Paul Rappaport

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob left Such podcast.
My guest today is full of Rapaport, who has a
new autobiography, Glider's Over Hollywood. Why that title.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
That title came from the editor's suggestion. I was having
trouble coming up with a title for the book all
the years I was writing it, which was like six years.
I just couldn't grab a tight I just couldn't come
up with a title that would capture it. And he said,
you know, let's look inside the book. Maybe you have

(00:45):
something there that already is a title. And he liked
my original chapter. It was called Gliders Over Hollywood. And
he liked it because it connoted, you know, the fun
that we had, you know, back in the day, and
and and in some ways, you know, in an odd way,

(01:06):
all of us in the business were maybe sort of
like Gliders over Hollywood, like you know, dropping our little
promotion bombs or music or whatever. He said, Look, he
just was enamored with it, and he said, I would
love to make this the title of the book, and
then we'll give it a subtitle. So, you know, the
subtitle says Airship's Airplay and the Art of Rock promotion,

(01:27):
maybe you get a better idea of what the book
is about. But he said, look, I really want you
to think about this title. And the more I thought
about it, I really liked it because you know, if
you look at it, you kind of go, huh, what
is that? Like? What is that about? Right? And then
if you look at the book cover, those guys did
an amazing job at that at this company's job on press.
And you know the guy that did the cover, Paul

(01:51):
Palmer Edwards, you know, put an airship coming. It looks
like it's coming over the Hollywood sign. It's perfect. Whole
thing worked out great. I'm pleased as punch, you know.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
Okay, why did you write the book and why did
it take six years to write it?

Speaker 2 (02:10):
I wrote the book because I I loved this time
that yeah, and you were there, Bob. I mean this
time the seventies, the eighties and the rock music business
was the most amazing, incredible, unbelievable, glorious time when it

(02:32):
was like the wild West and there were no rules
and we were making it up as we went along,
and there were all these characters, right, we were all characters.
You're a character, I'm a character. Forget the artist, the
fucking manager. We can we're cursing, right, that's okay, right,
the fucking man. I mean you're talking about a business.
This is business right where Okay? The manager of Journey

(02:56):
big band. Okay, Herbie Herbert. I don't know if you
ever met Herbert. Okay, Okry, I know them, Okay, okay, fine, okay,
gets on a Yiddish kick. You read about it right
in the book. You know he's not even Jewish. He
gets on a Yiddish kick, sends Yiddish for Dummies books
to the whole industry, and says, if you want to
talk to me or they had a famous road manager
still with us, pat Bubba Moro, because if you want

(03:18):
to talk to me or Bubba, you have to speak
a couple of lines of Yiddish. So I get the book.
It's cute, great, fine, I'll never forget this. It's a Thursday. Okay.
I get a call Herbie Herbert, Herbie, how you doing?
Voshmachs too? You know, how are you? He's talking to
me in Yiddish. I'm saying, Herbie, I got the book.
It's cute, it's great, it's Thursday. You and I have
to decide this new single for this Journey record. We're

(03:39):
selling fifty thousand albums a week, and Bob, as you
well know, it's all about momentum and your timely releases
of singles. I have to tell the rock stations one
is coming out. We have to put the single in production.
We're down to a deadline, and I'm telling him we
got to do this now. He keeps talking Yiddish. He
doesn't stop for two minutes. Finally stops and he goes
rap raps my nickname because I'm lost him to rap

(04:01):
aport right, so Rap, What the fuck? A nice Jewish
boy like you ken't learn a couple of lines of Yiddish.
I'm like Hermie, I got it. I got the book.
It's cute, it's great, but this is important. We're selling
fifty thousand homes a week. We're on a deadline. I know.
Learn your Yiddish and call me back. Click ock, Bob.
This is rock and roll business in nineteen eighty five.

(04:22):
I have to get the YIDDI if I want a
Journey single, I have to get a Yiddish book and
learn two lines of fucking Yiddish before I can talk
to him. This is real. This is not made up shit. Okay,
that's just a tip of the iceberg of all this
stuff you and I experienced. And I just somebody. You know,
I'm the guy that got the call. Great. Thanks. Somebody

(04:44):
had to write it, somebody had to capture all of
this because it's totally unbelievable. I don't know if it
could ever happen again. It's this magic time. Uh. And
it took six years because I wanted to get it right.
And look, you're a writer, You're a natural writer. Okay,
I'm not you. I had to learn how to write.

(05:05):
I wrote a blog for ten years for a website.
It was a promotion company that my friend Judy Lebaux owns,
which you probably know her ex Atlantic exec Rights, Yes,
Right Classics d jor So we work together for ten
years and there's a website that goes along with the
promotion we do. And I did a blog called Backstage
Access for ten years. And I learned how to write

(05:28):
in those ten years. And finally when I got to
the end, it was like, I think I'm good enough.
I found my voice. I found a writer's voice. I said,
I think I'm good enough. And the book had been
calling out to me to be written for years because
I love telling stories and I'm a natural at that.
I think I got it from my dad, but I'm

(05:49):
not a natural writer, so I had to learn that craft.
And then, lucky for me, there's a big time ghostwriter
in my town as a list guy, writes for presidents
and you know, movie stars. And he looked over my
shoulder and I would send him stuff and he'd say, hmm,
that's serviceable. And I'd say okay, and then you know,
another year, lext year, I'd send something else. He goes,

(06:10):
this is getting better. Finally, I think by the third year,
he goes, this is actually entertaining and enlightening. He says,
I think you're good to go, but I just wanted
to make it great. And in order to do that
it takes time. Writing is rewriting and rewriting and reworking
and throwing stuff out and putting stuff back in. I

(06:31):
went through four editors that helped me. The last one, well,
the last one was Tom Seabrook from Jobbone, who's like
professional and he got this and he said, you know,
this writing's great. He goes, But they're like producers, right,
He goes, like a producer. Hey, you got fifteen tracks,
let's cut it down to twelve. I'm going to re

(06:51):
sequence your album. And here's a better baseline, like for
this track. Right. So he's like that guy. So he
suggested all these things, and all I could do was say.
All I could do was listen and say thank you, yes,
thank you. Yes. This is not chapter one, this is
the prologue. This is books top heavy. I want to
move some of these chapters around. He goes, hey, look,

(07:13):
it's your book, but this is my suggestion. Okay. I
know from being a professional, I wished some of my
younger bands would have listened to me. But you know,
I'm smart enough to understand this is what this guy
does for a living. And it took a second because
the book was a little different, but I digested it
and I went, oh my god, this guy's made a

(07:35):
good book into a great book. I know I'm the
guy that wrote it, but it doesn't matter who wrote it.
This guy did this, you know, and so, but that's
why it took so long. And you know what, and
you know, Jim McKeon, right, of course, good friend, Look mack. Okay,
turns out the guy's an editor who knew the guy's
been one of my best friends my whole life. I'm
writing this way. He goes, oh, you should work with me.

(07:57):
I'm an editor. I was like, since when he goes, no, no,
I was in Catholic school, I learned from he's not
not at it. See, this guy is an editor, he bob.
This guy worked with me, I mean painstakingly, paragraph by paragraph,
line by line, word by word. You know, it was
like fucking Bruce Springsteen making a record. I mean, the

(08:17):
guy so cerebral. Right, this is what it felt like.
It was like, crap, there's a better word. This is
not the right word. You know, this is not you know,
it's not if you walk Paul McCartney down the street,
it's not a it's not a dangerous crowd. It's it's
going to be a challenging crowd. That's a better word.
So then I'd go ask my wife, Sharon, Max says, challenging,
What do you think? Yes, listen to Mac. You knows
what he's talking about. So it took a long time,

(08:38):
but it's I think. You know. I worked for a
lot of presidents and one of them was Don Einer.
And Don had a lot of wisdom. And he used
to tell artists, new artists who wanted to get their
records out right away. He'd say, listen, I want you
to go back and work on this. I want you
to make it right. Nobody is waiting for your album,

(09:01):
but once it's out, that's it, and you're not going
to have a second chance. And he would tell all
these young artists, you know, you know, nobody's waiting for her.
I'm just wait, wait, and and that was kind of
reverberating in my head, honestly, because I knew that and
I needed it. I needed it to be great. I mean,
I just look, you read my book. I'm competitive, and

(09:23):
I wanted you know what I wanted. This is going
to sound like an ego thing, but I wanted it
to be the best. I wanted to be the best
fucking book you could read about our times. And then
some guy named Bob lefts Sets actually wrote that like,
I was scared to death when you sent me there email,

(09:43):
because you're an opinionated fellow, so you know I was.
I was, I was frightened. And so then I clicked
on it and I read this line, this is the
best book about how it used to be and I
read that three times in a row and then I thought,
I'm done. I can retire now because it's you right,

(10:07):
It's like, it's do people know you?

Speaker 1 (10:10):
Like?

Speaker 2 (10:10):
Do people actually know what a Bob Blust that says?
Do you think your listeners are all the people that
read the letter? Do they know who you are? Or not?

Speaker 1 (10:18):
You know, they think they know who I am?

Speaker 2 (10:20):
But they okay, okay, well, okay, just you know what, Bob,
You're no bullshit guy. I'm not going to play Kate.
I'm not smoking. I'm not I'm not going to blow
smoking up. He's just just for anybody who doesn't know. Okay,
there's the Left Sets Letter. Okay, it's this give and
take you know, online thing. If there wasn't a Left
Sets Letter when our industry went south, as we knew it,

(10:45):
none of us that we're in this giant family would
be communicating with each other. We'd be lost. We'd be
in the fucking desert. But there's a guy, Bob Blust
that's has this Left Sets Letter, and all of a
sudden we can talk to each other, and all of
a sudden, the letter gets even bigger, and now it's
about politics. And now it's about all this stuff and
and and now there's a podcast. You know, I'm one

(11:09):
of your biggest fans, but it's not it's people need
to know, Like how do I say this? I mean,
just like how important you have been for the music industry,
you know, and just in general. You know, God knows
how many people read the Left That's letter now, And
I don't know if everybody listens to this podcast reads it,
but you should read it because there's no nonsense, there's

(11:31):
no bullshit. You say exactly what you want to say,
and you take a lot of heat sometimes, but it's glorious.
That's what you want. I don't I don't want people
pulling punches. Tell me how you feel. You know, you've
been able to make this yourself.

Speaker 1 (11:45):
You know.

Speaker 2 (11:45):
It's like certain artists have the ability to make any
album they want, and and and it's okay, and you've
made that for yourself, so you know, congratulations to you,
and people just know how fucking important you are. If
you don't mind my saying.

Speaker 1 (12:01):
So, well, I'm smiling. This is audio only, I can't
you know. That's as good as it gets. So I'm
not going to respond. I will just say thank you,
continuing with the narrative, since you had to slim things down,

(12:22):
anything worth mentioning that was left on the cutting room floor.

Speaker 2 (12:27):
You know, I don't know if it's worth mentioning or not,
because you don't really know. In my special in my
special thanks, uh, I wrote this, I should actually get
this right. Hang on, give me a second here, crab
one of these things. I still don't believe I'm holding
this thing. Uh. There were three people that help me

(12:51):
in the beginning. So one of them was Bob Wilcox,
who's a you know, one of my colleagues marketing maven
from Columbia. He was like my first Slash and Burn editor,
if you will. So in my thanks to him, I said,
if you wish you could have read about my romantic
world when drug induced five days text marathon with a

(13:13):
renowned La rock DJ. Blame Bob, who ditched the entire
chapter rap nobody cares So.

Speaker 1 (13:22):
I read that?

Speaker 2 (13:23):
He said, So I ditched it?

Speaker 1 (13:27):
Is that a true story?

Speaker 3 (13:29):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (13:30):
I had a whole chapter, and he said, You've got
better things to talk about. Nobody cares about your you know,
five day sex marathon with the rock DJ. So I
ditched it so so I don't stop. First, wait a second,
but wait, wait, But the reason the only reason I
bring it up is because I was doing a podcast
with some guy who was in sense that it wasn't

(13:52):
in there. He goes, well, wait a minute, you can't
leave that out. I said, I'm the guy that wants
to know about that. And then I said, well, I
can't tell you about that because it's bribe. But you know,
so I don't know if anybody else gives a shit
about that. But but you know, look, you can't shoehorn
all the stories you want to tell in thirty plus

(14:16):
years of working for Columbia Records. You can't put it
all in a book. You got to pick and choose.
There's so much, so many more stories, and they're wonderful stories,
but you just you can't put them all in. So yeah,
you know, yeah, you know what, you want a good one.
I'll tell you one that that that I wished I
would have put in. Okay, you know, I'll tell you
one that I wish I would have put in. I'm

(14:39):
pretty easy going guy. I mean, my whole way of
promotion is is just learning people, learning how they think,
you know, trying to to you know, make them understand,
you know, how open their minds to listening to to
new music, you know, and in a certain way. Like
you know, if you have somebody who's who loves the blues,

(15:00):
right and you want to get them to listen to
some music, you don't you just never send anybody like
a file or you know, play somebody a record, what
do you think, because that's you don't really want their opinion,
you know, you're trying to you want the opinion that
you're going to try to shape. So if there's you know,
somebody's into the blues or whatever, you might say, oh, look,
I've got this new artist. Chris Whitley's not right down

(15:22):
the pike rock. But this guy is the real deal.
This guy's playing resonator guitars. This guy is a real
job blues guy. No, So all of a sudden, you know,
this guy already knows you know that he's going to
maybe like this music. Or you are taking somebody to
see a band, or you're just being friends with people
and you're just you know, playing music for people. That's

(15:44):
that's the style of promotion, you know, person that I am.
But sometimes you have to wield a hammer. It's only
a couple of times in my career where I had
to get heavy, and one was during Springsteen's Nebraska record

(16:05):
because it was different and it was sparse. And I
remember specifically, excuse me, because I was taking three radio consultants,
three of the biggest radio consultants. One was in charge
of sixty stations, one was in charge of thirty, one
was in charge of twenty. I was taking them one

(16:27):
was a week. It was like three nights during a
week that I was taking them to Billy Joel's house
because I wanted to introduce them to Billy, because in
their minds they thought Billy was just this balladeer, lightweight guy.
And I got on, this guy's a rocker. You gotta
go see this guy's You need to meet this guy.
So Billy, Billy actually made dinner. He said, I'm going
to make dinner for these three guys. I was like, well,

(16:47):
that's nice of you. It was funny because Billy's part Jewish,
but Billy's all his bands are Italian. Billy likes to
think of himself as Italian, so he would tell me, rap,
I'm gonna make a the pasta like Bill, come on,
But anyway. So he was me. So I figured, this
is great. I'm gonna put him in a limousine. I'm
gonna take him to Lloyd Neck where you know, Lloyd's neckwork,

(17:07):
where where Bill used to live at a nice house.
And you know, it's a long ride and we're in
a dark limousine. I'm going to play in Nebraska. There's like,
there's no better place you could play this music for someone.
And I played it for each of them and they
all said the same thing. As soon as soon they
heard it. They went, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Wa
wall wait a minute, wait a minute. You know, rap rap.

(17:29):
You know this is different. This is we're gonna have.
We're gonna have to like spoon feed this to our listeners.
You know this is not you know, this is not
born in the USA. This is not darkness. This is
something very different. And I and I and I and
I said the same thing to all three of them. Uh,
I said you, I said, you're kidding me, right, I mean, like,
at this point, Bruce Springsteen hasn't hasn't earned your respect

(17:53):
to give him the benefit of the doubt, Like, are
you kidding me? Uh? And they were like, well, well,
you know, oh it's it's very different and I'm not
sure about it, and I'm going to have to spoon
for this. And I said the same thing to all
three of them. I said, look, I'm not going to
make you put it in heavy rotation because I know
that's not real. I said, but you're going to give

(18:16):
this record a good shot, and you're going to let
the people decide. You're going to put this record in
medium rotation at least three times a day. And if
you don't, you're going to lose my phone number. And
that means if you lose my phone number, that means
you're using losing Bob Dylan's phone number, Big Floyd's phone number,
the wronging Stone's phone number, Elvis gos Stella, you name it,
because that's you know, I'm the guy. They need to

(18:38):
give them tickets and promotions and backstage meet and greets.
And all three of them said the same thing. They're
going rap. This isn't like you like, are you going
to hold me up? And I and I said, for
Bruce Brinstein, I will not for everybody, but for this guy.
Right now, in this guy's career, this guy's becoming the

(18:58):
Elvis Presley of our times. He's a exploding Yeah, I'm
gonna hold you up for this guy. And they understood
it and they complied. And that's not in the book,
but it happened, and I didn't write that part of me.
I don't think in the book that heavy handed approach

(19:19):
to It's not I don't like it, uh, but uh,
you know that was a case where I had to
be different.

Speaker 1 (19:34):
Let's go back to herby her Sure Journey is an
offshoot of Santana. The first albums are I don't want
to say prog rock, but they're moving in that direction.
Greg Rawley is the lead singer, who was the original
lead singer in Santana. Then they get Steve Perry and

(19:56):
it turns into a juggernaut. Tell me from the inside side,
what was going on? To what degree was Herbie involved?
To what degree did you guys have to push to
make this? To what degree did you even think it
would be successful?

Speaker 2 (20:12):
There would be no Journey without Herbie Herbert Herbie after
after the I think it was the Caravans or Eye album,
after that band broke up and Herbie was was on
tour as a as a as he was either the
road manager of Santana I believe he was at that time,
or he was way into that camp m m hm.

(20:33):
And he approached Neil and said, I want to build
a band around you. And Neil was like, okay. So
they got Greg Rawley, who you know from the original
Santana band, and they said, let's let's build a band.
And I'm trying to remember who the original players were.
I think I think Prairie Prince from the Tubes might
have been the original drummer. I think Rossvillong was the

(20:54):
original bass player. And he said, I want to build
a band around you. Now the original oh no, it
was prey print but no, it's no. When I met
up with him was Ainsley Dunbar. Ainsley was already the drummer.
But they, you know, and I would call them progressive.
They were progressed. I mean they were progressive rock, if
you want to call it that. I mean, you know,
long jams, and Roley was seeing the vocals like he

(21:15):
did for Santana, and we were doing okay. Uh And
I promoted both those records and we were doing okay,
but the label wasn't quite sure if they wanted to continue,
and Herbie told me this story over lunch before the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Uh lunch when when
when uh? When Journey got inducted, and he said he

(21:35):
went to New York and he wanted to up the
uh they're contracting. They had two albums, they were getting
ready to do a third album and and he was
told they weren't sure they wanted to continue. They had
seen the band and they they I think it was
Bruce Lunvall at the time, was the president and a
guy named Armaanden who was the heead of marketing, and
they said something's missing and at the the and they

(21:58):
they wanted something more, and they suggested to Herbie then
maybe the band needed a frontman, a traditional front person,
traditional front man. And Herbie said, okay, well, let me
listen to what you're saying. And at the time, Arma
was working with a guy I got to come up
with his name, very good singer, you'd know him, and

(22:22):
his name escapes me at the moment, but they were
working with him, and Arma was working with him and suggested,
let's try this guy. And they did for a little
while and that didn't work out. Then they had another
guy and didn't work out, and somebody had given Herbie
a tape of Steve. Steve had been trying to make
it in the industry and he was having a hard time.

(22:42):
He just gave up, so he was he was working
on his I think it's I think it's a step dad.
I'm not mistaken. His dad had a turkey ranch and
Steve was literally shoving turkey shit like and the dad's ranch.
And Herbie heard this and he called and he and
Steve's mom was on the line, and he goes, I

(23:04):
really want to talk to your son, and she said, Nah,
he's done. He's his heart's broken, he's done. He's not
going to do this. Herbie had to beg his mom
to get Steve on the phone, you know. Finally Steve
gets on the phone and Herbie's like, I'm Herbie Herbert,
and you know I've heard your tape. I know you
had a rough time that just would you go with

(23:24):
me on this? Just come, you know, come out to
San Francisco wherever you wanted to come, He said, just,
you know, just just be with me, be with the
band for a little while. You know, you can come
as a guest, you can come to help on the road.
You can come as a sound man whatever you want
and just be part of this. I think there's something here.
I just just please, please please. And so Steve did,

(23:45):
and Steve went with the band on tour. And this
the one lead singer who wasn't was really not getting
along with Herbie. And as the story goes, and again,
this is a story told to me by Herbie. So
you know, in case anybody has any bones to pick this,
you know, Herbie told me the story. The singer that

(24:06):
they had was getting a big ego and it was
just driving Hervey crazy. And finally he just had it
and he told Pat Morow. You know, I don't know
if you ever meet Pat Morrow, Bubba, you ever meet
his famous road manager, said, Bubba got to take this
guy somewhere. I want him to miss soundcheck. He said,
I just just have him miss soundcheck. So Bubba said, fine,

(24:29):
so soundcheck comes, no lead singer. Herbie's you know, looking
at the band and goes, hey, well, you know, Steve
knows all the songs he's been he's been touring with us. Okay,
now here's a little backstory. I got to tell you this. Okay,
Bob left. That's exclusive so okay. Because Herbie liked the
tape so much, he'd sent the cassette to Neil, Sean's

(24:54):
wife at the time. And this is a beautiful story.
He said, Listen, don't play this for me. Ill just
put it on in the background. I just want him
to hear it in the background. Don't even tell him
who it is. Do not say this is a guy.
He just play it. She'd been playing this tape for
Neil's just in the house, right, okay, fast forward back

(25:15):
know the singer. Herbie talks to the band. He goes, look,
Steve's here. You know, he's been traveling with us. He
knows all the songs. Let him just do the soundcheck.
Perry gets up to the sound check. Okay, boss, everybody's mine.
Sean knows it's vaguely familiar. He doesn't know why. He
just know he loves it. He doesn't know why he

(25:35):
loves it, but it's already in his head. You know,
it's like McCartney writing yesterday, Like who wrote this? I
don't know? Well, somebody tell me who wrote this same thing?
So Sean likes it. They like it. Lead singer comes back.
Herbie says, a lot of explatives to him and says,
you're fired. And that's how Steve Ferry got into Journey.

Speaker 1 (25:56):
And not.

Speaker 2 (25:58):
Too long later they you know, I can't remember. I
think it was at the Old Water Off in San Francisco.
And shortly after that they come to La and Herbie
grabs me. He goes, you gotta see this new guy.
You gotta see this new guy. And he goes sitting
next to me, sitting next to me. So you know,
if you know Herbie, he's like amped twenty four to seven, right,

(26:19):
there's thirty seconds of the song. Steve maybe has sung
three notes. Herbie is a big guy, He's a big man. Right.
He shoves me off my seat. Boom rap rap. What
do you think? What do you think? What do you think?
Is Herbie give me a fucking second?

Speaker 1 (26:31):
Man?

Speaker 2 (26:32):
They've only been playing for thirty seconds, right, But I
see it, you see it. It's just is it just is.
It's just one of those things is meant to happen, right,
it just is? And uh, you know, and and the
rest is history. It was the perfect voice for the
perfect band, and with Greg Rawley, who here's another one

(26:55):
that people don't know. Neil Sean used to play like
a thous notes a bar. That was this thing right,
And Greg Raley told him, he said, Neil, nobody cares
how many notes you can play in a bar in music?
Do you want to be remembered as a guitar player?
Play songs within songs, play melodies, playing notes that people

(27:17):
will remember, and then you're going to be meaningful. Okay,
this is Greg talking to Neil, and Neil listened to him.
And that's why you can sing all the Journey solos
right because Neil, you know, serves the song right that
this is this is you know, first of all, Neil
Sean is one of the greatest guitar players on the planet.
And a lot of people don't know what they should

(27:38):
but he's he's never leaves the mother ship or rarely,
but he has solo records. You know, if you want
to hear some great records, get Neil Sean solos. This
guy's an amazing guitar player. But you listen to Greg
and what do you get. You get you get people
that are are working for the same you know, they're
working for the same goal. So now everybody's working to

(27:59):
make great music, great records, great everything. You got the
best players, the best producers, and one of the best
managers in the business, Herbie Herbert, just you know, to
put it all together to make this and it was
it was. It was a marriage made in heaven. I mean,
I mean, these songs are in everybody's head. We're still
singing them. It's you know, it's it's you know. They

(28:23):
would consistently sell more catalog than anybody. It just is right.
It's like queen, It's like, come on.

Speaker 1 (28:31):
They got the earlier prog rock records. The first record
was Steve Has Lights and Wheel in the Sky. Those
are hits. You go to radio, you know, you know
how radio is. They're looking for reasons not to play
a record. They say, we already know this act. How
did you close them?

Speaker 2 (28:52):
Honestly, it was the music because I didn't. You know,
all you'd have to do is say, hey, it's it's
it's new, it's different, it's a new band. Just listened
to this. Mean that music is so good it's undeniable.
So there wasn't much selling there because they were familiar
with the band. And look, rock radio had played Journey.
It's not like they didn't play them, it's just that

(29:13):
they didn't have hits. You know, there's great music for
music people. If you're a music person, you go listen
to those first two Journey albums, right uh, and I
can't remember that the titles of some of the songs,
you know, you know, but it's great music. It just
didn't you know, it just they weren't hit records. It

(29:34):
wasn't going to resonate with the masses. But if you
you know, go to somebody and just say, hey, this'sten
a Wheel in the sky man, are you kidding? It's
like so, you know, that was easy peasy, and then
and and you know, and and and then you know,
after that is doing promotions and the things that you do.
You get people to meet the band, and you know,
you're you're on a different level. But it was the music.

(29:56):
The music was just the music being so good.

Speaker 1 (29:59):
You write a certain amount about the first Boston album.
Tell us about first hearing that album and then ultimately
getting it on the radio.

Speaker 2 (30:12):
Okay, well, ultimately getting it on the radio. You gonna
have to do a podcast with Jim mckeeon because it
was on Epic. He was he was in charge of that,
but we had ah, it's now a famous meeting at
Caribou Ranch with the first beginnings of the regional album
promotion teams. I had started as a local promotion man

(30:37):
in Los Angeles in seventy one, I guess seventy seventy one,
and I was promoting all formats. But FM radio was building,
and as it built, the record label understood they were
going to need people that were just going to be,
you know, experts at promoting rock radio. You know, this

(30:59):
was going to be a specialty. So I got the
nod to try it, to be an experiment. So I
believe I was the first FM promotion man in the
country that solely promoted that format. So literally, I don't
even know if it was. A year went by and
they went, oh my god, we need more of these people.
So we need a regional you know people. We needed

(31:22):
somebody in the East coast, somebody you know, and it
grew exponentially, but it began with me on the West coast,
somebody on the East coast ahead of album promotion. Mike
Plott and Epic had the same thing. McKeon was working
at k West Radio. He had started k West in
LA and he was going toe to toe with k MET.
He had made such a great rock station. Anyway, the

(31:45):
owners were starting to give him trouble and he didn't
want his art messed with. So I asked him if
he wanted to join the Dark Side because I thought
he'd be a great record guy. And he did, and
it turned out he was. So he became my epic counterpart. Okay,
so now we're in La working together. So we shared
an office. Actually, I have a great story to tell
you about that too. Anyway, so we shared an office

(32:08):
and so we go to the Cariboo Meetings, which is
a ranch up in Colorado where James William Gercio had
built a recording studio with the money he'd made from
producing Chicago. And everybody recorded there because there were no unions,
you didn't have to worry about shutting down at a
certain time. You could work twenty four to seven. The

(32:31):
studio was state of the art and it's beautiful up
in Colorado. Meetre up up in the mountains and everything
and everybody, I mean, you know, Michael Jackson recorded there,
Joe wallaceh Edgar Winner, I mean, everybody. So we went
up there to have meetings and you know, look, meetings
were fun, you know, in those days. What are you
going to do. You're going to listen to music, talk
about music, and then you're going to talk about how

(32:51):
you're going to go out and shout about it. That's
what promotion people do, right. I love this music. I
need the world to know about it. Get ready, world,
because this is coming at Okay. That's what we do.
And then we have to get through the gatekeepers, which
are the radio people and the press people of you know,
we need to get the music to the public because
the public has to decide. Right. A lot of people think, oh,
the record business decides everything. We have priorities, we think

(33:13):
we know some stuff. But your job as a promotion
person is get the music on the air and let
the people decide if they like it. And if they
like it, then your job is to put the pedal
to the metal and go make it happen. And I
don't you know, you read my book. I don't hear everything.
None of us hear everything. But your job is to
make that happen and then we'll all know. And if
listeners respond, great, that's the one and they're you know,

(33:36):
a handful of bands that I thought we're going to
go all the way and Bob, I don't know why
it didn't happen, just couldn't, just didn't resonate, you know,
So I don't know. But anyway, so we're so we're
at this famous meeting and we're having a lot of fun.
I mean, you know, we're a bunch of hippies, were
smoking dope. But you know, I mean, it's you know,
in Colorado. What could be better? So we're all playing

(33:59):
music because the idea was, Okay, whether you were Epic
or Columbia, the idea was, let's all get together and
play music for each other, and we'll cross pollinate because
we all were creative people, we'll have different ideas on
how to get this music done right. So, you know,
Colombia's playing Columbia stuff, and this guy Mike Shavelson, who
was the head of a promotion for Epic, was playing
his stuff. So he plays us a band called Mother's

(34:22):
Finest Great Band out out of Atlanta, Georgia. I don't
know if it was Atlanta, was Georgia. And he goes, yeah,
and I got this new thing called Boston puts it on,
plays more than a feeling. Okay, A lot of us
in the music business heavy ears like like we know shit, right, Like,
you know, we here, Okay, he plays more than a feeling.

(34:45):
We're like stunned. We're like, we're like what why are
these guys? Like, we'll play it again. So he plays
it again, right, and we're like, holy fuck. So because
he has to toe the line, right, he's you know,
there's got to be priorities going, oh, don't get excited,
don't get excited. You know, you know, the priority is

(35:06):
mother's finest. You know, they're blowing people off the stage.
The priorities mother's finest, you know, So let's not get
too excited. So like I'm sitting next to McKeon, right, Well,
look at that Harvey Lee's was there, you know Harvey, Right,
So Harvey's there, Harvey's at this meeting, right, you know,
there's a whole there's a bunch of paragraphs just about
Harvey Lea's in my book because people have to know
these characters, like they got to know these people existed.

(35:26):
So so Harvey's there, he's smiling near to ear And
now I can't get in trouble because I'm the Columbia guy, right,
So I raised my hand, right, Mike, with all due respect, Okay,
and I and I'm aware of Mother's finest and I
and I know they're blowing people off the stage, Mike,
I said, but really, Mike, we've just heard one of

(35:47):
the greatest things we've ever heard ever. Okay, somebody has
reshuffled the deck of riffs, guitar, riffs, and vocals to
make this thing and we haven't even heard another track.
We only heard one track. I said, when this thing
gets played for radio people, Okay, Mike, it's it's going
to be a forest fire. It's gonna explode, and overnight,

(36:07):
your priority is going to change. Right, It's just gonna happen. Right,
It's gonna go bonkers. So you can decide now whether
you wanted to make the number one priority or not.
But I am just telling you, as a guy that
does this for a living, watch the fuck out because
this thing's gonna go nuts.

Speaker 1 (36:22):
Right.

Speaker 2 (36:23):
Uh So, you know, he said, I got it, I
get it, I get it. He's just you know, look,
he's doing his job, right, which is what, you know,
what a guy has to do. And who knows, you know,
I'd like to think he knew in himself. I don't know,
but you know, it's great so me and Mac go
back to La Right, so he's with his music director. Well,
his former music director is David Perry is still on
K West, right, got, he's got an apartment on Larrabie.

(36:46):
It's great, is the music director. Okay, this is how
it used to be. Right, guy's got a small apartment.
In the apartment are two giant JBL's, giant fucking jbls. Right,
so you know, it overtakes the apartment. But that's how
things were then, right. So we go, hey, we want
you to listen to something. Sit down in a chair. Right.
If there was ever a record made for JBL speakers,

(37:06):
it's Boston. Okay, it's the perfect fucking record. We put
on more than a feeling. We crank it to fucking ten.
His hair blows back like in the Maxell commercial. Right,
his brain explodes. He's like, what the fuck is this?
When can I play this? Who is this? He's out
of his fucking mind, right, So, and we tell him

(37:27):
who it is, and we tell him, you know, he
can play it tomorrow whenever the fuck it was, you know.
And and that's what happened, I mean overnight, you know,
fucking pow, you know, and then it just went on
from there. You know, Bob listened to Boston. You tell
me what's better the guitar, of the vocals, the Brad
Delt Come on, I don't even know. It's the fucking Boston.

(37:49):
You know, it's the fucking hit machine. It's rock, it's
it's it's messages. I mean, you know, it's piece of
bond me and it's everything you know, you know, the
people living in competition. All I want is peace of mind.
What the fuck? I mean, it's everything you'd ever want.
You know, let's go back.

Speaker 1 (38:15):
What happens when there's a priority and you don't believe
in the record.

Speaker 2 (38:24):
You promote it. I learned a lesson a long time ago,
which I wrote in my book. A famous record guy
Steve Popovich, beautiful human being, one of the greatest promotion
men that ever lived, and he and I were talking
my nine. He said, Steve, you know all the records
that we put out, they're all not great. You know,
we're lucky, we're Columbia. Most of our stuff is really good,

(38:47):
but sometimes there's like not how do you handle that, Steve? Like,
how do you I have to have credibility, I have
to go to these radio people, they have to you know,
they believe in me. I have to have credibility. And
he said, you know what he said, rap, he said,
You'll always find one thing. It might not be the song.

(39:08):
It might be the production, or it might be the vocal,
or it might be the song. There'll always be one
good thing. Just talk about that, just you know, just
go in and say, hey, look, you got the other
production on this. You don't have to lie. You don't
have to. You can't because no one's going to believe you.
Said you need your credibility, he said, just talk about

(39:29):
about one thing. Sometimes it was what we would call
a fire drill, and I'll never forget one of them. Okay, okay,
this is a good example. Steve O'Rourke, who is a
good friend of mine, managed Pink Floyd, great manager and

(39:52):
I can't remember the name of the band, but he
decided he was going to try something else and the
record was terrible and uh but we knew with Steve's
uh and uh, so I wanted to do it for him,
and and the and the and the big priority came down.
It's like, you're gonna do this, and it's okay, we

(40:12):
know how to do it. So what you do You
go to all your friends or rock radio and go
da da. You know this is important for us. I'm
not sure I hear it. Do me a favor, have
your night, guys, just spin it once or twice, like,
don't don't even have to add the record, just just
just put it on the edge it just so we know.
I need to know because we don't know everything and
maybe I'm wrong and who knows. So was a fire drill, right,

(40:35):
that's what we called it. And you'd go out to
your friends because they were This is a family. We
work together, you know, even though it's always this uh
thing about the you know, the radio people and and
you know and and you know and the record people,
and we're trying to get our music played and they're
trying to tell us why they don't want to play it,
and there's this give and take. But but there is, uh,

(40:56):
there's a relationship there in this beautiful relationship. Uh. And
and people help each other, you know, someone does me
a turn, and it's like, hey, listen, man, I really
appreciate the times when you were there for me when
I needed you. So you know, I'm gonna go borrow
the Pink Floyd Pink from Pink Floyd and I'm gonna
fight over your radio station. I'm gonna put two Kleig

(41:17):
lights on it and paint your radio station pink. And
it's going to stop traffic, you know, in front of
your radio station as a thank you for that. That's
the kind of relationship it was. So that's how you
did it. So you so, because we need to know.
I can't know everything. You read my book, I'd love herboy.
I didn't get it right away. She didn't get it.
I don't know why. It's a great record. I put
it on, you know, I sent it out. I did

(41:38):
what I was supposed to do, and lo and behold.
You know Gloria Johnson from you know cagu And in Portland.
Great just jockey calls me up. So did you have
a hit on your hands? You know with turn Me Loose?
You don't hear them all, but you need as a professional,
it's your job to let the people decide, and that's
what you do. One of my favorite stories is is

(41:59):
it a great promotion? Man in New York guy named
Maddie Matthews. Did you hear about Maddie Matthews? Maddie Matthews.
You know, it is completely out of his mind in
the best of ways. Maddy Matthews had his own glossary. Okay,
if you wanted to talk to Mattie, you had to
understand how he was speaking, because it was you know,
all these people, they had nicknames. You know. It was

(42:23):
in Jiva, in Jinkeda, you know the people. You know,
the weather's on a wing. I mean it was. It's
a complete glossary. And everybody loved him. This guy was
all the time New York guy. Uh and uh. He
had an incredible, incredible relationship with Richard Near at w
W and he and this is a famous story in

(42:45):
New York. And he brought this record into Richard and
this you don't talk about the give and take relationship
between you know, you know, record people and radio people.
Gives the record Richard and he goes to leave, and
Richard looks at him like Maddie, and he looks at
he says, Maddie, are you kidding me? And Maddie turns

(43:06):
around and looked at Richard and said you'll find something.
And then he left. And that's all that Maddie had
to say. Because Richard Near loved Maddie Matthews so much.
We all did. Right that he knew that it was
a fire drill, and he knew that Maddie needed it. Otherwise,

(43:28):
you know, he's going to get shipped from his bosses.
And so he took care of Maddie. And you know
a couple of nights, you know, somebody's going to tune
out at ten o'clock at night. No, So that's you know,
that's how you do.

Speaker 1 (43:38):
It, okay, Unlike today, in the pre internet era, they
used to shuffle the decade record companies on a regular basis.
They get a new president, he would wipe out all
the old people because you wanted loyalists, et cetera. How
did you maintain your job so long?

Speaker 2 (44:03):
Because I'm malleable, you know, I'm I surprised myself because
I'm a sensitive person. I mean, I took a lot
of heat sometimes because I would I was a rebel.
That's speak my mind. I would do it different the
next time. You know. It's like, you have to learn
how to work the president.

Speaker 1 (44:24):
Right.

Speaker 2 (44:24):
There's an art form to it. It's called managing upwards.
You know, I finally learned it. I wish I would
have learned it earlier, you know, But I think I'm
pretty I'm pretty malleable, and and my only agenda. A
lot of people have agendas in our business. A lot
of people are trying to get a heah, a lot
of people trying to do this, trying to do that.

(44:47):
My only agenda ever was just the music. I just
loved the music so much that my agenda was just that.
And they saw, even if they just agreed with me,
or if I pissed them off, they saw my work ethic.
They watched me do what I could do. I got

(45:09):
big compliments from record company presidents, even the ones that
I was, you know that would be upset with me
from time to time because they saw my work ethic.
It's one hundred and ten percent, it's tenacious, don't stop.
They saw my creativity. I think I had a different
vision honestly than a lot of my peers. The way

(45:32):
I approached things, the way I approached artists, the way
I approached music, the way I approached promotion. And then
there's little tricks. I had a president, I had my
boss at one time was having a problem with album Network,
which is a tip sheet in town of local tip
sheet nice people. Steve Smith telt me to ask and asked,

(45:55):
you know, they're nice folks. For some reason, you had
a bug I was asked with them or whatever. He said, Okay,
we're going to do a power play. I go, what's that?
He goes, you don't call them, you don't talk to them,
and they're going to wonder where you are? Got it?
And I said yeah. I don't want to say his name,
so I don't want embarrass him. I said yeah, but

(46:16):
I said, with they're friends of mine, they're gonna They're
not gonna it's gonna be weird like they don't They're not.
It's not gonna work, right. He goes, He goes, you
work for me, and I'm telling you this is what
you're going to do. I said, okay. Uh So the
first thing I do is I call Steve Smith from
the Album Network and I say, Steve, it's rap. I'm

(46:39):
not going to call you for a while because my
boss just told me blah blah blah. I don't know
what's going on with you two guys, but I need
you to know that I'm not going to be calling
for a while because I've been told not to. And
then you know, whenever you want, you'll call me and go, gee, rap,
what's up. I haven't heard from you, And then you

(46:59):
guys make up and they'll all get better. Right, I
would get calls, you know, you have to be a
good soldier, but you have to you have to work
in between the lines, like I would get calls at
home from the Rolling Stones. Right, they're telling us all
this shit, like okay, listen, listen, listen, listen. Just they're

(47:20):
just telling you this stuff because they're telling you this
stuff because listen to me. Okay, they're going to tell
you this. It doesn't mean anything. Okay, you say this,
this and this, and then you'll get what you want
and it'll all be fine. And so you Sometimes I'm
a good soldier, but i'm you know, it's it's like,

(47:41):
what do they call it, back politicsne yeah, back channeling.
So I'm I'm working for everybody. I'm working for the artist,
I'm working for the manager, I'm working for the label.
But I need to make sure it all comes together,
like I'm in charge of making sure everyone understands each other.

(48:04):
At the end of the day, if someone tells you
to do something, you I mean and you know you
want to keep your job. Yeah, I mean you have
to do it. But there's like so I explained, there's
one way that you can do that, but I some
people couldn't handle the heat. Some people left, certain presidents,

(48:25):
people are people that you know, big time record business is.
I'm not staying. I can't take this. I'm out of here,
and I'm more resilient I think than I knew. I
have mental scars because of it.

Speaker 1 (48:37):
Honestly, Okay, two things people who are not in this world.
And it was a different era in the pre Spotify era,
the radio promotion people had so much pressure to deliver
on Tuesday. What was it like living with that pressure?

Speaker 2 (49:00):
Difficult? If you're you know, I mean, if you have
any feelings at all, things have to happen. It's a
timely business. Not only do records have to get added
in a timely way. If you're working rock promotion like me,
you could be working eight or ten albums at a time.

(49:20):
They all have to go up the charts. That all
depends on airplay. How many new additions that you get
each week at each station? How many upward movements do
you get? You're in charge of these people's careers, Okay,
that's you. And you have to make sure that this
music stays on the air and goes up the charts,
and that in any given week you need x amount

(49:42):
of new stations, you know, adding a record, and there's
lots of unknowns, and at most promotion people will tell
you if they're telling you of the truth, have a
lot of Sunday night, sleepless nights, because Monday's is your
last day to get done what you need to do,
get done, you know, whether you're prepared or not. And

(50:04):
it's like taking the hill. I mean, it's like the Marines.
I mean, at Columbia Records, there's no number two. There's
only number one. Okay, just tell me how you get
into number one because number two isn't good enough here. Okay.
I never told anybody this, well, I have told some people.

(50:25):
I didn't write it in my book because I didn't
want to dwell on this part of it. I just
wanted to celebrate the shit that nobody will believe. I mean,
for a good easily eight years after I left Columbia,

(50:51):
I could wake up in the middle of the night
with a nightmare, like freaked out of my mind that
I wasn't prepared, or I just wasn't Eddie, or you know,
a record I needed to go to one wasn't getting there,
and I'd have nightmares. If you want to know honestly,
how the pressure was I withstood it. I didn't. Some

(51:14):
some people turned to alcohol and other things. I didn't.
Thankfully lucky to have a good life's partner, my wife Sharon.
I could talk things out too what you read about
in the book. But but but you know the man

(51:39):
you're talking about. You're in charge of the Rolling Stones,
Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Pink Floyd and on and on
and on. It's a lot of pressure.

Speaker 1 (51:49):
What would you say? You know? Sposes have different styles
summer screamers, some are not, but you can't always deliver
what they want. What would you say? And how would
it play out?

Speaker 2 (52:07):
It would play out different in different ways. I'll tell
you a funny one. Then I'll tell you a heavy one,
which I did not write in my book because I
just didn't want to go there. Probably shouldn't even go
there on a podcast. But it's you, so so if

(52:31):
you here's gonna if you work for Donnie einor Okay,
here's how it works. Got into a record. Okay, I
know that you know exactly what you're doing. Okay, you're
the Babe Ruth of rock promotion. Man, you're my guy.
I know that you know how to do this, But
if I were you, I would do it this way.

(52:55):
Meaning there's two ways to promote a record. You can
get everybody on board and blow it out, or you
can build a record little by little by little with credibility. Right,
you can blow it out if you've got the goods,
especially you know, you know, obviously a band that's already established.

(53:16):
You can try to get everybody in one week. But
it's a mistake if you do that trying to build something,
because say you get sixty stations the first week, and
the next week people are still trying to figure outf
they want it, and now you've only got five and
then the next week you only got five more and
it doesn't look good, right, you don't want to do
it that way, So and I'll you know, And so

(53:41):
if you work for Donnie as it looks like that.
If you do it your way because you know how
to do it, and you get the record top five, right,
top five, number three, whatever, but it doesn't go to
number one, Donnie will call you into the office and go, see,
I told you should have done it my way. Now

(54:02):
if you do it Donnie's way. And this is true story, guys.
I had a record that you know, I don't need
to say the name of the band. And it stops
at twenty two. Donnie will call you in news office
and go, s rap, how did you fuck this thing?
And you can't tell him I did it your way, right,
you know, it's like you can't you can't win. But

(54:24):
I will tell you. I'll tell you one very heavy
story and it's and it's also a Don Einer story.
And you don't need to know the president's name. But
I became known. I wanted to be the best, Okay.

(54:44):
I wanted to be the Michael Jordan of rock promotion.
You know, I need it to be. That's just that's
how I am. I just wanted to be it, and
I tried to be it. And as you read in
the book, there's a lot of things I do that
no one ever did because I wanted to make headlines.
I wanted, I wanted that's just me. I just you know,
I don't know if it's an ego thing or probably think.
Whatever it is, it's just how I am. So So

(55:04):
I was known in the business as this guy. I
was known by managers and my peers and uh, you know,
I got voted that once by my peers. It was
very heartwarming. This but this particular president and I were
just it was like oil and water. And I did

(55:25):
not quite understand how to just just manage upwards with
this particular guy. And I was doing great things that
he was more of a numbers guys, not a music guy.
And he was signing a lot of acts that just
you know, you could put him on rock radio, but
they just they wouldn't stay. It's they're not they're not
made for you, you know. And he signed some acts
that he thought were cool and they were just posers

(55:46):
and whatnot. But you know, for the acts that were working,
it was fantastic. So, but I would be in meetings
with him and I'd say the wrong thing because I
you know, I was as a rebel and I didn't
know there were two truths. Okay, there's the real truth,
because he'd always say, no, tell me the truth. I

(56:07):
want to know the truth. What I finally learned was
there's two truths. There's the real truth and the truth
that he'd like to hear. There's a way of telling
a truth. But you can be artful, and you know, well,
at that time, I wasn't artful, so I would just
tell him the truth and it could be painful. Sometimes
he didn't want to hear the truth, so then he
would explode and then you know, I could feel this
pressure and you know, you don't give me a hard time.

(56:28):
So one day things weren't kind of going his way
and he goes, come here. He goes, I need to
talk to you in the head of promotion, and I'm
not going to mention names because it doesn't move the
story forward. It's just I don't need to embarrass people's families.
Head of promotion walks in, Just me down, he goes, listen.

(56:50):
He goes, I just want you know some of these
records aren't happening, and I just I want you to
know something. And he also used the babe ruth analogy. Okay,
I know you're the bab ruth of rock promotion. You know,
I know that you're the greatest blah blah blah. He said, well,
you know what, rap, sometimes the greats have to be traded, like,

(57:10):
Babe Ruth, they had a trade, Babe Ruth, I didn't
want you to think about that. And I'd had it
with this guy, right, And I'm telling you, Bob, I'm not.
I'm not. I'm not. If I get well, if I
get mad, you don't want to see it. I mean,
but it takes a lot right to get me excited.
And I finally had it with this guy and I
just exploded in his fucking face. It's just me and

(57:33):
him and had a promotion sitting across the table, and
I'm like, what the fuck you like, are you fucking
kidding me? I go, I do this and I do that,
and okay, so you signed this partner's effront. Could it
be the fucking records? Is it possible? It could be
the fucking record? And I'm screaming at him. I mean like,
I'm in his face. Right, I'm done, I'm gonna quit.

(57:55):
I don't care. I had it, Okay, nobody's ever seen
the head of motion was freaking out. He was. I'm
looking at him. He's turning green purple. He's like he's
never seen anything like it. And I'm in this guy's face,
I'm like, fuck you you have no fucking idea. Is
it possible? Is it possible? And and it's more animated
than I'm telling you now. I don't want to get
there because it's it's it's you would think you would

(58:17):
put me in a rubber room. Okay, I've exploded at
this guy. It's insane. Okay. And the guy I just
had it and he looks at me, he goes, oh, whoa,
come down. I think he thought I was gonna have
a heart attack. I was that that was that fucking
nuts and he and and he said, who whoa whoa
whoa wrap rap rap whoa whoa whoa whoa. Just hang on.
I got to think about what you're saying. Just just

(58:39):
hang on, like I gotta think about what you're saying.
And he and he and he looked at me, wrap,
please just take it easy and let me think about
what you're saying. He left, and the head of promotion said,
I want to shake your hand, and I go why
And he says, because I never seen anybody go at
that guy like that, and I've never seen that guy

(59:00):
back down. So he said, I want to shake your hand,
and I was like, fuck shaking my hand. I'm out
of here. Fuck you, fuck him. I quit. He's chasing
me down holiday. You can't quit rap, listen to me,
he goes, you can't quit. He goes, it's three o'clock.
Go home. Trust me, there's what you need to do.
Go home, talk to Sharon, have a drink, report back

(59:21):
the next thing in the morning. And this guy was
a really good guy. Wasn't the great promotion met of
all time? And he said, look, just just just do
me a favor, like calm down, go home. And he
was right. I went home, talked to Sharon, had a drink,
came back and it was fine, and the president was
better towards me. And in a million years, I never

(59:42):
thought I'd go off at anybody like that, especially a
record company president. So he could get to I mean,
so if you asked me, did it ever get to me? Okay,
that's the that's the one time where you know, God,
he could get to you in a different way it
would frustrate you. But I but I never was that
so upset. Was like I've had it, you know, and

(01:00:07):
you know, I don't know, like you said, how did
I survive? I don't know, By the grace of God,
because that guy could have left right away and wrote
me off. You could have. He could have. He could
have went back and said, you know what, just just
give wrap his papers. But he didn't. And I think
he didn't because he knew I was a winner. And
here's something else. My wife asked me, why do you
want to stay there? And I said, because even though

(01:00:29):
this guy is breaking my balls daily, he is a winner,
and I have to be with a winner and I
and that's why I didn't leave. I said, I'll take it,
I'll take the heat. I'll have this leapless night. I
need to be with a winner. I would tell her, Sharon,
he's that, So I'm going to stay, and I didn't.

(01:00:49):
He left, you know, so not gone to the next president.

Speaker 1 (01:00:59):
Okay, you were going to quit at that time? Were
you fearful? Oh?

Speaker 2 (01:01:04):
Not really. I was just sorry.

Speaker 1 (01:01:06):
I'm going in the opposite direction. Were you ever fearful
you were going to get fired?

Speaker 3 (01:01:14):
No?

Speaker 2 (01:01:16):
No, not really.

Speaker 1 (01:01:19):
Okay, then let me give it one other thing. You
literally start, as you say at the beginning of rock promotion, seventies,
great era you have, you know, CBS records crashes seventy
nine eighty. But let's move past that. MTV comes along.

Speaker 2 (01:01:38):
Seventy nine. Herbie Herbert came into my office. Okay, you're
gonna love this. He was bummed out because Journey had
only sold two million records. He was trestphoning. I was not, Herbie,
you know how fucking lucky you are? You so too million.
But we still formally and I go, I know we're
in trouble. It's gonna pass. It's a fucking phase. Herbie
Herbert's upset because he's to only so too much.

Speaker 1 (01:01:59):
I just remember Breakfast in America was number one for
some amazing number of weeks and sold like less than
fifty percent of what records normally had. But we get
to the MTV era, and concomminantly with the MTV era,
we have the CD. The CD they tell all the

(01:02:19):
acts take a half rate. I know the people who
ran those labels they made not only did the labels
make so much money, the executives you know, I know,
they're friends of mine. I know be personal stories. So
my question is, as this is going on, and once
you hit the eighties and especially the nineties, promotion people

(01:02:43):
everybody at the record company has a lawyer. To what
degree did you negotiate your salary and what were those
experiences like.

Speaker 2 (01:02:56):
Well, you know, I had an attorney and he saw
what I did for the label and he was This
guy is known's Gary B. Baker. He was very amped guy.
When I first met him. He said, look, there's two
kinds of lawyers. There's nice lawyers and there's really, you know,
rough and tough lawyers. You got to decide which one
you want. Him the rough and tough lawyer. I said, well,

(01:03:17):
I'll just moved to New York. Gary, I think I'm
going to take the rough and tough lawyer. The guy
was amazing. He beat the Bank of New York for
sharing in me. I mean, the guy beat the Bank
of New York on the situation we had. So so
he would negotiate for me, and it got so amped
that the people in business affairs would call me and
they say, look, rap, we got the message. You got

(01:03:39):
to ask Gary to back off, you know, just because
he knew what I did and he wanted me to
make more money. He said, rather, they're not paying you
what you're what you're you know what you deserve that
I know what you do, I see what you're doing.
You know for all these acts you know, and I said, Gary, great,
you know, And then what would happen is then you'd
walk in and then you would see Donnie okay, you know,

(01:04:02):
and Donnie would and Donnie would say, look, Rap, it's
a corporation. It's a it's a it's you know, it's
a grid. You're not the head of promotion. You're ahead
of rock promotion, you know, which is even one step
down from the head of top forty promotion. Because, as
you know, most of the music, most of the money
is made with you know, big hit records. Even though
we're making a shitload of money on rock radio. I

(01:04:23):
can't give you what Gary is asking. I can't, but
I'll give you this. If I give you this, will
you be okay? Or are we going to have a problem?
And then I'd look at at you know, you know,
at Donnie, and I'd say, Donnie, thanks very much. That'd
be great. I appreciate it, thanks, and we don't have
a problem. I was always about longevity when I would

(01:04:48):
be asked every once in a while to leave, you know,
for another company or some new company that wanted to
sort of poached me from the label for a lot
of more money, because that's how it was like, if
they wanted to get you, they'd have to give you
tons of more money. And I got offered tons of money.
But I never wanted to leave, because how do you

(01:05:08):
leave this roster? Right? They're all there. I became friends
with all these people.

Speaker 1 (01:05:14):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:05:14):
It's like, yeah, I'm gonna go I'm gonna go work
for a new company and I'm going to make a
lot of money. But it's just money, right, I'm going
to be working Jake the Snake in the midgets when
I could be talking to Bob Dylan like, well, there's
no brainer. Like I just I just wanted to stay
there as long as I could. And I stayed there
as long as I stayed there till they just started
downsizing as the business change, and you know they were

(01:05:34):
giving you know, early retirement packages. You know, I just
stayed there as long as I could. You know, in fact,
I told him, I said, you guys are nuts. I said,
right now, in my life, if you want to, they didn't.
They just couldn't pay us the salaries that we were
making anymore. I said, you should go to people like
me and Don de Vito, who was Springsteen's and Bob

(01:05:57):
Dylan's and really Joel's A and R got famous an R.
I said, you should go to people like Don and
me and say, look, we can't pay you this money anymore,
but you know what, we'll give you a contract expansion,
a contract, you know, extension. We'll pay you this but
for longer, just because we want you guys to stay here.
I said, you guys are making a mistake. I said,
I've had the right of my life. I'm ready to go.

(01:06:20):
It's okay, I said, but you're making a mistake because
what's going to happen is all these bands that come in,
because every band that ever came in, they wanted to
hang out with me and Don because they wanted to
talk to the guys who worked with Bob Dylan and
Bruce Springsteen and Pink Floyd. You're going to be left
with kids and you're gonna have an imprint, it's gonna
be a red label, but your heart's going to be gone, Like,

(01:06:40):
don't you get it? And they told me they My
boss at the time said, you know what, we even
know it and you know Midst the corporation and we
work for them. And I said, fine, you know, you
know it's up to you. I said, I've had the
right of my life. I said, but you know it's
I wouldn't do it this way.

Speaker 1 (01:07:00):
So you meet your wife Sharon at summer camp. There
are a couple of bumps. Ultimately you get married. This
is a twenty four to seven business, like Jeffrey Katzenberg
said it Disney when he was there. If you're not
coming in on Saturday, don't even think about coming in
on Sunday. So how did that work? Is she just

(01:07:23):
a special person who could deal with the fact that
you were gone and working or your mind was elsewhere
all the time.

Speaker 2 (01:07:34):
I will say she's a special person and that she's
very strong. I tried to walk a fine line because
I didn't I saw some of the pitfalls that people
you know, that were around me, that were falling into
and marriages were falling apart. And because it is a

(01:07:56):
twenty four to seven business, you could be out every
night of the week. If not for your own act,
somebody else calls and goes, hey, man, I've got the
next big thing. You got to come down and see
it a lot of hours. And it's a lifestyle. There
is no Saturday Sunday. It's just it never ends. They're
all the same, you know, except for obviously Tuesday's air
play Day and you know the business week. But you're

(01:08:19):
without people. You're out with people all the time. So
I am. I tried to walk a fine line, and
we made a deal. I said, look, there are certain
nights I have to be out. There's certain nights that
I'm going to want to be out, and I'm going
to have to because I remember when someone had called

(01:08:42):
me to the Troubadour to say, hey, there's this new
guy out in John, I have a seat for you.
You need to see this. You know, those kinds of
things you'd want to be at. So I said, look,
it was easier before we had kids, of course, because
she could go everywhere with me. So we went to
all the parties together, we went to all the shows together.
So she was part of the life style. Even though

(01:09:04):
if I had to work late some nights, she didn't
want to go. When we start to have kids, it's different, okay.
So I worked twelve years on the West coast for Columbia,
and then we move east in eighty for me to
run the rock department. So now you know, I told her,
I said, look, this this obviously, this gig is more

(01:09:25):
amped up, and I don't know if I'm going to
be home. Well, I know I'm not going to be
home in time to put the kids to bed. I'm
going to see him in the morning. I said, tell
you what, though, you take care of them all week,
on the weekends, I'm going to take over. You do
whatever you want. I will completely take over. And it
would be kind of comical sometimes because you know, i'd

(01:09:49):
be on the road for you know, four days, four
nights without any little sleep. I'd come home, I'm totally trashed.
Open the door. She's got these two little you know boys.
She holds them out to me. She goes here, I've
had them all week. I'm like, Ahi, guys, it's your
rock and roll dad. Just I just need a cup
of coffee. Just give me a second and I'll be

(01:10:11):
with you. So and then they didn't understand. So on
the weekends, i'd be with them. But but but then
i'd take a cat nap, you know, every so often,
like we'd be in the basement playing or you know,
whenever in the front line. They'd see me take it.
Catch cat nap Dad. And they're they're three years apart.
Two boys, right, why are you? Why are you always sleeping?

(01:10:34):
We don't understand why you're sleeping. I go, well, it's
because I work really really hard. Well, we don't understand it.
I go, like, come to work with me one day
and then you'll you'll get it. Okay, Oh yeah, okay,
So I take them. They're little, like Amra all they were,
but they're you know, I don't know, they're like eight,
and you know, they're three years apart. So they're eight
and five or whatever they are, I don't know, six
and nine. I take them to work, I go home.

(01:10:56):
I go, okay, so do you get it? Nah? Dad,
we don't get it. All you do is play listen
to They said all you do is listen to records
all day, and then you get on the phone and
yell at people. And I go, no, no, I don't
yell at people. I'm not that guy. That's our vase off.
He's the yeller. I'm not the yeller. I'm not that guy.

(01:11:16):
Oh no, Dade yellow people. Oh no, no, I'm telling you,
I'm not that guy. Yeah. So no, we don't get it.
You you you you you play records, you dance around
and then you get on the phone and yellow people
and so there was no you know, and then what
am I gonna do? Take them to shows? Which I did?
Does is that helpful? Not really? You know, Hey, look
you know yeah this is Pink Floyd. Yeah, you're backstage
eating the ReBs. Cool. Right, It's like you know, but

(01:11:39):
it was, it's it's it is very hard. Uh and uh,
I to be honest, I would say that there was
a time that it took its toll on our marriage.
It's just it's just it's it's it's just got so big.
But if you know that, you'll sit down, like you know,
if you have a really great life's partner like I do,

(01:12:02):
you'll sit down and go, look, since we're messed up
and we got to fix this, you know, and if
we can't fix it, let's go talk to somebody that'll
help us fix it. But I think if your priorities
are correct, you know, and my porties were always my
life and my wife and my kids, that's reality, right.

(01:12:23):
This other thing is Disneyland. I'm having fun in Disneyland,
but I saw too many people live in Disneyland and
then when their job was over and they lost their
job for whatever reason. They try to go back home,
but home's ruined. They try to call their friends and
nobody picks up the phone. You know, a lot of
in this business, a lot of people think, you know,

(01:12:44):
your colleagues are your close friends. It's not always the case.
So I think from the get go, my priorities were correct,
and I tried really hard, you know. And yeah, and
when it came to that time where I knew it
wasn't right, you know, we said on and had a
long talk about it.

Speaker 1 (01:13:02):
Okay, we talked a little bit about Herbie Herbert. What
makes a good manager, and let's be realistic, Okay. In there,
there's some managers. They come in the building, they work
the halls. Some people are nice, some people yell. In addition,
some people represent more commercially successful acts than others. So

(01:13:26):
in addition to that, there are people who you know,
you want to get off your back and therefore you
do the work for them. So tell me about managers.

Speaker 2 (01:13:38):
Everybody has their own style for me, and I would say,
having worked with so many managers, that I think the
ones that actually get the most out of people. And
I would say that Irving Azof is the exception, because

(01:13:59):
I was, you know, a notorious yeller screamer. But IRV
was also You could talk to him, but it was
just his style, you know. I mean, I already wound
up doing some really great things for me and I
have the big respect for him. But you know, early
on him, he called me up. Yeah, it's in my book, right,
I want klos and I want to know, right, that's
all he said. That's five times lear up the fun,

(01:14:21):
you know. But I understood his His MO was he's
going to just get everything he can out out of you,
and he can go back to his artists and say,
look I got everything at him. But you don't have
to be that way. But I would say that the
best managers were the managers that brought you into their world,
made you a part of their family, made you a
part of the gang. Okay, Herbie Herbert, whenever you went

(01:14:45):
me and the guys are doing this. You come here,
we're in Hawaii at a convention. Come to our house.
Steve Ororke, Pink Floyd made me feel like part of
the family. And I got to know David Gilmour and
Nick Mason and Roger Waters in intimate ways. Right. That
wouldn't happen if they didn't open the door. And I'm

(01:15:05):
sure he told him, this is going to be good
for you to get to know this guy, right, Bruce Allen,
tough guy, but but great guy, right. Great makes you
a part of that, makes you a part of his team,
makes you want to kill for him because he's just
a great fucking guy. Right. If you're a manager that

(01:15:29):
would come into my office, and I had some big
time managers who didn't have the gravitas of IRV as
off or the respect from me because I saw they
stepped in shit or whatever that you know, you know,
IRV has always had my biggest respect. So yeah, ever
you want to call up and let's go at it, fine,
I don't care, because you know I have respect. But

(01:15:51):
these people would come into my office and we'd come
out of a meeting and you know, everybody said, we're
did this, this and this, and I'll never forget this.
One guy in particular, big, big, big uh, you know,
English man came into my office and said, so you
wanted to pin me, so you're gonna do all this right?
Like got it? It's like this is what you have

(01:16:11):
to do. You got it right? And then he walked
out of my office and literally out loud, I said
to the walls because I knew he was walking by.
Fuck you see you in my rearview mirror. Lose you know,
I don't even want to talk to you again. And
I did the minimal, minimal amount because that guy was
such a fucking asshole. I was like, yeah, okay, well

(01:16:34):
you're not a race off, so guess what. You don't
get to talk to me like that. So h But
I think that the best ones were the ones because Bob,
you know, one of the reasons I wrote the book
I want I wanted people to know the family. We
were all a family. Oh yeah, we have fights, you know,
like a family has fights. We'd all get along, but

(01:16:54):
this is a family, Okay, you got I'm trying to
think this is Herbie. I mean, my favorite managers are Herbie, Herbert,
Bruce Allen, Steve O'Rourke. They're interchangeable in different ways, but
they all made me feel like, you know, like like okay,

(01:17:16):
it's this give and take right. The guys in Pink Floyd.
By the time I'm working with them, they're elite. They
don't need to do anything, they don't want to do anything.
They don't want to do interviews, they don't have to
do anything. And I'm telling them, guys, listen to me.
You could be bigger. Believe it or not. You can
do more, we can reach more people. I'm going to
ask you to do some things. I know you're not

(01:17:36):
gonna want to do them, but I'm just tell just
take a step my way, you know. Go meet Jim Ladd,
do an interview, Meet some radio people. They're gonna love you.
They've been playing your records their whole life. I want
to borrow you know, your your giant pig and flight
over radio stations. I want to do these things for
you because I love your music. I mean, I'm a
guitar guy. I mean me and Gilmour would spend all

(01:17:58):
kinds of hours just talking about guitars. It's a family, right, Okay.
You tell me you get close to a band like that,
they know that you're killing for them, right, they know it? Okay? Oh,
well and you read about it my book. Oh we
have a Christmas present for you. It's a thank you
for all you did you know on Momentary Labs or

(01:18:18):
a reason and frankly for all the things you've done
for us over the years. We have a you know,
a thank you President. You know what's that? Oh, you
come and play with us one song live with Pink
Floyd And I'm like, oh, a rehearsal right, that'd be great.
They go, no, no, proper gig. I'm like, what in front
of people? Oh yeah, I know in London, proper gig,

(01:18:40):
London arena. I'm going to play a song, like you know,
and I talk to the manager because you know, God,
don't talking to Gilmore talking to Magic Steve, you know, Like,
I'm a real guitar player, Like, I'm not going to
go I'm not a poser. I don't want to go
up there and pose. It's not that's not my you know, No, no,
he goes rap. Don't you get it? Yes, Gilmore knows you.
You guys can talk abot guitars all the time. That's

(01:19:01):
the gift, don't you get it? Like, yes, you play
You're in ping Floyd for seven fucking minutes, don't you
get it. I'm like, holy shit, Okay, Bob, who does that? Well,
how's that going to happen? Who does that? Okay, it
happens because of of the band and the management and

(01:19:21):
you know that whole family of people who you get
to know. You get to know Storm Thorguson the Great
Graphic Designer, you get to know the roadies, you get
to know the guitar tech, Phil Taylor, you know everybody.
You that kind of management. How do you think I
promoted them after that? I just traded like so with
David Gilmore in the London Arena. Are you fucking kidding me?

(01:19:45):
Come on? You know that's the best kind of manager
because you're taking the hill. You know, John Landell, Bruce
Springsteen Okay, okay, in my top five. Okay, he's in
my top five. Same thing. Now you're part of Bruce's camp.
You're taking the hill together. You know, it's beyond celebrity.
It's it's not about rock star. It's about it's eye

(01:20:06):
to eye. It's guys, guys, we're working together, take the hill.
We're all trying to do the same thing. You know.
It's it's it's uh, that's that was the most fulfilling
part of it, right. These people make you a part
of the gang. You just you feel like you belong.

(01:20:27):
So yeah, you're going to kill for those people, Bob.

Speaker 1 (01:20:37):
Okay, they do call it show business, not show friends.
So there are bands that are no longer on the
label for whatever reason. So then do you maintain any contact?

Speaker 2 (01:20:53):
You know, I do. It's off and on. I'm so
used to contacting people, you know, when there's a when
there's a project, we would see you know, we would
rekindle a friendship every three years or whenever a record
would come out. It's not, you know. I mean I
used to be closer to Gilmore, he used to send

(01:21:13):
me Christmas card every year. Elvis Costello, but over the years,
I didn't want to push it. You know, it's not
you know, like, if you want to be friends, great,
I don't you know, I didn't like need to be friends.
I enjoyed our friendships. One guy who I'm believing or not,

(01:21:34):
who I'm probably the closest with right now is Bob Geldolf.
We remain friends over the years. I don't know why.
We just would see each other or you know, he
had some legal stuff then you needed help on and
we just remained buddies. Got invited to his wedding south
of France, you know a few years ago. I mean,
he's he's a he's a he's a he's a crack up,

(01:21:55):
you know, but you know the other people. Let me
just say this because I just want to say this
about certain artists. Okay, Oh, the Bloyster called guys are
very close friends of mine. For a year, I live
in this town because of the lead singer lives here
and he kept me coming out for barbecue. So I
live in you know, Port Washington, New York. Okay, so,
but but I just want to make one point. Okay,
I write this book, you start to reach out for quotes.

(01:22:18):
I don't know if you know if I'm going to
get quotes. Okay, here, Hero, I'll write you, you know,
if you want, I'll write you what I wrote about you, Like,
what what do you need? Right? Nothing? Nick Mason two
days give me the best, most beautiful quote was the
first one I got. It was like if I stopped
right there right Elvis Costello, Hey, do you want me

(01:22:38):
to send you the book? Do you want me to
to you know, to to do you need to see
what I wrote about you? Nothing? Next day quote, Bloyster,
call it next day quote. You know it's not even
if we're not friends. There's so much. There's so much,
you know, brotherhood and sisterhood in all of the stuff

(01:23:00):
that we did together. They're there immediately there, you know.
And for whatever reason, Bob, you know, well.

Speaker 1 (01:23:11):
I want to talk a big than I know, Bob,
but that's not the point of my story. Okay, you
tell the famous story of Bob dissing the radio guys
when they're in the building the way the story was
told to me, which was not by you. Was this
permanently negatively affected the band Boomtown Rat success in America?

(01:23:36):
In the book? You say, well, they ended up having
a hit. Give me your take.

Speaker 2 (01:23:43):
No, I don't think I wasn't permanent at all. I mean,
if it was permanent, we wouldn't have had They wouldn't
nobody would have played. I don't like money. It would
have never happened if it was permanent. No, it wasn't permanent.
It's just Bob is full of pisson vinegar, and he
has a way of shooting himself in the foot. I mean,
he's very you know, he has no filter. If you

(01:24:05):
know him, you know he's he's you know, hey, look,
you guys are a lot alike. You have no filter,
right right, right, So Bob is the same way, and
and look Elvis Costello. I would have to pull out
sometimes say, oh, look, you're not helping yourself if you
have certain feelings about certain bands, tell me, don't say

(01:24:27):
this on the radio. Is not helping your career, okay.
And I would have the same conversation with Bob Geldoff.
Talk to me, do not say this ship on the radio.
But Bob is a rebel, right, and Bob likes to
push buttons, and I think in his mind, excuse me,

(01:24:48):
he was just giving them a head butt, right, Okay.
So for those who don't know, there was a big
consultancy run by Lee Abrams. It was called Superstars. Lee
Everyone's in charge of sixty rock stations, and he had
a convention, and you know, we thought, as we usually do, Hey,
first of all, the Boomtown Rats are amazing band live.

(01:25:10):
We said, man, all we got to do is have
these guys play in front of you know, these programmers
that they're going to go, holy shit, this band's a
real band. Let's let's go easy peasy. It was the
days of the satin jackets. Everybody had satin jackets for
bands and whatever. Bob's playing a great set, and Bob's
playing a great set, and he looks out and he

(01:25:31):
sees he knows why he's there. He sees all the
radio people. But Bob's you know, I mean, you're talking
about a guy, you know, who got in a fight
with fifty thousand people at you know that, you know,
the World Music Festival was Like Bob, it's like you
read about it, write in my books, like so he
once again in my head butt, Hey, what do you
think of radio today? Where he goes the audience, what

(01:25:53):
do you think of rock radio today? Well, what do
you when a guy like Bob Geldoff, you know, the
rebel punk guy is saying, what do you think the
audience is going to go? Yeah, Well, if you have
a problem with that, all those guys in the back,
they're the guys that are running your rock stations today.
And if you want to change it, you go talk
to him. Well, Bob's always trying to make the world
a better place, you know, repair the world. Takun alam great, Bob.

(01:26:16):
I like it, you know, But I think he just
thought he was giving him a head butt. I don't
think he realized what he had done, because he did
do some damage that night. Because those guys have egos
and they're like, oh, really, you know, we're in charge
of your career. And there were guys that were grumbling
as they left, you know, and Lee Abrams himself, you know,

(01:26:37):
came up to me and Jonathan Caffino, who's the boomtown
Rats marketing guy, and going really, and I'm like, Lee,
you know, it's Bob. It's like, you know, come on,
you got to expect he's just giving you guys a
head butt. You know, Lee, smart guy like Lee knows
what's up. So he goes, I know, but not the
greatest thing you could have done. I said, I know,
you know, but I said it'll be okay. And it was.

(01:27:01):
And I know, Jonathan, our next stop was in Seattle.
Never forget it keme to we got to do a
live broadcast right now. We got to we have to
counteract what just happened. I said, no, no, no, I said, John,
just just leave it alone. You know, these guys, I know,
these guys. Just let some space happen, just let the
air out. I'll talk to these guys one by one,
you know, and it'll be okay. And it was. I mean,

(01:27:23):
by the time, you know, artist Surfacing came out, It's
huge so it wasn't you know, it wasn't that. It
was it was just more or less not having you know,
the records after that or whatever else was happening with
them on the road or whatever. No, no, there's no permanent.

Speaker 1 (01:27:40):
Okay, let's go back to rock stars in general, a
right personal experiences. If you say how great they are
and how much you love their music, they shut down.
Whereas like Joe Walsh I used class example, you want
to talk cam radio with him, you have a regular conversation.
You have to treat these people as people. But at

(01:28:03):
the end of the day, can we say this is
business or would you consider some of these people real friends?

Speaker 2 (01:28:15):
Oh, real friends without a doubt. No, it's no real
friends without a doubt, because the business is the business,
and the celebrity is the celebrity. And as you say,
you can have real conversations with people. Now, I will
admit that it took me a second when it when
it was bands that were ahead of me, you know,
like the Floyd guys, and you know, Mick and Keith

(01:28:36):
and Bob Dylan. I mean because since I'm seventeen years old,
mean those guys are deep inside me. I'm you know,
I will admit to being starstruck. I mean, I don't
know how you couldn't be. It's you know, But once
I would get used to it, then you'd have real conversation.
I mean I used to have love talking to Bob Dylan.
I mean we we'd have conversations about just being dads.
You know, how is it being a dad? You know,

(01:28:57):
I'm like Bob, and I don't know what to tell
my kids, Like, you know, guy, I have this whole history,
you know. And he was like, well, you know, you're lucky,
you know you can, you know, just don't don't you know,
you don't have to tell them everything rap, just you know,
just just tell them some stuff. He goes, look at me, man,
he goes, My whole life's in the press. Man, my
the you know, the you know, the women, the drugs.
I'm busted, you know, like but you you know, and

(01:29:20):
we'd have these great conversations. I would love to have
conversations with Keith Richards and David Gilmore about guitars, because
these guys are guitar guys. They're rock stars. Second, okay,
they are guitar players. They love the guitar. It's their friend.
It's their lover used to talk to guitar guys. It's we're
like this giant family of people. No, you know, Keith

(01:29:41):
Richards is a really cool guy. Okay. I have a
picture of my book of me and Keith, and I
took out him when he was you know, however, he
was eight years old or somebody to see the rolling Stones.
Right backstage, we're meeting the guys who wanted them to
meet Keith Richards, and I'm like, I need you to
meet this guy. This is like my all time favorite.

(01:30:01):
Like I learned how to play guitar. List into this guy, right,
So introduce him to Keith. I'm going, this is the
greatest rock and roll guitar player in the world. And
he's like going, ah, don't listen, dear old man. Don't
believe everything he says. So we're gonna take a picture.
Keith looks over to me, he goes, hey, we should
kneel down. Your son's like little right, you know, like
we should kneel down. The reason we're kneeling in that

(01:30:22):
picture isn't because of me. It's cause of Keith, because
he's a sensitive person. Because he knew it meant a
lot and he you know, we should kneel down to
take a picture with your son. So you know, not
everybody is the same, but these people are people, and
you can have real conversations with them, you know, after
you get over that starstruck part. And then yeah, because

(01:30:49):
at the end of the day, you know, it's it's
so it's they're overwhelmed with that stuff. You know, it's
it's okay.

Speaker 1 (01:30:55):
No one likes to work with an asshole. Did you
find and some of these musicians were assholes or did
they get the memo or did the manager keep him
at the distance because they know where they were difficult people?

Speaker 2 (01:31:12):
There were I can only remember one guy that I
thought was a total asshole, and then other people would
be frustrating. So like, I don't need to say the
guy's name, but he was a slide guitar player. Was
in the mid seventies. This guy was terrible. All this
guy did was give me shit everywhere we went. I

(01:31:32):
was I couldn't believe it. I didn't know why I
introduced him to a friend of mine. Why is this
guy here? Well, because he runs San Francisco, you should
know him. Yeah, blah blah blah blah, I'll never forget this.
I was pouring some wine and we're all learning how to,
you know, drink fine wine. Then got on an expense
account and I was pouring some wine and I guess
I part a little too much, you know, because you

(01:31:53):
have to be careful. There's like dregs, you know, and
you know, what are you doing? What are you doing?
You're letting the drags out. I mean, when I was
done with the promo tour with this guy, was like,
I never want to talk to this guy again. You know,
it's like, just get me out of his life. But
most people who are trying to get somewhere, if some
of them are more stubborn, you know, some are could

(01:32:18):
be frustrating, but most of them would listen. They could
be stubborn, but they would listen. If I was strong
and said, listen, you can get away with this, but
this is not going to be good for you, right,
you know, just please listen to me. So I never
really I worked with cerebral people that would drive you

(01:32:42):
out of your fucking mind, but you it was okay
because it was like you, they're not us, they think different,
They're not if they wouldn't be them, right, if if
they if they saw things like we see things, but
they don't see things like we see things because it's

(01:33:03):
imagine the universe and it's the Sun and all the planets, right,
so we're the planet's going around the universe, and we
see the Sun. We have great perspective. We can watch it.
We can see when there's you know, you know, explosions
on the Sun and everything. They can't see it because
they're the Sun. They can't see it. And so if
they're smart, they listen to people like me, like you,
like any of us who could help them through certain parts.

(01:33:27):
You know, in my book, you know, there's things. You know,
there's a Roger water story where I had to just say, look, Roger,
you need to listen to me on this, right, And
he did. You know, Bob, don't. It's funny, Bob. He
has no idea about promotion, right, it's not. He's like Percasso.

(01:33:47):
He just paints and he would see me from time
to time and he say, rap. When I started doing marketing.
After I did the promotion thing, I was doing creative
marketing stuff, had a radio series, at a TV showt
all this kind of stuff. He goes man man, he goes,
you have all this great stuff. Why don't you and
I ever do anything? He goes, you do all this
great stuff. I was like, Bob, you know I'm your
biggest fan. You're this yeah, I mean, you know a guy,

(01:34:10):
you're like the Shakespeare of our time. You're fucking Bob Dylan?
Are you kidding me? Every time you put a record out,
I tell you twenty things you don't want to do him.
He doesn't like to promote himself that way. He's just
not that's not him. He just you know, you can
tell him twenty things and he'll say, Okay, I'll do
this one, you know, and I admire it. I mean,
here's a guy from the old school, right. How's this
quote unquote Paul I don't like to push my music

(01:34:32):
that way, Bob Dylan, Okay, big respect even for little
things look unannounced. I'll just take you to Scott Muni
show at night on n ADW. Just show up. Nah,
I'm not doing it. How's this. Here's a great one,
mid mid eighties. He's huge, early eighties right, he's on fire, right, Bob.

(01:34:54):
I just got a call from CBS two hour primetime television.
Oh your show? Do whatever? You want. They're not gonna
tell you what to play. Which Bob had bad experiences
in the past with censers and all this shit. Right
sures done two hours prime time. It's your show. I
ain't doing that, man, Like, what are you talking about? No? No, no, man,

(01:35:15):
you know you nobody's gonna watch that. You know you
need you need a hook, man, you need like live
it or farm it. You know nobody nobody's gonna watch it.
You need a hook. No, no, Bob Dylan, No, I
go Bob. You're Bob Dylan. You know you're the event.
You get it. You don't need Live It or farm It.
You're fucking Bob Dylan. It's like it's not what you think.

(01:35:38):
It's like you're it. No no, man, I'm not doing that.
Nobody's gonna watch that. So he doesn't some things he
knows some said, but you know what he has done? Great?
All right? What are you gonna say, Oh, big mistake,
you didn't do the television special. Come on, tell me
you tell me who in their latest years could put
out Time out of Mind and rough and rowdy ways

(01:35:58):
and they still.

Speaker 3 (01:35:59):
Be really really really great records. Tell me name me
one artist, name anybody. You can't you can think about it.
We can't name anyone. And that's how many artists do
we know. I don't even want to say their names
because I don't want to miss them. But we can't
name them. He's the one and only, but him legend dearly.

(01:36:19):
He tracked sales and was aware of his business. Was
he aware of what radio stations were playing his records?
And even though we wouldn't do stuff. Was he completely
removed or was he involved in the process?

Speaker 2 (01:36:38):
I got it. I don't know. I'd say fifty to fifty.
He wanted to know. Look, he's like any artist, right,
he wanted to know what was going on. I only
say fifty to fifty because Bob doesn't make music for radio. Right.
He once had a writing session with Michael Bolton, which
I find fascinating. And anyway, they're writing a song together

(01:37:01):
and Michael adds something and Bob goes, well, why are
you doing that man? And Michael goes, well, that's for
the radio. You know. It's just like a hook they'll
keep going around. Bob goes, I'm not writing it. I'm
not I'm not writing the song for the radio man, Like,
what are you doing, like what you're like, what are
you talking about? Bob just paints, right, Bob's Picasso. He
could care less. That's why he's one of the greatest

(01:37:23):
artists they'll ever be. He's just Bob, right, he just
paints right. But he did ask me once, you know
I wrote I wrote this in my book. He wanted
to know. He goes, Look, you got to tell me something, man,
Why is it no matter what I do, I can
only sell a million records. Fleetwood Mac they sell like
six million records, right, No matter what I do, I

(01:37:44):
can't only sell a million. And at the time it
was similar for Bruce Springsteen. He was like known as
the biggest cult right he could sell a million of
records on rock radio, but without a hit single. Not right,
It's just it's it's just the way it is. So
I would try to explain it to him. I'd say, Bob, look,

(01:38:05):
Fleet went back. They go into the craft hit singles.
They go into a studio for six months, they overdub
and overdub, and they produce and they edit and their
crafting hit singles. This is their craft. Okay, you go
into a dentist office and you pull up you know,
a remote truck and two weeks later it's roll at

(01:38:25):
Bob and that's your album. It's fucking brilliant because it's
Bob Dylan record. But you see the difference, right, And
he looks at me and he goes, well, I must
admit we're off the beaten path. I was like, Bob,
off the beating fucking path. It's like, you know you're

(01:38:46):
in the darkest chungles of Africa, but it's like, you
know it's nine Days of a Bob. But Bob, you're
Bob Dylan. It doesn't matter. Because I wanted him to
understand they can no matter what they do. Don't be
a numbers guy. You can You're Bob Dylan. You'll they
can never be Bob Dylan. Saw all the artists I

(01:39:08):
work with, they wish they could write one song like you.
One blown in the Wind, one times they were changing
one subterranean home, six blues, one hurricane. They all wish
I could just write one, And you've written hundreds. But Bob,
you know, it's like it's you're a poet. It's an
acquired taste. Right, This isn't this isn't you know jingles? Right,

(01:39:31):
this is poetry. Same with Springsteen. You know, he wasn't
a fan of it at the time, but you know,
but I said, Bob, you know, it's just how it is.
But but and you know, and he walked away and
he understood it. I don't think it made him really
happy because he's thinking, well, if I'm Bob Dylan and
I'm so great, can't I sell you know, one million,

(01:39:52):
five hundred thousand, you know, you know, records at least once.
But look, it's like the Velvet Underground. How many records
you think the An Underground sold? Right? Not that many?
Seminal lou Reed, Are you kidding me? These guys change
the face of rock. Well, who are the important people?
You know? People? That's part of the eighties downside was

(01:40:14):
everybody became numbers people and then in the end of
the day, that's what ruined our business. The music business
became the money business, and that's what ruined the record business. Right.
But you know, you want to talk about art and
things that matter, things that move the needle. A guy
that changes a generation, which I know he doesn't like

(01:40:35):
that handle. Sorry Bob, but not sorry. You know Bob
is and Bob Dylan, you changed my life you did
because I listened to you and I was like, oh
my god, this guy's telling me there's a new thing
I can be this. I don't have to live in
this square world that I'm growing up in the fifties
because I can't relate and I don't know if I'm
going to make it. But this guy's coming along and
he's making it different, and he's changing my life and

(01:40:57):
a whole generation's life. And it just happened, you know,
because you know, the times helped make the man. But
you know what are you know, civilis rights movement, you know,
civil civil rights movement, and you know Vietnam and everything else.
The times do help make the man, but it doesn't
matter Bob Dylan, you know Bob Dylan. So you know,
I mean, let's you talk about things that are important

(01:41:20):
and the important things. This is what's fucked up with
the music business now. The important things aren't always about
the money. It's like Willie, you know, some people, somebody's
got to figure this out eventually. The important things that
things that move the needle aren't always about the money,
and it's not always about the units, and it's not
always about oh we sold you know five million, And

(01:41:41):
it's not always about that. If the art's good, yeah,
you can sell that. But that's but the money is
not where it's at. It's the messages. You know, what
do you have to say to me as an artist?
I got the young bands talking to me all the time. Okay,
oh Paul, you did this all your life. Tell us,
tell us the secrets. Well, how do you do it today?
Is it TikTok? Is it schmick talk? Is it this?

(01:42:02):
Is it that? No, it's you. Look at yourself. Why
didn't you get an Encore? I just saw you play.
Do you ever think about that?

Speaker 1 (01:42:10):
No?

Speaker 2 (01:42:11):
Well, that's your job, right, It's like it's like your
job is to make sure that you have messages that
talk to me, that they're so important that when you
come and play again in a month, I need to
come and hear you because I want to make you
part of my life. If your people aren't jumping up
and screaming at the end of your set and demanding

(01:42:35):
another song, you've failed. Do you understand they're not here
so you know it's not you. Oh I'm gonna play
my songs and they're gonna listen to me. How cool
I am? No? No, they're not there for you. You
you have to be there for them. I'm shocked at
how many people don't understand this.

Speaker 1 (01:42:54):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:42:55):
So yeah, if you can do that and you have
something real to say, people will want to hear you
and they want to hear you again, and it's all right,
then you'll get on TikTok and that's a big amplifier
for you. But that isn't that is that's not it right,
that's not the secret sauce. It's you, you know, and
and it's okay. If you don't get an encore, go

(01:43:17):
back and talk about it. Why didn't we get an encore?
Work on it? Maybe my songs have to be better.
Work on your songs, work on your material. Your job
is to be great, and don't stop until you're great,
otherwise you ain't gonna get there.

Speaker 1 (01:43:38):
Okay. You work literally with household names. Their music is different.
Billy Joel, Pink, Floyd, The Stones, Mick Jagger solo, Paul McCartney,
Bob Dylan. Is there a thread through these people? You
talked about them being myopic, being the sun and can't
being able to see the universe, But is there's some

(01:44:01):
other thread that goes through all these people.

Speaker 2 (01:44:06):
Uh yeah, there is a thread that goes through all
of them, and it's called work ethic. Gilmour was once
talking to we're driving around. He goes, you know what,
because people think we like to just smoke a fat
one and play, because they have no idea what we do.
He goes, I go to the office every day, just
like rap, just like you go to the office with
your briefcase. My briefcase is my guitar case. I know

(01:44:28):
what Pink Floyd is. I have to be the best
Pink Floyd I can be. Right. Keith Richards rehearses the
hell out of Rolling Stones. How do you think they're
so good? They just don't do that right? Bob Dylan's
touring endlessly. They're driven. These people are driven to do this.
Bruce Springsteen, you read in my book, I've never seen

(01:44:48):
a guy work as hard as that guy. I have
never seen anything like it. You go to a rehearsal.
The guy's got a wire down the center of the arena.
He's playing his guitar at the sound bowl while he's
rehearsing the band for two hours and most soundchecks are
twenty minutes. Does it sound good? Yeah, we're done. He's
doing he's rehearsing the band endless rehearse, rehearse soundcheck. He's

(01:45:09):
twisting the knobs so he gets the best sound that
he can get. That he wants to know about that, Right.
I once saw soundcheck that lasted three hours. Then they
take a break, then they come out, they do a
four hour show. Then after the four hour show, Bruce
days and talks to everybody that wants to meet him.
And he doesn't rush you, he'll talk to you. So
if you're going to meet him, talk to him. You're
going to wait in a long line because he's gonna

(01:45:30):
take a second. Okay, guy goes home one o'clock, you know,
not home, but back, you know, back to his hotel room,
gets up the next day, does the same thing, the
exact same thing, every single day. Right the work ethic.
You can't get there and you can't stay there. I

(01:45:50):
loved reading Keith's book. My favorite Rolling Stones record is
Exile on Main Street, and he writes about rip this Joint,
which is one of my all time favorite songs, and
he writes about how hard it was to get it.
You know, it's very fast and he had to it
was really hard to just get it. But I loved
it because it was like, yeah, it's not easy. If

(01:46:13):
it was easy, everyone would do right. This is a
work ethic, This is a love for the instrument. Right,
I'm going to take this instrument to another place. So
I would say that the thread is being driven and
the work ethic to be great.

Speaker 1 (01:46:31):
Okay, let's talk about choosing singles. Traditionally bands are worst
or act or worst at choosing the singles. Tell me,
since you did it for so long about choosing singles.

Speaker 2 (01:46:43):
I think you know, after if you do this enough
and you love music enough, you get a you just
get a sense of it. You just no, no, not
everybody knows for sure. There's singles that we put out
there we thought we're going to be hits, and they weren't.
There's album tracks that I picked that I thought we're

(01:47:03):
gonna you know, they would they would run out there,
you know, it would get airplane, they'd do great, but
they wouldn't sell any records, so they don't do what
they're supposed to do. But you have ears like you're
used to it, right, So I mean you can tell
you can tell him thirty seconds, I can put any
music on right now. In thirty seconds, I can tell
you, you know, and maybe maybe I have to listen to

(01:47:25):
thirty seconds more, just if it's something different. But you
can tell in thirty seconds. There are people who know.
There are people who smart enough when they don't know
tell you a great story. It's not in my book, Walter,
you're getting the cough. Great president, right, he had to
walk the line between being cool with the artists and
talking to the CBS, you know, corporate people. Okay, get

(01:47:47):
a call from him from his office, Walter, Actually I
think it was him. No, he called me. He goes listen,
he goes, rap, I need you. I think it was
John Faggot at the time. Great promotion man. So I
need you and John to come up here because Mick
Jagger's up here and we have to pick a single.
I'm not good at it. He's the president of a
whole giant CBS. I'm not good at that stuff. But
you guys are so come up right. I thought that

(01:48:09):
was one of the greatest phone calls I ever got.
This guy is Mega. Okay, this guy is CBS. This
guy is pick anybody on CBS. He's Michael Jackson. I mean,
this guy's barbarous straw just like everything. I'm not good
at picking singles. He knows he's not good at that.
He knows he's good at negotiating for artists and being
their buddy and making it right. Fine, Me and John
go up with Mick. Hey, Mick, how you doing. We

(01:48:30):
listen to a few things and we go I think
it's this one, and Mick goes, yeah, yeah, I think
so too. I think that's the I think we have
a chance with that. And notice, Mick Jagger, you want
to talk about a guy who knows the business. Mick Jagger. Yes,
I think we have a chance with that quote Mick Jagger,
I think we have a chance with that because he knows.
It's all a chance. He knows because he's been doing

(01:48:51):
it his whole life. Right. Yeah, you hang around guys
like that, you'll learn stuff from guys like that. Tony Bennett.
I learned so much from Tony Bennett. They'll teach you
things that you don't know because they're older than you,
and they got there before you, and they've been around
the block, you know, and you learn from listening to them.

Speaker 1 (01:49:10):
Okay, some of these acts were already stars before you
got there, Like Bob Dylan, there are other acts that
you live through it. Okay, Aerosmith, Billy Joel. If you
look at Billy Joey, forget the album before starts off
the piano man, Gigantic Kit kind of goes into the wilderness.

(01:49:33):
Worked with Phil Ramone, Gigantic Okay. Bruce Springsteen second album.
They get the recording right, he's working everywhere. Hasn't quite
broken through from the inside. Did you just know they
were going to hit a certain level or do you
really never know?

Speaker 2 (01:49:53):
Some you don't know and some you have a feeling for.
And I think for me, it's always when you see
the band live. When you see that artist or band live,
you'll know it's a knowing. I heard Bruce's first record,
it was I really liked it. I went, hey, this

(01:50:14):
guy's really good. He's got something to say. It's a
little Dylan s but that's okay. He's you know, he's
not copying Bob, He's I can just tell he's an influence.
But until I saw Bruce live, I didn't know. When
I saw Bruce live at the Troubadour, I was like,
holy fuck, it's the next big thing. When I saw
Elton John. It's not even on my act or not
even on my label, right, I saw Elton John. Somebody

(01:50:35):
told me this is going to be the next big thing.
They were right. I went, holy shit. Psychedelic Furs got
their record. I love their record, But when I saw
him live, I was like, oh my god. And the
biggest one was Alis in Chains. Because, as I write
in the book, that music for me didn't I was discordant.
I did. I didn't, you know, I'm not ashamed to

(01:50:56):
say I just didn't understand it. I mean, I'm used
to Van Halen, right, I'm used to you know, Eric Clapton.
I'm you know, these are the records I'm promoting Rolling Stones.
This is music is so different sounding. But I saw
him live in New York, Bob. I saw the next
led Zeppelin, the future, you know. I saw that everything

(01:51:17):
that came after them, which is now called grunge. Who
cares what you call it, but you know you're talking,
you're talking pearl Jam. Nirvana Alice was the first one
out of the gate. Not the first one out of
the gate, because there was the BlimE. There's some other
really great Seattle bands, but they were the first band,
you know, you know, with my help to get to
the main stream, Okay, to to really be to be

(01:51:39):
heard by the mainstream public. Okay. I saw them, and
I mean it rocked me to my core. And as
you read in the book, I was having a tough
time because we had some music that just wasn't made
for rock radio, and I thought I was losing my touch.
I was. I couldn't sleep all night. I was like,
oh my god, I just saw it and it's ours,

(01:52:00):
like we have Alice in chains. I'm going to go
out and I'm going to do this and I'm going
to make this happen, and it's going to fucking blow
people's minds, you know. But from the from the record,
not because it was new to me, which you read
in the book, it was new to radio that nobody
wanted to play it because they didn't it was odd.
It's an odd sound. The Seattle sound is completely different.

(01:52:21):
They didn't want to know about it. So it took
some really strong effort, you know, to get that off.
But I think if you see someone live, you'll know,
you just know, you know, And sometimes you think you
got one by the tail and it just doesn't happen,
and you I don't know why. I had a I

(01:52:42):
had a band called Human Radio Man. I thought they
were fantastic, they made a fantastic album. I saw them live.
Just didn't resonate, just just you know, just just didn't resonate.
Lover boy. Okay, you're reading the book. I promoted it
and then as soon as I you know, Galla calms,
you got to hear it like I'm on fire, you know,
to make this thing happen. I go see them live,

(01:53:05):
same thing, Holy fuck. And you know, I know they're
like a sort of rock pop act. Doesn't matter their
rhythm section, okay, their drummer, they're bass player, like you know,
they were you know, Reno's a great front man and
you know, you know, and Pauldine's a great guitar players.
But this was a real band. This was a band

(01:53:27):
that was gonna go go long right. It was like,
oh no, it's the whole band, It's Matt Fornett. It's
like these guys, like, these guys are making this thing work.
And then when we saw that, we were like, holy shit,
we have a tiger by the tail. Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:53:42):
Historically, the Australian bands are the best live bands. Because
there's a limited amount of money in the marketplace, they
have to, you know, hit the same places again and again.
Midnight Oil was on Columbia. What was your experience with
Midnight Oil?

Speaker 2 (01:54:00):
Fantastic? Let me ask you a question, do you really
think that's true? You think Australian bounds are the best
life bounds?

Speaker 1 (01:54:06):
Because this is like we're talking old stories. I remember
I went to the Troubadour for an underplay within Excess
and Sean Coakley said that he was working at Arista. No,
that was before he's working at arist or whatever, and
I thought about it, ac DC, et cetera. Listen, if

(01:54:26):
you've been to Australia, first and foremost, there's only so
many people there, so you can't make an incredible amount
of money living in Australia. And then there are people
who say, well, you know, I like being a big
fish in a small pond. And there are a certain
number of cities there's just we could probably name them
and we don't even live there. So to stay alive

(01:54:49):
you have to play.

Speaker 2 (01:54:50):
No you speak. But I wonder if it's more like
the working class thing, like to take Judus priest when
I met them. Remember talking to Glenn Tipton. He was
an okay guitar player in the beginning with they're just
starting out and he got great, right. But I remember
him talking to me. He said, you know, I think
it was from Birmingham, so you know, I'm from this

(01:55:12):
industrial how's this. I'm from this industrial part of England
and I'm trying this to see if this works to
get me out of there. Okay. He was in judis
Priest by necessity, and I wonder if it's because it
takes them a hard long time. I don't know. Maybe
it's Bruce Springsteen's worth taking because he's a blue collar

(01:55:33):
kid from like I don't know. I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:55:37):
I'm Malcolm Gladwell because he's at certain things he has said.
But if you go back to the ten thousand hour rule,
if people don't understand, it's ten thousand hours of hard practice.
I always using the example he's sky ten thousand hours
on the bunny slope. You're not going to be a
world class gear. But one of the examples he uses

(01:55:58):
the Beatles in Hamburg. I had not discussed that with
Paul McCartney, not that he's my best friend, but I
did discuss Geezer, Butler playing in Switzerland, etc. There was
no money. They were playing night after night. No one
was listening. You really learn your chops. I mean, this
is let's go somewhere else, Sam Smith, Okay, this is

(01:56:22):
something we never saw in our business. You're playing arenas
on the first tour. You know, used to be at
the record company had a subsidized club tour. Then maybe
open up for somebody in theaters. Then maybe you headlined
in theaters. So everybody is so hungry. A lot of
these bands, you say, they look like he came from nowhere,

(01:56:43):
but you went to see him and you're, holy fuck,
these guys are incredible.

Speaker 2 (01:56:48):
Yeah, well because of that work ethic, they had to
play clubs and if it didn't happen, I mean, look
look at the early Rolling Stones reels and you see
Mick he's today he's just holding a mic like this, right,
He's he's not even looking left, he's not even looking right.
He had to learn how to be a front man.

(01:57:09):
He studied, Bruce Springsteen studied who do you think, they
studied James Brown? Right like they they realized they had
to be the work to get there. Is is How
do I be better at this? How can I make
this happen? This is like this work ethic that I'm
talking about. You know, look, you know Midnight Oil they

(01:57:30):
come from that cloth. I loved min On Oil. We
were great friends. I'm a surfer right there, surf you
know rap combed dolls. You know you've got to come.
You know, don underlon have a surf right They would
send me wetsuits. I had Midnight Oil wetsuits. They were
purple with shars whose green Midnight Oil. They're great people.

(01:57:52):
I'll tell you about the Australian bands. There's no ego.
Men at work, there's no ego. Doesn't matter how big
they get. I don't know why. They just don't have
an ego. They just are thankful. I you know nothing,
just hey, tell me where to be. We're working hard.
And the Midnight Oil guys, oh my god, one of

(01:58:14):
the greatest, greatest drummers in the world. I mean, what
a band, you know, and they were great. I had
so much fun with those guys.

Speaker 1 (01:58:24):
Let's talk about surfing. We've talked surfing for thirty years.

Speaker 2 (01:58:28):
You want to talk about something good.

Speaker 1 (01:58:29):
A surfer? Are you and how often do you go.

Speaker 2 (01:58:36):
There is a saying and surfing and a lot of
people take credit for it. And the saying is that
the best surfer is the person who's having the most fun. Okay,
because it is. It's a spiritual thing. But people don't
understand it's not just a sport. Okay, when you ride

(01:58:58):
a wave, you because I'm part of I'm just gonna
sound hipie tipity, but here's it's the truth. When you
ride a wave, unlike skiing, like you're a big time skier. Okay,
so you're well, I'm gonna ask you a question. I'm
gonna tell you what I feel, and you tell me
what you feel, Okay, because I because I tried skiing
once and I almost killed myself. Okay, So so okay.

(01:59:20):
So when you're surfing, you are riding a wave, and
so you begin to feel part of the Earth's energy.
You you feel part of the planet. Every wave is different,
it's a dance. You're looking at the wave. How is
it gonna? Is it gonna hike up? Am I gonna
have to couple take take a couple of steps on
the board to gain speed? Am I gonna have to

(01:59:41):
do a cutback and do a turn? Left to get around?
How am I negotiating my dance partner? Okay, if you
do this for an hour, an hour and a half,
which is your general surf sessions an hour and a half. Right, Uh,
when you come in to the beach, you are zend out.
You are totally zend out. I don't don't know if
it's from the swoop and glide. I don't know if

(02:00:02):
it's from all the negative ions because you're in the ocean.
I don't know if it's the sun.

Speaker 1 (02:00:07):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (02:00:08):
I think a lot of it is just sitting on
the board bob bobbing with the planet, like you're in
tune to the planet. I was never the greatest surfer
in the world. I would say, I'm good. I can
do a cutback, I can walk up the board. I
can do this. You know. Can I hang ten? No?

(02:00:29):
I can hang five. Cheater five. You walk up and
you I ride longboards. I have to tell people there's
two kinds of surfboards. There's long boards, which I grew
up with, and short boards, which is like a little
potato chip. And those guys are doing aerials right, they're
doing you shoot out of the way. If you do
an aerial of three sixty you come back down. It's
like circus tricks. I tried it. I didn't like it
wasn't It wasn't for me. So I'm still a longboard writer.

(02:00:51):
It's elegant. It's a swoop and glide. I'm a swooping
glide guy. You know what. I've surfed big waves not
my thing. Mickey Door one of the greatest surfers in
the world. In his book, he says, I'm I can.
I'm a confessed three to four foot swoop and glide guy.
I surf those big waves in a way because I
had to turn my stripes. I don't like it, you know.

(02:01:13):
You know it's a different kind of thrill ride. You
ride a twenty foot wave, twenty five foot wave. You
got to get to point A to point B without
getting killed. Okay, that's that's it. And it's yeah, it's
exhilarating your heart's and your chest. I've done it. That's
not fun for me. Swoop and glide, you know, it's
it's like you're in a jam session.

Speaker 1 (02:01:34):
Man.

Speaker 2 (02:01:34):
You just think you're lost. You just lost. And I
go as often as I can. I live on the
East Coast, so I'm not one of these guys that
serves in the winter. There are people that put on
seven mil wet suits and gloves, and I'm not that guy.
You know, that's not fun. You know I tried it once.
It's like, why am I doing this? I can't even
feel the ocean. I feel like I'm riding on ball bearings.
Might as well be on a skateboard, right. But I

(02:01:57):
but in the summer, I surf on Long Island, Live
on Long Island. I surf in Long Beach, go to Montauk,
which is a reef break, which is kind of like
a California wave. And I make sure that I go
to California at least once or twice a year because
that's where the best surf is. And I have boards
in California, so that's heaven because those surf breaks. Like

(02:02:17):
people always want to talk about Hawaii in this place
and that I have a friendly traveling well, I'm going
to Costa Rica. Fine, go to Costa Rica. You ain't
gonna find better waves than in California. It's the Disneyland
of surf, and it's every kind of break you want,
you know, from from up north to down south. Ventura
County Line, long green, beautiful waves, glassy because there's all

(02:02:39):
these culp beds. You're like riding on a mirror Malibu
Point Break. Go down South Huntington. Forget Huntington, go you know,
to past Lagoon to beach. I love down South Encinitas.
There's a place called Swami's Pipes is my favorite break.
Right below Swami's. You're sitting out in pristine, beautiful water

(02:03:00):
and the waves because there's like reefs out there's like
rock reefs right, so the waves are perfectly shaped so
they're breaking behind you so you can ride the wave
and not worry about the waves, like you know, breaking
in front of you. And all the way up and
down the coast of California. It's the best surf there is.
So I plan every year to at least plan a

(02:03:21):
surf trip in July, you know, or August. Both of
my sons surf. I have a granddaughter who surfs. Now
you want to talk about mind blowing, Bob, I tell
my kids to surf. I surf this place Swamis when
I was eighteen. I remember, I'm eighteen years old and
I'm sitting out at Swami's. I'm going I wonder if

(02:03:42):
I'll ever get married. I wonder if I ever get
married with five kids, And I wonder if I have kids,
would they ever serf? And so when my kids got
older and I wanted to take them to all my
favorite surf breaks, I took them to Swamis Paddle Out.
I'm sitting in the exact same spot. I'm flashed back
to eighteen years old. Same cliffs, same waves, same palm trees,
clientele has changed, but it's all the same. And I'm

(02:04:04):
thinking about, man, I was just sitting here and it
wasn't that long ago, and I wondered, you know, if
any of this would happen. And as I'm thinking this,
my oldest son paddles by, Hey Dad, how you doing?
And then my other son to my right paddles by, Hey, pops,
what's going on? And I'm having one of those moments,

(02:04:24):
you know, like like like like the Field of Dreams moments,
like the fuck you want to have a cat Like
every time I watched that movie, I tell myself, you're
not gonna cry, You're not gonna cry, don't cry, And
every time I see that scene, I fucking lose it.
And I was having one of those moments, right, and
I just looked up. I'm pretty spiritual gym me. I
just looked up and said thanks, because you know how
much fun is this with my kids? Okay, Now I

(02:04:44):
have a fourteen year old granddaughter and last summer, I'm
out at my favorite break which is just south of
Swambia's with just pipes. It's a great wave and she
and she calls me, well, I'm Jeep. I'm Grandpa Paul,
so I'm GP, and Jeeps for short, Hey jeeves, start paddling.
We're taking this one in together and im and I'm going,

(02:05:07):
oh my god. Now there's a granddaughter. And she gets it,
like she gets it's in her, like the surfing thing,
like it's in her right, and I start paddling, and
again I look up and I'm just like overwhelmed. I'm
just like thanks, you know, thanks for her, and thanks
for letting her understand what surfing is. So I go

(02:05:27):
as often, honestly, I go as often as I can.
And look, Bob, I'm getting older. Every summer I go out,
I paddle out, see if I can do it, and
I do it, and I step up, you know, and
then when I get into the beach. I look up
to the Evans and I thank the man above. Thanks,
I got another year. I'm going to do this another year.
My dream, well, my dream was to surf until eighty

(02:05:50):
only because I met a guy who was eighty one
and he was surfing and he said, you can do it.
You can do it. But now I have a new grandson.
He's only a year old, and I'm like, oh shit,
now I got to push the Now, I gotta push
the envelope. I need to be there for him, like
when he's like at least five or six. I just
want to paddle out with his little dude. Right, So
I go as often as I can. But let me
ask you a question. And this because I want to

(02:06:12):
know you're an avid skier. I'm always reading about your
ski trips. When you ski, is it like, okay? I
just talked to you about like what surfing feels like.

Speaker 3 (02:06:20):
Okay, the same.

Speaker 1 (02:06:21):
Let's start from the beginning. You were talking about being
zen'd out the water wears you out. I remember playing
Little League and the guy said you can't go swimming
that day. I remember just running around in like a
you know, twelve inches of water and it made a difference, okay,
And there is the zen aspect in terms of skiing.

(02:06:44):
The way I put it is, I don't know if
you know this, saw my bad company, simple man. It's
running with the pack and it's great, and you know it.
Freedom is the only thing that means a damn to me.
It's relatively slow swall and I remember standing at when
I used to live in Utah, standing in snowbird. You're

(02:07:04):
there in the elements. It's just you in the elements.
In addition, the terrain is always different, so I ski
for the sensation. And let's be clear, I skied so
much this year. I'm almost embarrassed tell you how much.

(02:07:24):
There are days I don't want to go out, but
because you just burnt. Yeah, I mean, how many stays
in a row of ice skied?

Speaker 2 (02:07:32):
Now? Oh, I'm surprised you can.

Speaker 1 (02:07:38):
I think it's sixty eight days in a row right now,
So there are days Wait wait.

Speaker 2 (02:07:44):
Wait, wait, you skied sixty eight days in a row.

Speaker 1 (02:07:48):
I'm at ninety eight days days over the year.

Speaker 2 (02:07:52):
Wait a minute, wait a minute. You got to give
me a second to take that in. Okay, let's be honest, Okay,
I can serve two days in a row, and then
I got to take a day off. Tell me how
you ski sixty eight days? I view it as a job,
and I don't care if it's a job. It's sixty
eight days. How do you three days row?

Speaker 1 (02:08:15):
Happen to be tired today?

Speaker 2 (02:08:16):
But let me really, let me you're tired, Bob.

Speaker 1 (02:08:21):
The list run two and a half times faster than
they used to, so you get a lot of skiing
in okay. But the key is to go out there
till it clicks, till you're in the zone. It always happens.
You don't want to leave the house. You're out there.
I mean, listen, I ski so much. I'm never going
to ski badly. That's not the point. The point is,

(02:08:43):
all of a sudden, it clicks, you make that specific
turn and goes this is the greatest sensation of all time.

Speaker 3 (02:08:51):
And you're out that. I understand. I understand that.

Speaker 2 (02:08:54):
But what I'm asking is about your stamina, like muscles ache.
I mean you you you have to rest some time.

Speaker 3 (02:09:01):
I don't believe.

Speaker 1 (02:09:02):
I don't believe in it. I mean, wow, So today
is wow. Today's day ninety eight. So barring anything untoward,
I'll break one hundred days. Listen, you get older, everything
becomes meaningless and it's only these core things that Okay.

(02:09:24):
I was listening to the new Elton John Brandy Carlisle
record today and the first song is about Laura and Nero,
and that really set my mind going. I saw a
Nero number of times, big fan, et cetera. Forgetting when
she came back with Donnie. I know Donnie's story. She
wouldn't be on SDL because of her weight, forget all that.

(02:09:47):
But it unclicked me in that this crazy political era.
All of a sudden, the door opened and I felt
like myself and I could see where I'm doing. I mean,
we all have obligation, so you can't always do what
you want to do. I mean, listen, I could go
on about this forever. So what are the important things?

(02:10:08):
I don't have any children, You have children, family, whatever, Okay,
eating sex, that's and reproducing that That's just about it.
So anything you put on top, I mean, okay, let
me switch throw it back to you. You take the
buyout from Columbia, how long does it take you to

(02:10:30):
emotionally adjust?

Speaker 2 (02:10:38):
Honestly, no time, because when I left, I left in
two thousand and three, the business that I knew was gone,
and so I wasn't leaving. People kept saying, but you're leaving,
you know this great business, And I said, I'm leaving

(02:10:58):
a family of people. And I've and I've got decades,
like because I've I've stayed there so long. I knew
people from the seventies, from the eighties, from the nineties,
from the two thousands, I said. But I said, I
just had the rock and roll adventure of a lifetime
and it's gone. The priorities are different. I had to

(02:11:20):
produce three DVDs for this TV show I had live
by request. They just wanted to get them out. I said, no,
they these have to be special. They have to have
they have to have extras. I was tell you know,
I was taking, you know, cues from watching movie DVDs.
I know, we have to have extras. I want to
do an interview with the band, or I want to

(02:11:40):
do something special. These DVDs have to have extras. And
they were like, I don't care what you do. Make
sure you get them out by Christmas. That's what I
need you to do. It was changing. It was like
that's I can't like, so no, I I it you know,
hey man, thanks for thirty three and at theirs years,

(02:12:00):
you know, like I did it, I didn't miss it.

Speaker 1 (02:12:12):
All of us who were around then when you walked
out the building, it was no longer fun. But let's
talk about you. So you have a twenty four to
seven job. How do you adjust after that?

Speaker 2 (02:12:28):
Well, I think you do. I think you just adjust
as life, you know, you know, as life demands. Okay,
the twenty four to seven job changed. I will say
that changed dramatically in nineteen ninety because when I the

(02:12:50):
last thing I did in promotion was Alice in Chains
and I went to Donnie Heiner and I said, listen,
I think I'm repeating myself now that I'm been doing
promotion for twenty two years, I have a lot of
ideas of how to help artists and promote artists and
and and you know, breakthrough. Other than just getting records

(02:13:11):
played on radio and doing big promotions. I have some
other ideas. And he was great about it. You know,
most people would just say, hey, wrap twenty two years. Great,
you know, here's your out, you know, check and thank you.
He was wonderful. He knew I had vision, he said.
I told him about some of my ideas. He said,

(02:13:31):
if you think you can do this, make up a
title for yourself. How's this, Bob, make up a title
for yourself. I'm going to give you three hundred thousand
dollars budget, give you a year. See what you can do.
Who does that, Bob? You're any record company presidents that
do that? Most of them just write you off.

Speaker 3 (02:13:48):
Right.

Speaker 2 (02:13:49):
But he knew me, and he's seen what I did.
I said, thanks. Then my job changed and I still
had sleepless nights, but not as many because I just
get amped. I do big, as you read in the book,
I'm the guy that shoots laser beams off mountain sides

(02:14:09):
and fucking makes airships, and you know, when it's big,
it's a lot of pressure. But I would have but
but it wasn't the same. It wasn't because I didn't
have to go to every show then because I'm not
on the front lines now. I'm doing behind the scenes
of marketing. So things did change for me in nineteen
ninety and I could be home to see the kids

(02:14:32):
at certain times. It didn't have to be out every night,
and that was a pleasant change. You know, you know,
I had my fun, Believe me, but that you know,
that was good and and everything I did past that
is still if you're in the music business. It's still
a lifestyle. Even in today's music business. I mean, it's

(02:14:55):
still a lifestyle. So it never ceased to become a lifestyle.
But but the idea of you know that this constant
you know, Sunday night pressure, this Monday night pressure, this
every week pressure. That kind of pressure was lifted and
I would only have pressure like before this next radio show,
before this next television show. What you know, you do

(02:15:16):
a life television show. There's a lot of pressure live
without a net, right, But it's different because it would
only last for that project and then it would go
away and then you'd have like a vacation for a
few weeks. So my life did change.

Speaker 1 (02:15:28):
Let me let me put it a different way. Donnie
worked at Arista. Then he was president of Columbia, had
a great run. It ended then that was you know,
the dot com era. He would come to Los Angeles.
I would go to see some company he was involved,
We sign an NDA whatever. Eventually he said I'm done. Okay.

(02:15:54):
So after you walked out of the building in two
thousand and three, were you saying you're done then, or
did you want to have certain business enterprises? How did
you segue to where you are now? Oh?

Speaker 2 (02:16:07):
No, no, no, no. I wasn't done with the music business.
I was just you know, they were offering these big
time retirement packages.

Speaker 1 (02:16:13):
They were yeah, yeah, we covered that. But now you
get your check and you're totally free.

Speaker 2 (02:16:19):
Right. No, no, no, But the point I want to
make is you need to understand this. The year before
I left, they said, this is what's going to happen.
We're going to pay you for the next year. You
don't need to do anything. You can just retire. And

(02:16:40):
a friend of mine, who was the controller in the
controller at the time, said, but if I were you,
because I know you and you want to start another business,
you got a free ride because we're going to pay
you for this entire year. And I had another friend
of mine, Ron Hartenbaum, who's ran Media America and you
know it's in the communications industry. He said, rap, you're

(02:17:03):
an entrepreneur, somebo are you talking about because all these
things you do, you're an entrepreneur. I never thought of
myself as that. He goes, No, you do all these things.
You come to my office I'm going to give you
a free office and a telephone. See what you can do.
Just I know your mind. He goes, just come over here,
and I began to think, well, maybe Ron is right,
and I thought, well, what can I do now? I

(02:17:24):
had done a radio series for Columbia called the Columbia
Records Radio Hour, which is I'm really proud of it.
You go find it online. There's some great music on there.
And I had created a radio series. I'm not the
retiring kind. I mean, Bob, I wrote this book, but
after I promote this book, I'll do something else. I'm not.
I'll never retire. I can't. I need to do stuff.
I'm just built that way. So so I started immediately.

(02:17:49):
I didn't take a break. It was just like, I'm
not doing this anymore. What can I do? Okay, well,
I'm going to let's I'll do with the Columbia Records
Radio Hour, but I'll just do a different name. And
I called all my friends in radio and said, hey, hey,
I'm going to do this, and they said, we're kind
of over that thing now and we don't want it

(02:18:11):
to be at an exact same time. Because I was
doing live radio that was a live radio show on
Sunday mornings, a singer song of radio show. You tune
in live. They said, but if you want to create
radio specials, we're all about that. And I went, okay,
I'll create radio specials. And I I took this friend
of mine who had helped me do all the stuff
at Columbia, the radio show and the television shows, fabulous engineer,

(02:18:34):
producer guy named Mitch Mcatanski, and another friend of mine
who was a scriptwriter, and I said, we're going to
We're gonna do radio shows. And I have all these connections,
so I just go to the record companies and go, hey,
you want a radio show for a new album coming out?
And we produced radio shows for three years. The company

(02:18:56):
name was Trey Sombres because I'm a big Zzy Top fan.
And there were three of us and our company was
Treys Onmbres and we produced radio shows god at least
six years, if not longer, and it was lucrative enough
for the three of us to do it. Mitch also
ran a business. He's like the mobile truck guy. Now,

(02:19:19):
if you want a mobile truck, you call three M
that's him, and he was doing that. But that was
lucrative enough. And then when that tailed out, I got
a call from Judy Lebau, who you knows ex Atlantic.
She wanted to do independent promotion for classic rock. Right.
There was a guy, Paul Yeskell used to do it.
He passed away. She bought his business. She said, do

(02:19:40):
you want to do this again? I said, I don't
really know because I'm kind of tapped out, like I
feel like I did it right. And she says, well,
just try it with me. We had a really good time.
First of all, I saw re I got to work
with all these characters I worked with the first time.
I'd be on the phone with Journey. Have you on
the phone with Neil Sean's like rap is that you?

(02:20:01):
I go yeah, I go yeah. He was like holy shit, really,
I go yeah, you know, And so I would, you know,
and I and I so and again I would. I
worked really close with David Gilmore and Nick you know,
for any Pink Floyd box sets, I would go over
and interview David. I mean again, you go back to
the family for a second. Right, new manager Steve o'rourck

(02:20:23):
passed away, sadly, new manager Apollo's but you got to
come over here and interview Gilmore for this box set.
I go, I'm not an interviewer, Like, that's not what
I do. Like I'm behind the scenes guy. No, no,
we need you. He is the only guy who wants
to talk to right, He's just you know, just do it,
you know, I said, okay, you know, so I did

(02:20:46):
the best I could. There's interviews with me on YouTube
interviewing Dave Gilmore. By the time you get to the
third one, I'm actually okay, right, but it's not what
I do. But so these things would happen for me
just just by reputation, right, And I would do, you know,
guitar things for you know, the guitars or whatever. So
I did, Judy, and I did that for ten years.

(02:21:08):
And I wrote a blog which I had a blast writing.
I'd talk about new music. I got to be you man,
I was dissing everybody. I was like, I didn't care.
You know, I don't care anymore. It's like, what the
fuck is this shit? Right? Are you telling me? This
is you know? I mean, i'd get hate mail, right,
this guy doesn't know what he's talking about. Right, Wait, wait, Bob,
how's this? I interviewed Gill okay, if we're on YouTube.

(02:21:30):
Oh shit, people fucking comment. Right I interview Gilmore. I
get one comment, Oh god, this guy rap Ward's great.
He's asking him every question I ever wanted to ask him. Well,
of course I'm a fan. I'm asking him those questions. Right,
next comment, this guy rapping Board is a fucking idiot, Like,
doesn't he know that Comfortably Numb has been played millions

(02:21:51):
of times on radio. It's not three hundred and you know,
fifty six thousand or whatever. I happen to research, you
fucking idiot. You know, it's like, do you think I
come in to interview David gilmert, I don't know what
I'm talking about, you know, so you know, so you
know it's you know, so I did that for ten
years and then and then six years ago I told Judy,
I said, you know that this book has just been

(02:22:13):
it's calling out to me, Judy. It's like someone, someone
has to document this, someone has to talk about these characters,
the Herbie Herbert's, the fucking Sandy Pearlman's of you know,
Bloyster called when the fucking flash plots go off with
too much powder, and I thought we killed the fucking
band and took out the first three rows of audience,

(02:22:35):
and all Sandy's like fucking mister Peabody and Peabody and Sherman,
and all he does is look out and go positively nuclear. Right,
I'm Sandy, and we might have killed people. He's, you know,
like the Bob you know you're talking about. Someone had
to capture this bob you're talking about, you know, bowling

(02:22:57):
in the hallways in the afternoon water gun fire. I
had a fun fucking fencing duel with with Bruce Dickinson
from Iron Maiden down the halls of Columbia, you know,
businest meetings about how we can't set our table on
fire anymore. Someone had to fucking put this down. Because
you want to know something, Bob, we are getting older
and when we're gone, if nobody writes it, it's gonna

(02:23:20):
be gone. And you were there, Come on, man, it's
guys and dolls only it's the record business and we
have all we have, all these fucking characters. Somebody's got
to write about these fucking people. Forget the artists. What
about fucking what Johnny Baggs, right, John Babcock. All this
guy ever says is get down Hey, John, will you
approve this? Get down? Okay? Do you smoked a lot

(02:23:42):
of dope? Needs to say quaylas, But everybody loved him. Okay,
it used to be out in John's road manager. Then right,
if he really wanted to make a point, get down,
and then oh no, then this one. Get fucking down.
Somebody asked her, this guy's real. Okay when this book.
After I promote this book, I'm going to TV Bob

(02:24:04):
forget Vinyl. What a horrible show. It's not a fucking documentary.
This is a fucking sitcom. This book is a sitcom
and all the characters are already written. They're written. It's
a great jumping off point for any Hollywood writer. You
couldn't make this shit up in your wildest dreams. These
are real people and this is how they really were.
So yeah, So six years ago I said I gotta

(02:24:26):
do this and I just started.

Speaker 1 (02:24:28):
I just remember you talk about these pag We was
a a Pollock convention and it was at the Century Plaza.

Speaker 2 (02:24:37):
Huh.

Speaker 1 (02:24:38):
There were a lot of crazy things. You Australians drank
through the bottles into the pool. They had to drain
the pool big But I was in the Atlantic suite.
It's six in the morning, and who shows up at
a suit and tie ricks glore. He goes, I'm on
New York time. Wow. And then he died within the year,

(02:25:01):
which was so weird. But there are many more stories
in the book. It's a great read. But before you go,
I have one more subject. I want to discuss Mogan
David in the Winos. I heard from Harold just before
we started it. So, okay, in case you don't know,
Harold Bronson one of the Rhino Brothers, known to a

(02:25:23):
great degree for musical comedy and a lot of innovative ideas.
By time I became friends with Harold, Mogan David and
the Winos was in the rear view, Mirriort. Not that
Harold did not talk about it and talk about you.
I always though it as more of a lark. I mean,
Harold's got his own sense of humor. But in the

(02:25:46):
book you said when the Ramones hit, we could have
had that slot. So tell me about Mogen David and
the Winos.

Speaker 2 (02:25:55):
Okay, Well, to be clear, that's what Harold said. Okay,
Because I thought it was a lark. When I was
in the band, we had a lot of fun Harold's
very you know, got a big imagination. He wrote really
fun songs. We made our own record. We didn't know
what the hell we were doing. We went to We're
snugging a recording studio in the middle of the night.
Look e Q, what does that mean? Like? We didn't know. Consequently,

(02:26:20):
the record sounds like it sounds I don't know if
you write record, but okay, sorry, But we were creative,
I'll give us that, and we were rehearsed, but we
did wild shit. He wrote a song for Stan Berkowitz,

(02:26:41):
who was the editor of The Daily Bruin. We were
going to college together at UCLA. It's a blue song.
It's called the Burkowitz Blues. So instead of me playing
a pentatonic blue scale on guitar, I said, Harold, I'm
going to play a typewriter. So when you hear the solo,
you hear like a blues thing, like you hear click
click click click click click click click, like talking with

(02:27:04):
the blues guitar. But it's a typewriter, right. We had
inserts because we saw our whole album cover is a
takeoff on Savage Young Winos. It's a takeoff on the
Savage Young Beatles. The album cover is a knockoff of
their cover. We had inserts because we saw Who's Live
at Leads. We loved it the fold out right, so
we made we copied it full down. There's there's there's

(02:27:28):
nine inserts right that you get. Okay, you get my
flunked music final. I flunked music one at UCLA. Okay,
because I'm not a math guy. Math and I don't
get along theory is all math. I fucking flunked music one.
I almost didn't graduate because I didn't realize I didn't
have enough credits and they said you don't have enough
credits and I said, no, I I only have one

(02:27:49):
D and that was in logic, and you know, was
that prepared me for the music business? But you know,
I said, they said, no, you flund a class. I
didn't flun the click. I said, you flucked music one.
I go, no, that was a joke. Well you might
think as a joke, but you need the X amount
of credits, right, So you get my f one. You know,
my flunk music. Finally you get a cartoon. You get
all these kind of things. The liner notes are hysterical.

(02:28:10):
Forget listening to the record. We the liner notes, Harold's
fucking great writer. Right, So I thought it was fun
and I but I didn't think we were that good.
Now here's an important point. Okay, what did we not
know in the early seventies, Bob, We did not know
that there was something called the Wrecking Crew? And so

(02:28:31):
what I would listen to records and go, Beryld, We're
just not good in it. We're not good enough. We're
not those people. Well guess what, Bob. Neither were they.
You know, they were making it up as they went along.
But we didn't know. If we would have gotten signed,
we might have been something because somebody has said, hey,
rap play it this way, or if you can't, I'll
get somebody to play it. We didn't know. So I

(02:28:52):
told Harold and I'm you know, I'm I'm an adventurer,
but I like to come home at the end. I mean,
I knew wouldn't I wouldn't make it on the road.
I wasn't going to survive. I'd be a road casualty.
I know me, I couldn't do it, couldn't live on
the road. So I knew it early on. As much
as I would like to be a rock star, this
can't be a vocation for me. But I'm just going
to keep playing guitar because I love it. But I

(02:29:13):
you know, the Columbia job came up. Harold was the
college rep. I'd hired him when I got the real
job at Columbia to follow me, and he wanted to
take the band on the road. And I said, Harold,
you know, we're having fun. We made a record, we
made a thousand records, we sold a thousand records. We
sold records world over. I have reviews from Japan and

(02:29:37):
from France. I don't know what they say because I
don't know if they liked it or not. But Harold
made a little folder for us. I have reviews from
all over and we had friends in the press right
They loved us in La. You know, I got a
great compliment from you know, Harvey Kopernick about my solo
and you know, communication breakdown, all this kind of stuff.
So but I did not think it could go past

(02:29:59):
that now did Okay? But then he said to me, well,
if you're going to get a real job at Columbia,
I'm going to go work with Richard Foz. He wants
to start a label, which was Rhino right, which he did,
and he did fine. Right, he's not complaining and I
did fine, So neither of us are complaining. But then
when the ramones hit, because Harold and I have been

(02:30:21):
friends for years, he called me and he goes, you see,
he goes, this could have been us, and Bob will
never know because it could have been We will never
know because it's not like we didn't have talent, and
it was not like Harold wasn't writing really good songs.
He wrote teenage tanks. I mean, this guy's you know,
he's got it. So I don't know but that. But
we had a lot of fun, and I just didn't

(02:30:42):
think it was going to go that far. And so
I did what I did, and he went to Rhino.

Speaker 1 (02:30:46):
And Okay, I think that we've come to the end
of the feeling we've known. I could talk to you
all night, you know, about all these things.

Speaker 2 (02:30:55):
But rap, well, when you stop skiing and I come
to LA, I'll take you to that. It would be
my pleasure. I'm one of your biggest fans. I look
for it. You got to understand, left, that's they don't
make guys like you anymore. Right, It's a fucking treasure.
Like the Left Sad's letter is a treasure, the podcasts
are a treasure. I can't thank you enough for having

(02:31:17):
me on really well.

Speaker 1 (02:31:19):
Just to let it on that note. The book and
I'm not blowing smoke up your ass does exactly what
you set out to do. Literally captures an era. Not
only does it capture an era no one else has.
You know, you talk about all these movies like Almost Famous.
That's a fantasy. That's not the way it worked. Because

(02:31:41):
there was darkness along with the light, and you know
people who burned out, and there was it was, you know,
a free flowing circus. It was great.

Speaker 2 (02:31:51):
Yes, there was a free I say that five times fast.
It was a free flowing circus. That's exactly what it was.

Speaker 1 (02:32:00):
Okay, by Rap's book, you're gonna love it. And I
don't you know, usually boost things, but you know, this
is what you're looking for. You want to know the
way it was until next time. This is Bob left
stets

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Host

Bob Lefsetz

Popular Podcasts

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Paul Rappaport