

(01:00:11):
tape and kind of threw it in the bin without
listening to it. And then John Colodno got hold of
it somehow and he went bananas. He just he had
just been appointed ahead of publicity, I think, nothing to

(01:00:32):
do with, you know, being a music buff as he was,
and he kind of took it and ran with it
and just motivated the whole company. He'd be on their
ass all the time, you know about champion championing our calls,

(01:00:55):
and he piste a lot of people off me. It
worked and we developed a great relationship eventually with Atlantic,
and you know, it was a great meeting. Armored became
friendly with him, and it was my dream, you know.

(01:01:17):
I remember as a kid, I went to a party
on a weekend. I must have been about fourteen or fifteen,
and one of those parties where you tell your parents
you're gonna three rounded to friends and you're off to
London and hitch hiking and lost it. So you're talking

(01:01:41):
about this party hearing the Atlantic records and I was
over by the record player and I saw this black
and red it was playing. What I say, Ray Charles
and I saw this um spinning around on the record
player and saw those colors, and I saw and then

(01:02:04):
I listened to what was coming out, and I thought, Wow,
that's fucking amazing, and what a what a great company,
you know, what a great roster. You know. By that time,
they had Zeppelin and The Stones, um, both bands who

(01:02:26):
we have eventually ended up setting more than Ah. That
was another crazy I mean, that was crazy times. The
I had worked with Jimmy, you know, in London on sessions,
sessions with Johnny Halliday, John Paul Jones, I'd work with

(01:02:47):
and and of course that history of that pub and
sorry opening for Stones, and and suddenly I'm here with
it's you know, massive figures and rock, you know, and

(01:03:08):
then it kind of became a little surreal at that point.
I remember he ran Rolling Stone Records and Earl I
become friendly with through the label kind of thing. And
he challenged us because our double Vision album came out

(01:03:31):
at the same time as some girls, and so we
had this thing where every Friday or whenever, you know,
the charts came out. Um, he had come over the
studio and I either admit that we'd sold more than
stones or not, and then we'd have to sort of

(01:03:54):
but you're accounting that you're not counting this or you know.
And by was in forwards and we ended up surpassing
the Stones, you know, and that was mind boggling to me,
you know, And although we had some statue already, it

(01:04:15):
was still mind blowing, you know. Okay. So and in
that year, by the way, um Foreigner and Rolling Stones,
it was being talked about that we should unite and
form our own label. That's how much we're Bud was

(01:04:40):
approached by Rupert Lonstein, who you I'm sure you know,
and he approached Bud and said, we'd like to talk
about possibly forming a label with you guys, and what

(01:05:02):
because we had sold more between us than the whole label,
right signed. That's that's so just a little aside. I'd
like to mention that sometimes it didn't happen. Um, I
don't know. I think we we were riding high. Ah,

(01:05:24):
Rupid Loinstein had a bit of a reputation too, And
what was he The reputation was he was a great
business guy for the Stones. But if you're weren't the Stones,
what was his reputation? He's dead too, Yeah, not not
too sparkling. Okay, let's go back to the getting Colodter

(01:05:47):
flipped for it. So how long did it take for
Foreigner to get signed? Um? Probably about three months? And
was it already called Foreigner at that point? Um? The
first name I we had thought of was Trigger, um,

(01:06:09):
and then I realized that Trigger was Roy Rogers Horse
and suddenly I felt Rodgers. There's another Rodgers who's pretty
damn good singer, you know, and Paul Rodgers of course,

(01:06:29):
so I just decided I couldn't go there. And I
can't remember many other names. Actually, tell you the truth,
it was hell finding a name. So when you found
when you just when you come up with Foreigner, did
you say, oh, this is it? Or do you said,
wait for a while, so, well, I can't come up
with something better, so therefore it's Foreigner pretty much. Yeah,

(01:06:54):
the important thing with the albums, you know, and the
recording you know. But Bud told me, you know, face
to face, that he cut the Scottie Brothers in for
a point for the complete career. He did, right. They
were a legendary promotion people. And he was saying that

(01:07:17):
certainly helped in the success of Foreigner, that that was
his major contribution. And you agree that was a good move. Okay,
So you make the first album and then somewhere along
the line the band changes. It's you and Lou, but
everybody else changed. What happened there? Um, are you talking

(01:07:38):
about pre the Forum? Yeah? Yeah, I mean McDonald's no
longer in the band. Well, we were kind of doing
a growing up in public in a way, and Lew
and I were sort of the nucleus of the band

(01:07:59):
as it were, and I felt that we had to
consolidate and really create what would be the sound of
the band and I and I had counted Onto to
be a man of all kinds of instruments, and it

(01:08:26):
didn't sort of pan out that way. And Al Greenwood
it was a great player. And you know, I've I've
often regretted about, you know, why we did that, because

(01:08:47):
it was, I guess part of my desire to to
shape the sound, make it live for a long time,
and create something that would be with acted, you know,
and I needed to hone in on it. And so
I was a bit of a taskmaster at that point.

(01:09:10):
And how did Rick Wills end up being in the band?
Rick I had known from Paris when he was playing
in a club in Paris with with Dave Gilmore and
they were on subsistence levels, you know, playing in a
club in Saint Germains. And I used to go by

(01:09:34):
and give him a little money. That's what I've just
been joining. I took him out for breakfast a lot.
You know. I looked back on it, and I I
have regrets. I wish we could have kept the band
intact as it were. It was really a terrible emotional break. Um.

(01:10:00):
You know, these guys have been part of that first
dream thing and then and then they weren't, you know,
and then um, you know I finally decided to do
that album and eventually produce it with Mutt Lange. Okay, yeah,

(01:10:25):
So how did you decide this is the fourth album
obviously four or four? How did you decide to make
the switch and get Mudd involved? To get who get
Mutt involved? Um? Well, Mutt had already applied for the job, uh,
and we won't be able to work it out with him.

(01:10:46):
So we did an album head Games with Roy Roy
Thomas Baker Well, Roy Baker Thomas, Where's he today? Was
that a good or bad experience? It was kind into good?
It was it was. It was an attempt to go

(01:11:09):
a bit more raw, a bit more street kind of thing. Um.
I don't really know whether it ended up that way,
but I it's a very powerful stage number. And you know, Um,

(01:11:30):
I decided on Matt because he came over to my
place and I wanted to hear every single idea I had,
which normally was like a logo area. You know. It
was very while I was timid, I guess, and he

(01:11:55):
he wouldn't leave until he basically literally heard everything, even
like a ten second clip, and he picked out like
the intro on urgent ding ding ding dinging. Yeah, yeah,
what was that? Was just just a piece line around.

(01:12:15):
It was almost sounded to me like the shadows. And
so we we we had it was a little sticky
at the beginning. We both realized that we were both
highly opinionated and we're used to, you know, getting what

(01:12:37):
we wanted sort of thing. And but over time, over
the first few months, we had a few runnins, you know,
and then suddenly like it did with Tom with Don
Landy and ended up having a quite a healthy aspect

(01:13:00):
for each other. How long did it take to make
for or four nine months? Maybe? A bit more pretty expensive,
although you were a big seller, yes, and what did
but contribute? Um? Well, he was Matt was actually more

(01:13:22):
coming from more of a pop area. You know. It's um.
He was as you probably know, he was like a
session singer in South Africa. Yeah, they used to make
all the records. They would cover the hits in England.
That's really hold his chops um. And you know he

(01:13:44):
he knew his stuff. He'd been been around, he knew
his self. Plus I am actually what was that band
he first been? City Boy? City Boy. That's when that's
the first time he caught my ear. And you know,

(01:14:07):
I knew that he was pretty determined. He was in
good shape. You know, he'd had a couple of years
where he had had a couple of shaky years, but
had come back from that and it was really you know,
on it. Okay, So how did Junior walk around up
being on Urgent? Um. We were in the studio and

(01:14:33):
I was just playing some of the tracks back and
I had it was a very early version of Urgent
And I'm sitting there reading the Village Voice and suddenly
I see bloone Star Cafe, Junior Walker and the old
Stars and I'm listening to the track, which was pretty funky,

(01:14:59):
and I put two and two together and went down
to catch him live. And he had no idea who
but his son I knew who we were, you know,
and he said, Dad, these guys at the top of

(01:15:21):
it charts, they're really great, you know. And he said, well,
all I know is someone want to wake a record here,
you know. And up to that point, believe it or not,
he had never overdubbed anything on any albums or records

(01:15:41):
he made. It was all one take. We ended up
doing ten takes. And we were working with Tom Dalby
Thomas Dolby at the time, and he was an interesting character,

(01:16:03):
had some pretty radical since ideas, you know. I didn't
want to just use a stock kind of since. So
I you know, we we contacted him. He was in Paris,
playing on subway, just singing with who knew him then nobody?

(01:16:27):
Glad you find him. I can't remember. I think we
we looked into who who he was, you know, Mud
had heard about him, so you had Thomas Dolby in yeah,
and uh Junior Walker. So we went out for what
we would do, and we go out for dinner and

(01:16:49):
leave Tom in the studio with an engineer and just
have him just put the tracks down and then sift
through them and you know, come up with slightly different approaches.
And Junior started warming up, you know, and we did

(01:17:13):
a take and it was nothing like Junior Walker used
to play right at all. It was soft and mellow.
So this is my new style. And Matt said, well,
he said, we don't really want the new style. We

(01:17:34):
want we want the real you you know, we want
the stuff, you know, we want the shotgun. Yes, and
he said, oh, you mean all that old ship. Yes, oh,
the old ship. And so he he was she as
I mentioned, he hadn't done before. We overdubbed him and

(01:18:00):
took a bit of getting used to for him. But
we gave him about twelve tracks. We came back and
sifted through them, edited them, and I think it took
two days to really put the final thing together. And
I and I checked it out with a few Sacks

(01:18:22):
players I knew, you know, to see if they spotted
anything not kosher, you know, But it passed the committee
and I think it's probably one of the one of
the best sacks solos on a rock record. I agree there.
I think most people agree now. Thomas Dolby came up

(01:18:44):
with the synth sounds for Waiting for a Girl Like You. Yes,
partly him and partly Ah Well, our keyboard player at
the time of Mayo, who used to work with Frampton
that's right and Larry Fast synergy synergy. Um, he played

(01:19:14):
the chords. Who did that? Donna? Okay? Yeah, okay, So
four and or four comes out? Did you have any
idea it was going to be as big as it was?
I had an inkling when we started to when it
started to come come into shape. Um, I had a feeling.

(01:19:42):
I put so much into it. I put everything I
had into it. It was it was an important album.
It was to sort of confirm that we weren't just
you know, we hadn't just made three albums and that
was the end of everything. He even though it did
come close to the end of okay, so why did
you never work with but again we that didn't happen immediately.

(01:20:11):
That that kind of happened on at a later date
as far as I remember. But the reason was that
we weren't happy about our touring situation. And but it

(01:20:33):
was later it was well, it did not do Waiting
for I want to know what love is? No, I
didn't think so, so how did I I don't want
to know what love is? Comes together? I was in London.
I had an apartment in London and I was living
there with my fiance at the time, and I was

(01:20:57):
working in my little music room mad I had just
bought a simple synth, so I was writing on that
and guitar, and suddenly this line comes into my head
and I'm thinking, I want to know what love is.

(01:21:18):
That's that's weird, that's too. I must have heard that
before somewhere and eventually realized that I hadn't heard that before.
So um it was before Christmas and we released it
in Atlantic. Just desperately wanted to release it, and so

(01:21:41):
we did, and it was sort of a blessing and
a curse in a way. The ramifications of what happened
after that with my relationship with Lou tell us the
story tell us how it was a blessing in Chris

(01:22:04):
obviously huge hit and why did it mess up your
relationship with little Um. Well, the fact was that we
had the last, the second hit on the previous album
and was waiting for gol like so there were two

(01:22:25):
consecutive ballads, and Glue took a little exception to it.
He felt that we were becoming softer, and in a way,
I guess the fact that those two ballads, but which
were huge hits, a kind of could have given the

(01:22:45):
impression that we were going a bit soft. I didn't
think we were. I thought it was just passage of time,
and and so I was kind of taken by surprise
by that. But then it developed into kind of into

(01:23:06):
a rift, which unfortunately started to the band started started
to self destruct. Um. I also think Lou probably felt
he wanted to do his own and he wanted to

(01:23:30):
do an album that he thought I believed that would
show me what he wanted to do. And I heard
the album and it sounded very familiar to me, and

(01:23:50):
I got a little upset about that because, you know,
Lou was the voice of the band and I was
just so you know, I was a musician, and even
though I was sort of the leader of the band,
I had I recalled, you know, the amount of times

(01:24:13):
when the lead singers had left bands and the disaster
it had been, you know, and what it had done
to the band, basically destroyed the band and using whatever
knowledge I had. I I tried to keep him in

(01:24:40):
the band, but I realized after a while that he
had made pretty solid sort of commitment to do this.
And it was a sad time, you know, because the
song had meant so much to so many people, and

(01:25:02):
even today it still does. And I'll never quite good
over that, I don't think, because it's never quite settled.
Whether it has for him, I don't know, okay, but

(01:25:25):
you do these Foreigner then and Now shows where he
is on the bill. So if it's never quite settled,
how did this come back together? Um? It was on
the night of the Rock and Phone, I mean not
the Songwriters Hall of Fame and Lou and I were

(01:25:53):
being inducted that night and things had mellowed out a bit.
I have to say. It wasn't I confrontation or anything
like that. We we did pretty well together, right right.
Did you have any contact with them, Yeah, because they

(01:26:14):
wanted us to play songs becus him and I, I
mean have a prior to that. After he left the band,
he did his solo records for the next fifteen twenty years.
Did you ever connect with them? Yeah? Okay, so you
were somewhat friendly. Yeah, it wasn't it. It was yeah,
that stuff at all, you know, under the bridge, and

(01:26:39):
so there we were. We had to performed together. And
sometime in that day and in the preparation for the show,
it dawned on me, you know, what we had achieved together,
and I think it He got that too, and I said,

(01:27:04):
you know, we did pretty good, pretty fucking good. And
you know, I'll never regret what we've done together, and
it will always be the most important thing in my
life and the gratitude I have for it from whatever

(01:27:26):
it took. You know, we we did it. We we
made it. So is your anger more that he left
or more that you didn't have a chance to make
more hit foreigner albums? Well, it was more disappointment than anger. Um.

(01:27:53):
I tried to We did some auditions for other singers, UM,
which I sort of got a bit excited about and
then realized that maybe it wasn't a great Um. We

(01:28:13):
did some recording the what was that album? Inside Information,
and but that was very much Lue coming in daily
and doing his bit and leaving not really part of

(01:28:34):
that creative process. But um, yeah, I kind of started
to lose hard a bit towards the end of the nineties.
I didn't realize that we were getting gradually getting pushed

(01:28:58):
out a bit band of you know, classic rock band
grunge was coming in the hair bands, stuff that I
didn't really really relate, but gradually I picked up on that,
and that funny enough, that was the time when Bud

(01:29:21):
and I split. And why did you too split? Because
one day, I think it was in Spokane, Washington, we
were playing in a bar and the bar was sort
of at the junction of two roads coming in night,

(01:29:43):
and so there was traffic on both sides of stage
and the shitty little stage where we couldn't really even
set up. I thought, WHOA, what's happening here? You know,
is just we down to this playing little shacks. And

(01:30:04):
actually what was happening was the whole business was changing.
You know, we um and we were categorized as less
than a classic rock band, you know, um whatever. You know,

(01:30:25):
the market was bad, and you know, I didn't know
what to do, and then um, oh the bad thing. Yeah,
I kind of blamed him for it, blamed blamed him,

(01:30:46):
thinking that it was his fault. We were playing in
these ship holes and he said, well, you don't understand
these you know, it's not like it used to be.
And um, I said no, but it's got to be
better than that. And so actually Jason Bonham came up,

(01:31:12):
but he called me along with Phil Carson you probably know,
I guess and said, Mickey said, there's people out there.
They're just dying to hear your music sounding like it
should sound, you know. And gradually I I sort of

(01:31:35):
confidence started to grow and we put this Foreigner Mark
two together and from then on it was a slog
to get us back to some kind of prestige, you know,
some kind of prestigious position. And um, we've the band,

(01:32:03):
this band in its current form, it's been around now
for pretty much twelve years. So we're no longer. We've
fought the fight and we've we're no one right now.
But you don't do every gig right, When do you
decide to work? When I'm in good health and good shape.

(01:32:25):
How how is your health? It's it's pretty good. I
can't complain feeling great right now, just not anything unusual ealthwise.
Several years ago, I did have some heart surgery, but

(01:32:46):
that's all fine, okay. One of my favorite songs is
from the movie Still Crazy, which I love the flame
still burns. Yeah, what is the story there? Well, it's
a it's um, it's really about a. Did you see
the movie? Oh yeah, see the movie multiple times. I'd
love it. But how did it come together that you
wrote the songs for the movie. Well, I had known

(01:33:08):
Brian Gibson, the director, and I also knew here le
Freny and Dick and his partner Dick. And I got
a call from Brian saying I haven't seen him since
we he did the video for I Want to Know

(01:33:30):
What Love Us? And he said yeah, great. Um, he said,
I have a little problem I've got I'm finishing this
um movie I'm directing, and the songs aren't working. And

(01:33:50):
I said, okay, what's the time frame here? And he said, well,
he said, if you could come up with eight songs
in week, that would be good. Yeah. I said, yeah,

(01:34:10):
really would be But we managed to cut it down
to about six. I think I wrote, well, yeah, I
keep going. Um, I mean the film once I started
to see the rushes and it was hilarious, you know,

(01:34:32):
and I love that movie. We've we've done some versions
of frames steel better, I know, but I will Okay,
that's what I because I know you released a version
which I've listened to. Because in America anyway, this movie
soundtrack never came out, so in the Napster era, I
had to download those, okay, and I prefer the version

(01:34:52):
from the movie to the foreigner version. So who is
singing on that one? And did you produce it? The
one from the movie. Um, it's a guy called Jimmy
Nail who was in the movie. So he's singing, yes, okay.
And then who produced thing that went to a number

(01:35:14):
one in England? Oh? Really? Yeah? And who produced it? Um?
I can't remember who it was. So you weren't involved,
not in the mixing, but in the recording. You were
well in in I was working at songs same time
as we were, you know, basically trying to fit with

(01:35:35):
the lyrics right right, right right, because you had such
little time. Okay. Now, your step son is usually successful
in music. How did that come together? Do you learn
anything from you? Yes? Of course he Actually he credits

(01:35:56):
me quite a lot, which I'm you know, very this
is Mark Ronson we're talking. Yeah, yeah, Well, he's always
been a huge music buff and you know, in the
early hip hop days he was he was you know,
completely taken with it, and then he started spinning and

(01:36:23):
then he went into I'm trying to think of the evolution. Yeah,
he had a rock band, so his tastes were in
a way similar to mine, and everything everything's got something
about it. And he's just worked very hard. You know,

(01:36:48):
he's a workaholic, which worries me a bit sometimes. But
you know, he's a great kid, great guy, brother, and
he's just a really special presidency has about him. And

(01:37:10):
he's a sincere obviously very talented and well did you
give him tips either growing up or when he went professional. Well,
he used to come to you know, I had a
studio in the house, so he'd hang out there quite
a bit. Um he came to sessions. Ah, just picked

(01:37:32):
it up that way, I think really And but he
was complete music buff and you know that soul period
in the early late early seventies, that kind of stuff
and the Philly sound. And he's a student. I think

(01:37:56):
The Band is one of his favorite bands. Which band
is the band? The Band? Yes, as I said, Eric
Clapton wanted to join them. Whenever there's a new movie
coming out and Robbie Robertson has a new album. But okay,
you divorced his mother and then years later got remarried.

(01:38:18):
What's up with that? What's up? Indeed? Well, I think
we had we had never fallen out of love. Um.
I think it was I have to take a responsibility

(01:38:38):
for some of it, definitely. Um, I was a little
out of control. I had a bit of a drinking problem. Um,
but I you know, I I've been working on that
for a long time. Do you drink it all? Now?
Have you fallen off the wagon since stopped or consistently?

(01:39:01):
What got you to stop? I just think I realized
I was hurting myself, not just myself, but my kids,
my wife, everybody family. I was that's a different guy,

(01:39:23):
you know this other person that really how long did
that go off for? How long were you a different guy? Well?
I realized I started drinking, you know, when I was six,
of course, right in England beer horrible beer. But then um,
when I went to France, I became you know, evity

(01:39:46):
into wine, you know, rich food. Um, but it was
alcohol pretty much. And m you know, I look back
on it, and I do have to. I've got a
lot of gratitude for everybody that kind of stuck in

(01:40:11):
there and stuck by me and have helped me. And
I've got a relationship, a very good relationship with my children,
and they were at times scared of me and those

(01:40:31):
kind of things. You know, you think I've made them scared?
How the hell did I do that? You know? And
I've done some soul searching and and try and remember
that whenever I do, I can't have a glass of wine.

(01:40:54):
Even so, how did you stop? I went to rehab?
But who convinced you to go to rehab? Finally, at
the end of the day, it was Eric Clapton really
invited me down to cross Roads. Yeah, did he know
that you had a drinking problem where people had told you?
People had told him? And so you go to rehab?

(01:41:15):
How long do you go? For? Month? Month? And when
you come out? Because I stopped drinking myself. This was
before it was cool to not drink at a bar,
and although I didn't slip, it was very hard for
a while not drinking. Like your world life is built

(01:41:35):
around it. So it is. It's a complete readjustment. Okay,
just going back one chapter because I discussed this with Bud.
What's your favorite? I want to know what love is
you're waiting for a girl like you. Um boy, that's
a tricky one. Um M. When you for a girl

(01:42:02):
like you had a very emotional pool on me. It
was I don't know what it was, but it was
a song that I wrote with Luke we basically written
in five minutes. I was playing chords I never played
before what I was doing, but somehow it worked, you know,

(01:42:28):
and it became such an emotional, emotionally charged song for me.
I couldn't even at one point, I couldn't even be
in the control room without losing it. And it had
a mysterious power. Well that's my favorite too, But was

(01:42:52):
but was more into uh, I want to know what
love is? But I used to argue with them, you know,
I had by other reasons in that want to know
what love is a haunting and I don't know more
of a rock field. I mean, I love first of all,
came out first, so I knew it so and an event.
It's been great having you here, Mick. Thanks for telling
us the whole story, okay, and I think you remember

(01:43:15):
quite a lot. So until next time, it's Bob Left
says