Steve Lukather

Guitarist extraordinaire and member of Toto Steve Lukather is brutally honest in this podcast, you need to hear it.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sense Podcast.
My guest today is the one and only Steve Luke,
guitarist extraordinaire, songwriter, singer, member of Toto. Luke, you stop
dying your hair? What's that about?

Speaker 2 (00:28):
You know? I turned sixty five in October and I
me at my son's house at his studio. And when
I told him a long time ago, when he was
young and I was still younger, I said, hey, man,
if I start looking like the old guy with the
jet black hair, you gotta tell me. And he said yeah,
and that was a long time ago. And on my
sixty fifth birthday was letting the beard go a little

(00:48):
bit and he goes, pop, it's time, and he goes,
Jimmy pay it's Brian May your friends. You know. It's like,
you know, I said, you know what, I had no
idea what color it was going to be, because I've
been dying it since I was thirty two years old,
thirty one years old, so I didn't know what color
was underneath. I'm kind of glad it's white because it

(01:09):
gives a little bit more of a thing. And you
know there and also people were giving me shit and
say hey, you weren't a wig or something like that,
and going, no, dude, why would I wear a wig
that looks like this? And when it all went, I
still got the hair. So I said, well, I'm just
going to be an old embrace my old age. You know,
I'm going to be sixty six in October, so I'm
not trying to fool anybody. It was just the knee

(01:30):
jerk thing I've been doing for thirty years, and that
kept doing it and then it just became a pain
in the ass. So fuck that.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
It looks very dignified. This is audio only, but you
go online there are pictures of in many places, you know,
speaking of your son, there's a picture I think the
first time I saw you without dyed. Here was the
picture at your son's wedding.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
Well, I was letting it go. I gradually I started
washing it out because it well, you know, and eventually
it just all came out and this is what was
underneath it.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
So you're at your son, Trevor's house studio. Yeah, so
he's the tech wizard. You're not that good with tech?

Speaker 2 (02:10):
All right. I'm lucky to get my underwear off and
before I go into shower, that's how low tech I am.

Speaker 1 (02:16):
Okay, Luke, you have a new solo album, Bridges. How
did this come about?

Speaker 2 (02:23):
Well, pandemic coming out of the pandemic. I did a
record before the pandemic, like a month before the lockdown.
That was two years ago or whatever it was, and
I was all live in the studio, very self indulgent,
if you will. I wanted to do something where I
didn't overdub anything but the voice, and that's what we did.

(02:44):
Didn't fix anything. So I did that now edited to
two years later the sun was going to come back on,
because for a while we didn't know if it was
ever going to come back right. It was a very
terrible time for me. I mean I went into a
manic depression hole that may doctor was scared about. I
was taking medication sport, and that got all squirrel.

Speaker 1 (03:05):
A little bit slower because you're a very upbeat guy.
Although you know we talked about your down moods medication before.
But tell me about this descent and how bad you were.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
Well, I mean, you live through it yourself. I mean
we hit a brick wall, go in a thousand miles
an hour. I had touring plants, I had all kinds
of a year planned out in advance, because these things
take a while to get together, as you well know,
and all of a sudden boom done, no idea when
or if it's ever going to come back. Are we're

(03:38):
all going to die from this thing? You know, everybody's
sitting in their house with a mask on, scared to
death to touch anybody or anything. And I went into
a black hole. After first couple of months, it's like, ah,
they great have being homes in the Nine Stabs some
time off, and then it started to suck day by day.
There was nothing to look forward to, no reason to

(03:58):
get out of bed. I descended into my own private
hell and it just lost its way and I had
a massive breakdown. I did. I ended up in hospital
and ended up in a crazy house. It was very
scary time for me. I didn't know what to do
with myself, Bob, I really didn't. I'm sorry. I've been

(04:21):
NonStop since I was a kid. You know. I did
my first union sessions in nineteen seventy six when I
was eighteen years old at United Western three where they
cut pet sounds, and that's when I was going, Wow,
this is really starting to happen, you know. And I
never stopped. I've been busy ever since, unless I wanted
to take a few weeks off the vacation, which was

(04:42):
not often. So when it all just stopped, I'm like,
what do I do with myself? I don't know what
to do, you know. And it was a very scary
time for me. And once I pulled out of that
dive and got myself together and got with a great
doc and cleaned all that grubbish out that I was

(05:05):
taking for this depression, which was not good for me
at all. And of course, you know if one makes
you feel better, what happens if you take five? You
know what I mean? And they got to that, you
know what I mean. I was ashamed to say it,
but I lost control of my life and it was
a terrible time for me. And when I came out
of it and woke up, I wanted to make some music.

(05:25):
I knew we were going to get back on the road.
I was once I started back in and we could
do something again. Plan okay, we can tour again. Got
all that together and we had two months off and
I go, I want to do something. So I called
up my old pile David Page, then Joseph Williams, my
total partners and childhood friends. I said, let's make a

(05:47):
record like old school. Let's make a shamelessly eighties who
gives a fuck record like I'm not trying to Oh,
I'm not going to change the world. I'm not going
to sell eight million copies like we used to. But
I want to scratch the you know. I want to
make a fun record with all of us guys and
invite back Simon Phillips, who hadn't played with us in

(06:07):
a long time, was our drummer, legendary drummer. And Shannon Forrest,
who played with us last time the last incarnation I
Just a Lease Clark came in. Jurgen Carlson from Government Mule.
My Son produced and co wrote a track I Just did.
We did it in three weeks, from soup to nuts,
and then I sat on it for a year because
we went on the road, and then we mixed it

(06:28):
and it's coming out in June sixteenth.

Speaker 1 (06:31):
Okay, one other name you didn't mention, which I found interesting.
Randy Goodroom is involved. How did that come together? Oh?

Speaker 2 (06:38):
Randy is one of my favorite songwriting partners. We started
writing songs in the mid eighties, and we had our
first hit with a song called I'll Be Over You,
which is lasted some time. A matter of fact that
it just went gold after all these years.

Speaker 1 (06:51):
So well, at this point that's my favorite Toto song.

Speaker 2 (06:54):
Oh really, yeah, really, Oh that's interesting.

Speaker 1 (06:58):
You know, Toto four is vastly underrated. That was first
album with Joseph Williams.

Speaker 2 (07:06):
Honest, no, no, no, no, it wasn't. Total four was
the album that we was the last album we did
with Bobby Kimball singer.

Speaker 1 (07:11):
Well that's not what way. It was called Fahrenheit.

Speaker 2 (07:14):
Fahrenheit was the record that Joseph joined up. But Joseph
and I have been for instance, we were teenagers.

Speaker 1 (07:20):
Okay, Well, Joseph is the son of the composer John Williams. Yes,
how'd you meet Joseph?

Speaker 2 (07:25):
Therest brother Mark who's a drummer, and myself and famous
guitar player Michael Landau and I've been friends since we
were twelve and bass players playing with Toto. Now John Pierce,
we had a high school one of our many high
school bands together, and that's how I met Joe, his
little brother, and Joe could sing really great. He was
really funny, and we sort of lost touch for a minute.

(07:49):
And then when we were looking for another singer, he
came in an audition and he had great songs to
go along with it. Plus I knew him as its
like this guy's great, perfect and we all fought and
everybody else fell in love with him, and then we
started making the records together.

Speaker 1 (08:04):
Okay, so you got this record. How'd you write the
songs you.

Speaker 2 (08:08):
Mean on my new record? Yeah? Well, met called up
page said meet you at Jose at noon. Let's see
what we got. Every day we come in with nothing,
and every day we would leave with a fairly well
constructed track with an idea for what lyrics and melodies
that we had wed. And then we'd say, hmm, well,
I want to get this done quick. Who are we

(08:28):
going to call? So I called either Stan Lynch, who's
a dear friend who used to be the drummer in
the Heartbreakers, but he's also a great lyricist, producer, did
the Eagles, Handley and all that stuff, and he writes
incredible words and he knows he has my demented sense
of humor as well. And then Randy Goodram was the
other guy who was my go to when it comes
to writing ballads and stuff like that. We had we

(08:50):
have something. I write these piano songs, and I have
it all together except the words I can. Then we
talk about how I'm feeling, what I want to write about,
and he comes back with this poetic stuff that I
would have never been able to come up with on
my own. Because you know, I can write words. I'm
also better at editing what somebody else gives me. I
need a help getting started with it. Then I'm a closer.

(09:12):
I like to finish stuff, but I'm not afraid to
ask for help from guys that really are good at
their gig, you know, and Randy's one of the best.

Speaker 1 (09:20):
Okay, let's go back. You show up, you got nothing,
A little bit slower. How do you end up with something?

Speaker 2 (09:28):
Somebody starts playing some either I have a little bit
of it. I start dicking around with the riff, and
Page jumps in on the keyboards. We set up a
little drum groove, you know, on a machine, with the
intent of having real musicians play on it. But you know,
the other thing is like, we don't do demos. Everything's
a master no such thing as demos because a lot
of times your original I vibe and the creativity comes

(09:51):
without thought, you know what I mean, It just comes.
Start thinking about it too much, Oh I'm gonna have
to redo that, and then it's never as good. Maybe
sonically might be better, but we're as we're recording on
pro tools are logic. When we were working in logic,
it just sounds great, so there's no reason to redo it.
So we sort of like made this as opposed to
the last time, where everybody was in the room at

(10:11):
the same time, everything live. This time, we just the
three of us, Joseph, myself and David were working and
we'd start overdubbing and start coming up with stuff in
the forum would take place. We'd have a song done
in less than an hour every day, with the exception
of the lyrics. But we start overdubbing, and you know,
I said, let's just shamelessly overproduce this like we used to.

Speaker 1 (10:34):
Okay, so the drum machine is only in your headphones
and you replace it with real drums later.

Speaker 2 (10:41):
Yah, No, we weren't wearing headphones. We were playing through
the speakers and stuff like that, and uh.

Speaker 1 (10:46):
Well, how do you replace the drum machine? Then?

Speaker 2 (10:48):
In the final product, well you take it, get a
real higher, real drummer, and most of the song is
completely done except for the bass and the real bass
and drums. I like put that on last, and so
he knew exactly what he was playing, so you have
a click track with it. He can so he doesn't
listen to the drum track. You know. We play the
rough form once and we have a chart written out

(11:11):
so everybody knows who we are, so we get stuff
done real fast. Simon Phillips can read, you know, first
take stuff, you know, and he knows what to play.
I'd have to tell him. He here, he goes, I
know what to play. So the nothing no more than
one or two takes on anything. The other stuff I
set to Shannon Forest via the Internet and he was
living in his studio in Nashville, and he's he's an

(11:33):
unbelievably great studio. He's a great engineer, great player, and
he'd send me back the stuff. Now I go, that's great.
Or sometimes I was in the room with Simon Trevor
and I went out. My son Trevor, who worked on
the record, co produced his track. He produced his track.
He didn't cop we just like I want to let

(11:53):
my son go with it. But that's what we can
talk about that later. But I just I try and
know who to call. It's like you know who to call,
who's going to do the job. And I wanted to
work with my old friends too. You know, people think
O Simon's on the band anymore, so I almost hate him,
and that's not true. He thinks everybody moves on. It
was his choice to move on. We're all still friends,
you know.

Speaker 1 (12:14):
Okay, just technically because I'm interested. If you're in the
room and everything through speakers, you hear the drum machine,
but everything is recorded separately in logic, so you can
pull the drums drum machine. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (12:28):
I had my amps in another room out, you know,
so that you couldn't hear them while we're in the room.
So it was coming through the speakers like you would
have listening to any recording. Uh. And David was going direct,
as was Joe, so there was no leakids or anything
like that. So we were able to use everything.

Speaker 1 (12:46):
Okay, And how do you decide what to use on
the final record?

Speaker 2 (12:52):
Oh? Throughout the process, I mean, as we're adding vocals,
it's I mean, Joseph Williams produced the record because hey,
he's a great produce or especially with the vocals getting
that out of me, and in the studio was in
his house. We did everything at his house except for
the drums, which we farmed out, and then I had
my engineer, Ken Freeman, mixed the whole thing. We just

(13:15):
gave it to him and said here, make this is
it's all here, fresh airs. Make this sound great. And
then we come in and I go, yes, no, no,
do this, do this. I mean I know how to
tech talk. I just don't sit behind and press the
buttons myself. You know what I mean. I know how
to speak engineer.

Speaker 1 (13:33):
Okay, So you make a record today, the nature of
the marketplace is no matter how great, that record is
going to have a fraction of the audience of what
it had in the seventies and eighties. Does that impact
your desire? How does that affect your attitude towards a project.

Speaker 2 (13:51):
It doesn't affect it at all. I try as hard
as I ever did, so I'm trying to make it.
I mean, we listen, nothing's going to sell eight million
records anymore, Army, particularly older guys. Now, I just did
this because I need to scratch the creative itch. I
have to do something new, and it's a niche audience
we play. We have a big enough audience that will
buy this to facilitate me doing more. If I ever

(14:14):
decided to do another record, I don't know. I'm just
kind of dealing with this one at this point. And
I love the tour. I loved and that's where we
make all of our money. But that you know, I'm
away from home, you know that's what that is. I
just finished three months without coming home, just like last week.
But making music is something I need to do. It's

(14:35):
not something I do for the cash per se. We
know that there's no real money in the recording business
new music anymore. This money in the old music. Our
Spotify numbers are scary good and uh, you know, billions
of streams. And I made a great deal when I
took over management of the band eight years ago. I

(14:56):
made a great deal with Sony because they didn't know
what they had and Spotify was brand new, so I
got it the best percentage that you could get. I'm
not going to say what it is, but it's thirty
percent more than we were getting on a regular record.
Plus so I love Spotify. Everybody hates Spotify. I love Spotify,
the gift that keeps on giving baby.

Speaker 1 (15:17):
Okay, now, for a long time you and Sony were
not on the same page.

Speaker 2 (15:25):
Well, no, they hated us. Donnie Einer refused to release
our records and Matola didn't do anything about it, you know,
and yet are they wouldn't let us out of the
deal because we sold too many records around the world.
So everything else did really well around the world. But
you know, the US, they'd released three hundred records in

(15:46):
Pocatella and say that they released the records to fill
the contract with a big middle finger towards us, which
is really stupid.

Speaker 1 (15:53):
But you also said you prior to this we negotiation,
you didn't think you were proper really accounted to on royalties.

Speaker 2 (16:02):
Yeah, well you turns out I was right. You know
the end, you know what and not it is, we
do it. We do it, We do it every two years,
and they always there's always found money. And in any
other corporation, if you default more than two times, you're
out of your record. You're out of your deal. Not

(16:23):
in the record business. In perpetuity, that's a word, that's
a word in perpetuity for life, and then when I die,
my kids will chase after it.

Speaker 1 (16:35):
And you know, some acts a little bit before the
vintage of Toto had rights of reversions on the album.
You didn't have that with Toto.

Speaker 2 (16:43):
We fought for it, and that's how I got the
Spotify deal. They would they were never going to give
any artists their rights to their record back as catalog
is what keeps the building lights on. You know, they
don't develop new talent for long careers anymore. And all
all those old guys that everybody makes fun of, all
those old guys, we're still selling records, We're still selling tickets.

(17:06):
So we may not be relevant to today's hipster youngsters,
but it turns out there are young people that got
into our music due to this crazy Africa shit. You know,
It's like that was the funniest thing that ever happened
to me, but it was also the best. I'll take it.
It's a gift, thank you, lord.

Speaker 1 (17:23):
You know, but tell us the story of how you
found out Weizard was constantly being a cover of Africa.

Speaker 2 (17:30):
No, no, no, you got this backwards. They were the
last ones on board. They were they they batted clean
up Basically this whole thing started from the show Stranger Things, right.
They used the song in there and this, and it
just all of a sudden came out and it became
this worldwide thing, man, and we're like forty years after.

(17:53):
It was the number one record in the United States.
By the way, I never thought this song was ever
going to see like any radio play. When we put
it on the album was the last thing we cut
on Total four, and Page had this great groove and
all of this stuff. Thought wow, that's really interesting. And
the lyrics were never done. It was just the melodies.
And then we read the whole record and then Dave

(18:13):
and Jeff, you know, Page was going to Africa. I'm
feeling this vibe. We're going, okay, well, what are the
words gonna be? The melody was killer, the groove Jeff
Pacaro was the muse behind all of that, you know,
he put put together. We started doing all these loops
without the late great Al Schmidt, God bless them, our
engineer at the time, and we did it old school loops,
real loops, like tape loops. We're holding it with the

(18:35):
cant soul and stuff, you know, and we just wanted
experiment you know, we were young guys, you know, didn't
you know, lived in the studio, loved it, you know
what I mean. And we spent like six months making
that record, if not more, because it was like, if
you don't have a hit record, you're gonna get dropped
from the label. So it was our fourth record. We said, well,
we've better bring it. So at that point we were like, okay,
So Dave had this cool vibe and at the end

(18:57):
they brought the lyrics and I was laughing at the lyrics.
I'm going, Dave, we're from North Hollywood. You know what
is this? You know, what are you talking about? It
was just a fantasy song that Dave used to He's
you know, him and Jeff and they were into this,
you know, history, and they would all stuff like that,
and they just started grabbing went for it, you know,
all these ridiculous were serengetty and of course it doesn't

(19:19):
make any sense. I mean everything, well those don't really
you can't see to kill the majority. You know, Let's
say everyon's trying to like look at it like as
a science project. Man, it's a goofy little song that
we never really thought was gonna hit the nerve. The
song we thought we had was Rosanna. We thought, okay,
you know that's that's really us. That says it all.
And we were proud of that, and that was the

(19:41):
first thing we cut. The record company said we love it.
We were off the hook. Okay, great, and then we
just had fun making this record and we had it
was our fourth record. We started to get a vibe
as a band. We started feeling like we'd made three
records and toured and it really felt good. Everybody who's
writing song, David was going come on, bring some song,
and we did. And it was really a band effort,

(20:03):
really truly was, and we had a blast doing it.
But Africa, who knew. I actually said at one point
I've been quoted as stupid quote. I was very young.
I said, I'll run naked down Hollywood Boulevard if this
song's ever hit, Well, nobody would want to see that now.
Plus I probably leave a trail like sparks, you know,
my nutsack hitting the pavement running full speed. But it

(20:25):
turned into this massive thing, and then once the TeV
show then peopled parodies of it, then it was like
some club in the UK just be torture for me.
They only played that song for like twenty four hours
in the club. Now I would have hung myself behind

(20:45):
the bar after the third play, but that's me. But
it became this thing, and then it became an internet thing,
and then it was everywhere. And then this girl who
was a Weezer fan saw it on Stranger Things and
a parent those guys were doing covers, you know, and
they she beg begged them to do it. Took a while.

(21:07):
I don't know. I was not involved in that part,
and they they're not fan, they don't like our band
or anything like that. They were just like the middle
finger to us. And it backfired on them because now
they have to play it every night for the rest
of their life. But they weren't doing particularly well and
this brought them up and gave him a hit record.
So we both won from that. And I tried to
reach out to the guy Rivers and say, hey, man,

(21:29):
you know, he totally middle fingered me, man, you know,
and I'm like, really, dude, the guy is struggling to
play bar chords is middle fingering me. Okay, I'm glad
it worked out for him, you know. I mean, I
don't have a hold of grudge or nothing like that.
It helped us help them, But we did one of
their songs right as a reply, you know, and then
Universal bought it and shelved it and so wouldn't end

(21:51):
up on the radio anywhere. They played it once on KROQ,
and then they never played it and they buried it.
It was kind of wow, man, Okay, it didn't even
give us an even shot. But you know we did
it as a joke too. It's a wink wink, you know.
And then we carried on, let's do some.

Speaker 1 (22:15):
Cleanup work the new album. Are people going to be
able to hear that live? You know?

Speaker 2 (22:22):
I don't know right now where I'm you know, I
did the album just as an art project, scratch the
creative itch makes something new, something from here for the
old fans, because you know, we're not going to make
total records anymore. It's just too complicated in terms of Ugh,
I don't want to get I never want to see
a lawyer again where I'm writing a check to a

(22:44):
lawyer ever, unless it's to finish my living trust, which
I've just done again updated. But I you know, I've
just spent too much time and money and broken hearted
moments over litigation. It's not worth the hassle or the
cost to do that when I just want to make
some music with my friends. So we all make solo

(23:08):
records and we all work on them. So I still
get to work with my friends without paying the ass
of hearing from somebody's lawyer. You can't use this or
where's my percentage or all that we pay everybody every
night we play live from the gross. You know, people
that wish me dead, I pay them. And the rest
of it is, I just shut my mouth and play

(23:29):
the guitar. And I got no fight with anybody anymore,
Peace and love, no grudges, no anger. I'd let on,
let go. I have a very good psychiatrist, and I'm
not on any medication right now.

Speaker 1 (23:40):
Okay, so you talk about you love Spotify. They're multiple
members of the band. After the income comes in and
it's split all those ways, there's still enough significantly for you.

Speaker 2 (23:54):
I should be getting a gold plated thank you note. Yeah,
I mean, you know, people that aren't in the band
get paid. I mean the people that get paid the most,
of the guys that played on the earliest, biggest hit records.
I mean it's obviously a math problem in terms of
how the splits are. But it's all you know, everybody

(24:16):
gets free money. If those of us that are still
Joseph and I that are still working it alive, I mean,
you know, we get the advantage of that. But the
people that aren't in the band, like are you know.
I don't want to get into all this because it's.

Speaker 1 (24:32):
Because I know, when you play live you have to
pay people who are in Toto. Where there are states
who are not performing with.

Speaker 2 (24:42):
You, well are not able to because they're not on
the planet Earth anymore. But I'm trying to say, yeah,
just that's the fact true. I mean, I I hesitate
to say anything because like, the last thing I need
right now is somebody's lawyer to call me. But I
heard what you said on the left that show. It's
it's like, okay, let's kill me now, just exact on
knife across the neck, kill me.

Speaker 1 (25:05):
Let's go back. First Toto album, Hold the Line, huge success.
Second album, you know, Hydra has ninety nine a few
other things. Third album doesn't have as much radio success.
Fourth album is a monster. How does that affect you personally?

(25:25):
I mean, you played on hit records you'd played on Thriller,
et cetera, but now it's your after that.

Speaker 2 (25:32):
That was after Thriller was the we won Album of
the year, and then the next year Thriller one Album
of the year.

Speaker 1 (25:37):
Okay, I get I'm not remembering correctly, but in any event,
doesn't change my question, what's it like to be that successful?
How does it affect you emotionally?

Speaker 2 (25:48):
For us, it was redemption. We saved ourselves, We saved
our careers as a recording band. Yeah, we could have
just stayed at the studio guys and stuff like that,
and some of the best years of my life. I'm
very proud to say that I was a you know,
first call session guitar player. You know, it started out
when I was a teenager. It was a dream to

(26:08):
have both to be the first call guy or one
of the first called guitar players, playing all the hit
records with all these amazing artists and have a hit
band that was like beyond the dream. We felt. It
was overwhelming, really, I mean we were like, oh, wow,
thank god we got a record on the on the
radio again. Rosanna was a hit, and oh we're gonna begin.

(26:29):
But then I think Snowball and we had We weren't
even members of Nerost to vote for ourselves. You know,
people got pissed off that we want It's like we
were also on like, you know, god knows how many
records that were nominated that year, you know what I mean.
We were on everybody's records at least one of us.
And I won for Best R and B Song for

(26:50):
a song I wrote for George Benson with Jay Grayden
and Randy and Bill Champlain. We did that in ten minute.
That was a ten minute writing session, you know, that
was and it became a Grammy Award winning song. You know.
So it was like it was overwhelming to sit there
and look around and going like, are we really here?
Is this really? Did we really pull this off? I
mean it was it was astounding. It was a great feeling.

(27:13):
And then we want everybody turned on us. Oh there's
a fix, those guys know everybody blah blah blah. We didn't,
like we're talking about, we didn't vote for ourselves, you know,
we didn't know. It was a weird, freaky thing, like
every time we get success, everybody would punch us in
the face, you know.

Speaker 1 (27:30):
Okay, just talking about all the songs you wrote and
all your royalty streams. A lot of people of our
vintage are selling those. Would you ever sell your rights
in your songs?

Speaker 2 (27:40):
That's the dumbest thing you could possibly do in your life.
If you have something that's worth anything, you know, take
for example, Africa, why would you sell that. That's like
you just sold a standard that's going to play for
a hundred years from now. Somebody will be playing it
on some bizarre key board of the future and everybody'll

(28:01):
laugh and go, remember this song from one hundred years ago.
And you know, assuming that AI doesn't wipe out every
income stream that there is. I mean, for me, I'm
going I would rather give my great grandchildren a thousand
dollars check from old great granddad they never met, you know,
over my neighboring rights. Because I played on thousands of records.

(28:22):
That's a big check every year. And that's only in Europe.
You know, the US decided to middle finger US and
not give us anything for that either. But you know,
all these records in this these it's it's sort of
self perpetuating. You know, there are people that will be
listening to this stuff. Maybe not as many people, but
people I just don't want to give it up. Everybody

(28:44):
I know that's given it up has regretted it, going,
oh my god, what have I done? Because you don't
get anything anymore. It's done over, not another penny. So
even if they give you some gazillion dollar check, government
gets half, then the people take their percentages. Then everybody's
who gets a piece or whatever, and the next thing

(29:06):
you know, it's watered down and all of a sudden,
this income stream that you've had consistently is that you know,
our songs believe it or not, get played all the time. Man,
the numbers don't lie, they're there, And why would I
want to sell that? I mean, did I look into it?

Speaker 1 (29:21):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (29:21):
I said, well, how much do you think I'm worth? Ben?
And I said that's not nearly enough? And it was
a lot. I said, no, man, if you're going to
give me that now, I'm still convinced somebody knows something
and they ain't telling anybody. But the next what then?
Why would somebody pay half a billion dollars for somebody's
catalog and not expect how do you make back that

(29:42):
kind of cash? There must be something coming that we
don't know about, you know, remember when records went to CDs,
they went from seven bucks to twenty bucks. Well, they
never adjusted it. They never adjusted it for the artist.
But that's when all the executives started flying private and
make more money than the artists, like a lot more money.

(30:04):
And they never figure. Oh, they were retooling. That's why,
because it wasn't been forty years of retooling. Have you
tooled it yet?

Speaker 1 (30:14):
Guys, I agree with everything you say. I don't believe
in selling the catalog and I wouldn't sell one of
my kids. You know, when the executives started to make
more than the acts of go this is really fucked up.

Speaker 2 (30:31):
But it's worse now unless you unless you've got some action.
I so you can make fun of me being an
old what's the word do you like to use? Ludite? Yeah?
I mean I may be that, but you know what,
I'm working. I've never been busier. Band's making more money
on the road than we ever have. Everything's good. You know.

(30:53):
I'm the only guy that believed that someday we're going
to turn this around. Man, and I'm here to I'm thrilled.
I'm not mad at anybody. I think everything's great in
a world where everything's gone to shit. I feel pretty
good about it. As long as I don't read the news,
I'm great.

Speaker 1 (31:10):
Okay. Something we haven't gotten into depth in previous conversations
is equipment. So how many guitars do you own?

Speaker 2 (31:19):
Oh? You know, man, people are gonna hate me for
I really don't know a lot. I have vintage ones.
I know exactly where they are at. But I did
sell some of those at one point stupidly. It's like
sort of like sellers regret or what do they call it,
some of my old but I kept my my ap

(31:41):
I have my fifty nine less Bald that's an infamous one,
and uh, I sort of gave it to my son,
but I said, you can't sell it. If you do,
you have to give it, share it with your other
three brothers and sisters. But that's after I'm dead. In
the meantime, I still have it. I was threatening to
to use it and bring out some of the old
stuff that I used to use. But you know, I

(32:03):
love my music man guitars, and I've been planning for
thirty years and that's it. And they give me everything
I need and they keep getting better and better. But
the fitchure stuff I keep. I got hundreds of them.
They're in my storage space, you know.

Speaker 1 (32:15):
So you have a storage space somewhere in LA where
all this stuff is.

Speaker 2 (32:19):
Yes, I can't tell you. I'll have to kill you.

Speaker 1 (32:21):
Right exactly.

Speaker 2 (32:22):
No. Yeah, I got all kinds of gear that I
you know, I really need to make up a set
get rid of some of it. But some of it
just has a lot of memories from a particular era.
You know, when I'm dead, my kids can figure out
what to do with it. You know.

Speaker 1 (32:36):
So what's so special about a fifty nine less Paul? Well,
you know.

Speaker 2 (32:43):
It was. I don't know they made They had a
couple of really great years there in the fifties. Man,
when the wood was right. It was a hands on craftmanship.
It wasn't like machinery making things, you know what I mean.
There's still a few company music Man still makes it
by hand, but a lot of these companies, so you know,
the they do it in Korea, they do it in China,
they do it and all you know, in these plants

(33:03):
and they just wrick them out. I don't know that
was the one to get because all my heroes had those,
like you know, Jimmy Page and you know Eric Clapton
and played these you know all my Jeff Beck, you
know all my heroes and the later friends. Uh. You
just I wanted that sound when you picked it up
and played it, I got it. I remember when I

(33:24):
bought my fifty nine first. It was on our first
tour and we were in Phoenix somewhere and I went
out and got you know, somebody said there was one
there and I went down and bought it. It was like
four thousand dollars. I remember my account and going four
thousand dollars. You you know you can get these things
for free. Now, what do you need a fourth? I said, no,
you don't under you don't understand this is like and

(33:45):
they only made a handful of these after that, there's
no more. There's a lot of fakes now and stuff.
You gotta be careful with that. Uh. But uh, I
bought this thing, and now, I mean I had it
a praise for like, you know this one because it's
been on a lot of hit records. George Harrison played
it when he played with us at the Amphitheater after
Jeffrey Percaro passed, and so I voted, I mean it

(34:06):
has all this history in it, you know, of all
these and uh, it's worth like six hundred and fifty
thousand dollars. Now, I was appraised, and when I die,
it might be worth more than that.

Speaker 1 (34:18):
You know what other vintage stuff you got.

Speaker 2 (34:21):
I got a fifty one Esquire, which is a really
uh it's like the guitar Springsteen uses. It's it's a
Keith Richards, you know. I bought that one for a
couple of grand and that's worth like a boatload of
dough now, you know, and I break that thing out.
I've used it on some ringo stuff we were working on.
But I sold a couple of like a fifty eight

(34:43):
gold top and a nineteen sixty less ball SG which
was actually a less ball. But you know, now I
wouldn't be It's it's really not cost effective to start
collecting vintage gear at that price. Now it's collectors and
people that got to have it, really rich people.

Speaker 1 (35:04):
Okay, how did you start your association with music Man.

Speaker 2 (35:08):
I was involved with a company called Valley Arts, which
was like they were making like Frankenstratz, which are like
stratocaster type with different pickups and electronics and stuff. And
they went on went out of business and they sold
to the Koreans. At the time, I had just met
somebody who was one of my dearest friends, Sterling Ball,

(35:30):
and who his father was, Ernie Ball, his Ernie Ball
strings if you just got to make super slinking strings
and all that. His son, Sterling took over the company
and was working with Eddie van Halen on making him
a what do you call it a signature guitar because
he you know, and they they did. And I was

(35:52):
hanging out at ads and stuff like that, and you know,
they're as, what do you think of this guitar? What
do you think of these pickups? I gave him a
little input on the back pickup, and they made Eddie's guitar,
which I really dug and I said, and they said.
And Sterling, also known as Biff to his friends, Biff goes,
let me, because you're not a feeling, let me make
your guitar. And I feel like, give us the give
us your favorite guitar, and let us put on a computer.

(36:15):
And well, every little divid every little thing we're gonna make,
we're gonna make that happen. And it turns out one
of the luthiers at Valley Arts was hired by Sterling
to work for his company, had already worked on my stuff.
I love what they were doing with d and I
got involved in this company and then we became best friends.
And I've been there for thirty years this year, and

(36:36):
I love the guitars I've been There's four different versions
of my l four is coming out and I've done
very very well by this. A lot of people have
bought them and used them over the years, and I'm
really proud and honored to be a part of that.

Speaker 1 (36:50):
You know, So what makes your guitar different from like
your conventional strat or something else.

Speaker 2 (36:58):
You know, it's a different tool in the tool. You
don't use one tool for everything. You know, it's a
It's really a combination of a strat and a less
Paul put into one guitar. Now, the guitars don't make
noise until somebody picks it up and plays it. So
I mean, I've played my famous friend's guitars and I
just sound like me playing the guitar, and they played
my guitars and they sound like them playing through it.

(37:20):
So there's no magic guitar or amp. There's only magic people.
A great instrument is a great tool, but in the
hands of an amateur, it sounds. You can give my
super expensive less ball to somebody that can't play, and
it's not gonna make them play any better.

Speaker 1 (37:37):
Okay, But in terms of strings, pickups, action, what do
you desire.

Speaker 2 (37:45):
I'm a pretty simple guy. If it gives me what
I want, I mean, it's up to me to make
noise come out of it and make some music come
out of it. I've been using Ernie Ball string since
I was a kid, you know, so that was the
no brainer. And that's the most amazing company. I mean,
anything I need, it could be shipped anywhere. They'll be

(38:06):
there the next day. It's an unbelievably incredible company. Unbelievably Sorry,
I'm not speaking properly, and now I'm old. Yeah, I
love it. I mean it's not I'm not a tech guy.
I don't take my guitars apart put them back together again,
because if I did, either be parts left out. My

(38:26):
dad used to get mad at me when i'd make
models when I was a kid because I put it
together and then I'd leave parts out. Oh I forgot.
I didn't mean to put that I'm not an idiot,
I'm just lazy.

Speaker 1 (38:38):
Okay, what about amps.

Speaker 2 (38:40):
I use Bogner amps, and I have been using which
is a Marshall style amp, but it's a little bit
more high tech than that. I've been using that for
John fifteen twelve fifteen years now. I've had them all old.
I used to use old Fender amps. I used to
use Marshals. I had some weird customized amps that I
have in my collection. But in terms of a workhost,

(39:02):
that gives me everything I need is the Bogner amps.
Like my whole new record is just the Bogner amp
and music man guitar, same guitar, same amp on every song,
so you can, if you bother to listen to it,
you can hear the versatility of different tones that I
can get out of this effortlessly. I'm not into dragging.
I used to be famous for always all the big
racks of digital gears, and it was a great time.

(39:26):
It was a great era, you know what I mean.
But you know, at the same time, I wanted to
simplify myself, you know, So I just use a couple
of stop boxes on the ground, which are little fects
pedals that could be taken out and thrown away and
changed over. And I do everything manually, stepping on it myself,
you know, if I want it, and I just have
a little pedal board playing through the guitar into the amp.

Speaker 1 (39:48):
Nice talk with you, Okay, let's go back to the
very beginning. I'm sure talking about father. So where did
you exactly grow up?

Speaker 2 (39:58):
More parking to hung out in North Hollywood on a
street called Elmer, across the street from what is now
a park used to be a dirt lot When I
was a kid. It was a lot of fun.

Speaker 1 (40:11):
So you know, LA used to have orange groves, all
this stuff. What was it like in the fifties and
sixties where you grew up?

Speaker 2 (40:17):
Well, I grew I was born in nineteen fifty seven,
so I don't really the fifties is sort of a wash.
But I was a child of the sixties, man, you know,
and it was the greatest time ever for I mean,
when the Beatles hit, my life went from black and
white to color. I said, I have to do that,
whatever that is. I wanted to be George Harrison. I
wanted to make that sound. You know. My first first

(40:41):
soul that drove me mad was the guitar solo, and
I saw her standing there and I must have lifted up.
My my parents bought me all looking and now cute
that as he loves the Beatles, that little fad that
was going to just be there for five minutes, you know.
So I got a really shitty acoustic guitar which is
now a lamp in my house. My parents. My parents
made it into a lamp and gave it to me
on my twenty first birthday. It was like a five

(41:03):
dollars k guitar that was like screwed on neck. The
action was like ten feet off the neck, a punishment guitar.
But they gave me that in a copy and Meet
the Beatles when I was like seven or eight years old,
I maybe just turning eight, and I didn't I became obsessed,
you know, and I would lift up the needle and
just on the on the record player at the house

(41:25):
and just play the solo O and Oregon. So my
dad screamed to me to stop doing that. You know,
if I hear this one more time, you know, I'll
be whacked around the house or something. But I you know,
I never grew out of it, man, I just had
to grow into it. I was determined to make noise
of this thing. You know.

Speaker 1 (41:44):
So what came after the cheap fifteen dollars guitar a.

Speaker 2 (41:49):
Twenty dollars ago, it didn't get much better. I got
an electric guitar that was not much better. It was
an astratone guitar that I got. Was I really wish
I still had it, Man, that would probably be worth
a lot of money now, ironically, because a lot of
people liked to buy those old crappy guitars and they
swear by them. You know, I'm gonna I don't get that,

(42:11):
but okay, But I taught myself how to play on it,
and a very strange thing happened to me. I mean,
one day I could was struggling, and one day, all
of a sudden, my hands fell into the first position chords.
And it was freakish and weird. I could get into
this whole story about my grandmother with the psychics.

Speaker 1 (42:30):
Oh oh, tell it, tell it no.

Speaker 2 (42:32):
When I was my mother was pregnant at nineteen years old, right,
and this would have been nineteen fifty seven, or the
end of fifty six into fifty seven. I was born
in October, so ten months back from that whenever. Anyway,
my grandmother was a hipster before her time, as she
was into like new agey stuff before there was a term.
She had friends that were different psychics, so which she
wouldn't say that out loud then, because you might as

(42:54):
well say you were Satan's sister or something like that.
So one of my grandma's friends came over my mom's mother,
who was very hip, God bless her, she was fantastic,
and she put her hand on my mom's pregnant tummy.
I said, no, it's a boy. I hear music all
around him, music, and something's gonna happen to him when

(43:16):
he's seven or eight, and later down the line, people
are gonna know who this kid is. Music all around him.
And my mother said, oh great, I'm gonna have a
musician son. Would she imagined like a guy with a
little beat nick beerd needle hanging out of his arm,
junkie guy, you know, jazz musician or something you know.
And I saw the Beatles on the installment show, got

(43:36):
a guitar, and all of a sudden, one day I
could play it. It was the weirdest thing I could
never explain to nobody. I'm sure, everybody's going yeah bullshit
right bah w man man, I swear of got it
happened to me. And then from there I was able
to hear things and pick it out on the guitar.
Then I meet all the older guys I started, and

(43:56):
I had my first band when I was nine, but
everybody else was twelve.

Speaker 1 (44:00):
So I mean, wait, wait, wait, wait, you're nine, you
have this skill, you got a guitar, you gotta how
do you find the band or how do they find you?

Speaker 2 (44:08):
Well, at the time after the Beatles hit, everybody wanted
to be in a band. Now some of the older
kids could actually play guitar, and then they plugged in
an electric guitar. And I understand, music back then was
much easier to play. There wasn't didn't require a lot
of technical ability unless you were a classical musician or
a jazz musician or in bluegrass or something like that,

(44:28):
you know where technical ability really counter. But if you
were just listening to bop music, rock me, the Beatles,
the Stones, that was our whole life. The British invasion
was our whole life. And I could play uh, you know,
uh the songs of the era. You know, I could
play like Gloria by them, you know, I could, and
we've been a house of the Rising Sun and then
Beatles stuff. You know, I saw her standing there, Please

(44:51):
please me. We just sing and play man, you know,
we could you buy? Then I bought, you know, the
Songbook of the Beatles, and it showed you the positions
of core that I didn't know. So I sponged up
all that. And then I found older guys that could
play good, and I stole all their stuff, and I
just was a sponge. I could play whatever. And then
my ears started working for me and I could play

(45:12):
stuff off the radio. So the older guys wanted to
play with me because I could teach everybody how to
play their parts. And it was just for me. It
was my life. For them, perhaps maybe not until some
of the guys in my neighborhood started picking it up.
And then I met my dear friend Michael Landau, who's
a legendary guitar player. When we were twelve years old,

(45:32):
we were the two hotshot guitar players in la you know,
we were the same, you know, and we've been best
friends ever since. And it worked out well for us.
But we found like minded people in junior high school.
The bass player in our band, now John Pierce was
He started out with us, he was in our high
school band. And when I met the Piccar brothers in
high school, everything changed and then it was real serious

(45:53):
and we found out about studium musicians.

Speaker 1 (45:55):
Oh whoa, whoa whoa. Okay, so you're in your neighborhood.
You meet Lean daw Where do you go to high school?

Speaker 2 (46:00):
Grant High School in the Battle okay, And that's when
we went from amateurs to taking the professional route very seriously.
And a guy something that really helped me out. There
was a guy that moved in next door to my parents'
house who was the touring drummer for Helen Ready. His
name was Mike Berkerwitz. His sweetheart of a guy, and

(46:25):
my father said, Wow, this guy's not famous, but he
owns a house. Like, what's the deal. My father was
like talking to him, so what is this? You know? Well,
you know she learned how to read music and all
that stuff, you know, because I was playing by ear
from the time I was seven to fourteen. And that's
when Mike moved in next door and we started hearing
about studio musicians and stuff. Who are these names on

(46:46):
the back of these albums that I love, same names.
Who are these guys? And uh, that's the short version
of it. And then my dad said, Okay, man, you
gotta have to study music. If you're gonna do this,
I want you to. He talked to his friend Carl Furtina,
who was the main musical contractor at Paramount, because my
dad was working on at the time. I think it

(47:09):
was right before Happy Days or something like that. My
dad was an assistant director production manager for television and film,
as was my grandfather. I have no interest in that.
That was heinous to me. Boring, boring, boring. Music was
my whole thing and I had I had a gift
for it, I guess, and to take it to that
next level. My dad wanted me to study. As it
turns out, when he wanted me to studies, when I

(47:30):
met the Picar brothers and all this stuff, and me
and all my friends start studying music hard, like we
had to catch up learning how to read. We could
play good, but we didn't have the basics, you know,
so it was really hard to learn how to read
music after you played for a while, because it was
you have to go back to maryhad a little lamb
in terms of ability to site read the notes on

(47:52):
the paper, and that was harder to do, but you know,
you had to get it together.

Speaker 1 (47:58):
How long did you study for I.

Speaker 2 (48:00):
Would say I put ten years of study into three years.
All we did was music, music, music, all day long.
I studied guitar privately, I was studying orchestration. I was
studying at the first year of the Dick Grove Music
School for jazz improvisation, site reading, harmony and theory and school.
I was taking piano sit singing harmony theory. And then

(48:22):
we had our band, and then there was other bands,
and then there was people were just starting to make demos.
So we started play on sessions like demo sessions for
singer songwriters. Started like joining the minor leagues for studio
playing before, because nobody had home studios or recording devices
that they got anytime at all. They were hired guys

(48:42):
to get paid twenty bucks or two and or something
like that. So started to get a feel of what
it was like, you know, headphone, studio time, sound, getting
it all together, coming up with parts really fast on
the spot without any rehearsal or demos or anything like that.
We were the demos, so we had to come up
with our stuff. Turns out that was a useful skill
to learn, because I spent ninety eight percent of the

(49:05):
time as a professional studio musician coming up with my
own parts on everything we ever did.

Speaker 1 (49:16):
Okay, so how'd you meet to Piccaro Brothers.

Speaker 2 (49:20):
High school? Tenth grade? There was all bands, you know,
we already had. I had already had bands and stuff,
you know, really good ones. Actually just stop here for
a second. Were the bns playing gigs for money? Yeah?
They actually paid us money to play, you know, I
mean not a lot. But by the time we had
Still Life together, which is our high school band with

(49:40):
you know, Steve Pacaro's band. I met Steve Pacaro through
our music teacher, mister Neil. He said, I got as
a guy you should meet. And Steve had the hotshot band,
still Life in the first version of it, and we
had heard Jeff Pacarr was already a legend at that
point before he was even famous. Yet he was like,

(50:00):
I have you heard this guy? The best drummer that
there is, and you know, and when I met Steve,
we hit it off and he had a band and
he wanted to use I'm looking for another guitar player,
and so me and I I grabbed Mike Land and
I said, come on, we'll do this together. We were
convinced we could both get the gig because it was

(50:21):
at the time when Steely Dan was really happening. A
lot of two guitar playing player bands that they were
looking for that sort of a thing. So rather than
choose between us, he said, I want both of you
guys to be in it. And that's how I met
David Page and how I started the reality meeting all
these people that were the names on the back of

(50:42):
records after high school and I got out. I it
was just it just happened really fast. All of a sudden,
everything started to happen really quickly, and I got the
gig with Boss Skaggs for the Silk Degrees Tour that
changed my life. And that was thanks to Jeff and
Steve Pacaro and Jay Wendy, who was a famous keyboard
player at the time and one of my he was

(51:05):
a close brother of mine. I met Willie Ornellis drummer
who introduced me to Larry Carlton, who Jeff knew and everybody,
and I started meeting all the guys that I met,
David Foster, the young David Foster, and he was a big,
huge help to me, and we became fast friends and
I did all his stuff, and then I started playing
on hit records. Boss Boss was looking for a band,

(51:25):
you know, and he's looking for a guitar player, and
Jeff and those guys said, yeah, get look at her.
And I got there. And the day, first day of
rehears I was so excited to get this gig. I
wanted the gig so bad because Boss had, you know,
one of the biggest records of seventy six seventy seven,
and so I got to do the tour in seventy seven.
And the first day, Less Dudak, who was a famous

(51:49):
blues player, you know, he was working with Bo. More
of a in the style of the Almond Brothers, you know,
that southern rock guitar player. And this stuff was Page's Riding,
had more you know, adults in it, and a little
bit more of a different groove. And the first day
of rehearsal, Lesson Boss got in a fight and Less
quit and Boss turned to the band. We're all rehearsing

(52:11):
at Sir down in Hollywood, you know, and Boss goes,
I think we needed to get another guitar player, and
Jeff stood up and said, no, you don't, pointed at me.
He goes, calls him out, let him play, and he
called out the song jump Street, which was a slide
guitar song actually, but I didn't have a slide so
I just did it my own way. And I apparently

(52:31):
did really well because everybody kind of applauded for me afterwards,
and Boss goes, well, I don't need another guitar player.
I was nineteen years old, which was weird at the time.
I was very young, not by today's standards, but very
young at the time to be on that kind of
a tour. I mean I couldn't even go to the
bar and have a drink after the gig, you know.
And you know I got this gig. It changed my life.

(52:52):
Boss changed my life. I owe so much to him.
He made a big deal about me, invited me to
play on the follow up record, which I gave me
some solos on that, which really opened up my career.
People going wow, this is an important record. Who's this guy?
This is good with? Get me that guy. And then
Jake Graden, who was like one of my oldest friends,

(53:12):
famous record producer, guitar player, he was the a guy
at the time. He turned me on all you get
lugat there man, you know. Yeah, and then he got
out and went to be a producer and he gave
me all of his work. And it's how it snowballs.
You know, you play on a hit record, then everybody
finds out about you and they've hired you, and you deliver,
and you have to deliver. It's luck to get in

(53:33):
the door, but not luck to get called back twice.
And so I lived that life and then the band
was starting to happen. It was all at one time.
It was like overwhelming. I don't even know how I
how we made the time for it all. But I
woke up with a smile and went to bed with
a smile every day in my life for like twenty years,
you know. I mean, it was all working for us.

(53:54):
You know. It was really an incredible time in my life.

Speaker 1 (53:57):
Okay, going back to high school, I mean, as you mentioned,
were all these bands that grew up with the Beatles,
but certainly in the late seventies mid seventies bands were
a really big deal in LA I mean, you had
Van Allen at the star Wood whatever, you know, did
you think you were going to make it? How is
still Life relative to these other bands?

Speaker 2 (54:20):
Well, prior to Still Life, we had another band that
auditioned for Gazaris when Van Halen was headlining, right, and
we got the gig until they found out we were sixteen,
and then they said you can't work here. So and
the Van Halen thing, we'd always heard about Van Hallen,
but we never heard him. Like, we'd all hang out

(54:40):
at me and Landau and a bunch of our friends
would go down to the Guitar Center Hollywood and play
all the guitars we couldn't afford and play all the apps,
so they used to let us do it because we
were good. We were like, look at these guys, they
can play it. And one of the guys who worked
there is this is this guy from Pasadena, Eddie. You
should meet him someday. We're like, oh, yeah, all right,
and we didn't. I didn't know Eddie until after the
first album came out. I heard about it, but I

(55:02):
didn't know he was the wonder, you know, he was
this amazing guitar player. And I mean because there wasn't really,
the communication wasn't like it is now. You'd hear rumblings,
oh there's this ban Oh yeah, I wonder for better
than they are or whatever, you know, cocky little bastards
that we were, and you know, and then it all
came together. We all became friends in the end, and

(55:23):
you know, we were doing our first album. I was
doing a solo and pagewalks in with the first Van
Aalen record. He goes, I got something for you to
I want to play something, and I go, van Ellen, yeah,
I heard of them, and he plays eruption. He drops
the kneel on eruption on my fucking jaw hits the floor.
I'm like, what the fuck is that? Who is the
how is he doing that? And I got to play.

(55:44):
I'm thinking, oh, I'm pretty good man for a nineteen
year old kid. And then fucking Eddie comes in and
blows the socks off everybody, and then I was on
a quest to meet him. I'm like, I gotta find
out who this guy is. I want to meet Eddie
van Aalen. And obviously that album just you know, changed
rock and roll forever, and then added to like we
meet at the California World Music Festival in seventy eight.

(56:08):
We're both on the bill, and we met and said
we got to hang out. And then some time went
by and he called me on the once to come
over the house. I said, oh great. So I went
over to his house and stayed a year one night
and we became very fast friends immediately, and he would
play me stuff like you know, they were already on

(56:28):
there it was he was doing. He had a demo
for Jump he played for me. I said, dude, keyboards too.
I said, this is incredible. This is the number one record.
He goes, yeah, yeah, yeah, but Roth doesn't like it.
I go, what are you talking about? He goes out
of the keyboards like, oh, come on, I go this
this is a smash record. And that was the demo

(56:49):
of it. And you know, it turns out I was right.
But you know, he didn't need me to tell him
it was. It was a you know already in stone
that that was going to be a hit record. It
was just a brilliant piece of music, you know. And
I've always loved the guys, you know, I mean broke
my heart to lose my friend. You know, we were close, man.
I Drahm and Alex and I are friends. You know,

(57:11):
I still talk to him all the time, and I'm
like Switzerland. I love all the guys. The only guy
I don't know is David Lee Roth. I met him
a couple of times, but I don't know him. But
you know, I was other than that. I mean Mike
and Sammy and all those guys and everybody else who
had come through. I mean, we're all buddies. You know,
those friendships I made and most of my still have,

(57:35):
assuming people are still here, you know they were at
the stage now that what sucks about getting all is
losing all your friends.

Speaker 1 (57:42):
So hanging with Eddie did you learn stuff hanging with him?

Speaker 2 (57:47):
No, because it wasn't what our hangs were about. Man.
We'd play music for each other. We'd always play each
other what we were working on. Here's I'm working on
this record. What do you think? Can he play me stuff?
I play him stuff. Other than that, we just hung
out as buddies. Man. It was never like, oh sure,
I you know. The first night we hung out, you know,
we played some guitars a little bit. You know, let

(58:09):
me check out your guitar, let me check out your
you know, there's that magic amp that was on the
first album. There's no magic, camp man, I sound just
like me coming to this stuff. You know. It's the
magic is in the person who's playing the guitar. You know,
you can get the same gear. It doesn't mean anything,
you know. I mean I believed me. I played a
lot of famous guitarsn't It didn't help by playing at all,

(58:32):
But it was neat to play and see how they
set it up because everybody's guitars are set up a
little differently. It's a personal thing, you know.

Speaker 1 (58:39):
Is it you who's just Switzerland or does everybody get along.

Speaker 2 (58:44):
I've made a point to try to be Switzerland in
my life, you know what I mean, I really have.
I know what it's like to be in turmoil in
your own band. I mean, it really sucks. But friendships
that I've made I've kept, you know, and they mean
a lot to me. I've only lost a few buddies

(59:04):
along the way in terms of friendships. But that's usually
some way business oriented, you know, and not really my fault.
It's just a different point of view or that opens
up a can of worms I'd rather not get into.
But that's you know. I make friends for life unless
something weird happens.

Speaker 1 (59:24):
Okay, but if I talk to the league guitarists of
another famous band, would you say he's friends with all
the guitarists or would he feel competitive?

Speaker 2 (59:34):
Oh there's I don't feel competitive with anybody anymore. Man,
when that's a young man's game. When you're you know,
when you're young, you want to be the fastest gun
in the West or whatever, you know, And I don't
necessarily mean the fastest and technical ability, although that may
play into it back in the day when that mattered.
But I'm so glad not to be like that now
that I purposely played very simple on my new record.

(59:57):
I didn't. I didn't hotdog it at all. I play,
I down shifted, play melody, play, play something more memorable.
Because there's a seven year old kid in Japan that
can play faster than you can blink, you know, and
it almost becomes a parlor trick that's meaningless. I mean,
there's some really young talent they't get me wrong. There's
some incredible younger players that are just great blues players,

(01:00:19):
great people doing different things with the instrument. There's some
new bands. I'm just whoa, what the hell is that
some young guitar players that are and female guitar players
that are really incredible. You know, you're never going to
hear the word, oh, she's good for a chick, which
is completely insulting. I understand that. But the girls are like,

(01:00:40):
you know, the girl's bad ass. Many better look out,
you better look out. Man. It's just it's just I
look at the women and guitar players. It's just great
guitar player. If I started naming them all off right now,
and there's a bunch that I could, i'd forget somebody
and feel bad. So I don't want to do that.
But the watch out for the girls. They're coming and
they're just this is good, if not better than most

(01:01:01):
of the guys.

Speaker 1 (01:01:03):
Okay, And who are your guitar heroes?

Speaker 2 (01:01:05):
Oh? Man, you know my guitar heroes are? We just
lost one of them. Jeff Beck was probably one of
one of my favorites, and.

Speaker 1 (01:01:14):
I thought he was the absolute best. I can't believe
he's going either.

Speaker 2 (01:01:17):
Well, we were friends, man, you know. I made a
record with him that never came out. Produced it in
nineteen ninety seven, but we never got to finish it
because he got into techno and left it all behind.
I mean, Jeff's probably got fifteen albums unfinished in the
vault somewhere, but he was like, I don't want anybody
to hear this stuff. So I just saw him last summer.

(01:01:37):
We did a festival together in Europe and France, the
one off thing, whereas you know, twenty bands on the
same festival. And it was just great to see him
gig because I han't seen him for a while. He's
with Johnny deppho was a really lovely guy and really
nice guy, and they were just having fun together, man,
you know, and the band was kid. He played so
great and it was like he was like I saw him,

(01:01:58):
He's like, oh, don't expect too much. I've been playing.
I'm going to shut up. You're gonna devastate And he
did just ripped it a new asshole. You know. It's like,
you know, well, there's Jeff Beck and then there's everybody else.
And that's not to take anything away from all the
other amazing musicians I know, but I think Jeff was
like every guitar player's favorite guitar player.

Speaker 1 (01:02:20):
What about him switching from using a pick to using
his fingers.

Speaker 2 (01:02:24):
He told me a story once that the reason why
he started not using a pick is because he was
on the Ed Sullivan Show and dropped his pick and
he flipped out, I'm not going to have this thing
getting make or break me now. He told me that story.
But you know, he told a lot of stories. You know,
sometimes I think, are you just bullshitting me or what?

(01:02:46):
Because when he picked up a pick and started playing,
it sounded funny. It's you know he did in the
early days. Of course, you know he used to pick.
Didn't think he's hybrid version of both. But Jeff Beck
sounded like Jeff Beck when it was just all skin
on strings. That's how the magic is in him. I
played his guitar, I don't sound like Jeff Beck playing

(01:03:08):
his guitar. He'd pick up an attitude guitar and when
he played it was in tune. I'm convinced he had
perfect pitch. We didn't even know what that was. I mean,
he was very unschooled. Everything was by ear and by feel.
And he made a point that he told me once
he goes if it's normal, if it sounds normal, I'm
not interested. So he would just come at whatever. It

(01:03:31):
was a simple melody notes or notes. You know, it
was an ease and E and F sharp's and F shark. However,
how you attack it and how you make that feel
with the touch is what changes everything. It's like your vibrados,
a thumbprint, a thumbprint. Nobody has no two alike. You know,
That's that's the whole thing touches everything when it comes

(01:03:54):
to playing the guitar.

Speaker 1 (01:03:55):
How about people who were not stars, who were studio players.
Anybody come to mind? You think especially great?

Speaker 2 (01:04:02):
Oh, they're all great. I mean all the guys that
I came up with, my heroes, Larry Carlton, Lee Rittenauer,
Jay Graydon Ray Parker, Junior Dean Parks. Uh, those are
the guys, the A guys when I first hit the scene,
and then my buddy Michael Landau and Dan Huff. Then
there was, Oh, I'm gonna start forgetting guys. There's Tim Pearce,

(01:04:24):
who's a brilliant guitar player. Michael Thompson brilliant. There's some
new guys that I don't know, but I hear there's
some new blood in there now. There are other guy
Paul Jackson, Junior, David William, the late Great David Williams. Yeah,
those are the guys that you know, we were all
working together and we were all brothers. Man, I mean

(01:04:45):
it was I learned everything. Those guys are my heroes.
The inspiration still are.

Speaker 1 (01:04:51):
Is there any session work at all?

Speaker 2 (01:04:53):
Now? Yeah, the guy's doing it now, do it like
I me at my son's home studio right now talking
to you. Everybody does it like this. So I'm looking
at you on the screen going, okay, you want me
to do another take? Do you want me to do this?
And everybody's their own engineer's studio and player. There's like
live recording sessions where everybody shows up and plays together

(01:05:14):
is rare. It's financially not feasible for most people now
because they took all the money. Once the record companies
figured out there was home studios and you can make
records for you know, ten, you know, one hundred times
less than what we were making them for. Then they
took the budgets away. They say, oh, here's X amount

(01:05:34):
of dog you can keep whatever you don't use. So
everybody's like, well, I'm going to keep this money for myself.
I mean, I'd like to hire so and so, but
you know, maybe he'll do it for cheap, now, dude,
that's where the Union failed us miserably. Do you how
much not I played on thousands of records, and that's
not a facetious count, all right over my years, all

(01:05:59):
the forty six, forty seven years or whatever it is now,
And how much do you think my union pension is
per month?

Speaker 1 (01:06:09):
I have no idea.

Speaker 2 (01:06:10):
Now, understand something. Television and film are the guys that
you have to site read anything that's put in front
of you. And it can be classical, scary stuff, or
it could be dumb stuff easy. You don't know what
you're gonna get. So those guys they read the notes
and they do it incredibly well. That's a talent and
a gift. Wow. I mean I can read music, but

(01:06:31):
not like that. You know, my chops are way to
I haven't done it in a long time. It's like
speaking French, and when you're living in France, you forget
it if you're not living in France for a while. Anyway,
getting back to it, and that's one thing. And those
guys got good pensions for some reason. But the recording guys,
guys like me who ninety eight percent of the time
made up my own parts on the spot with no rearsal,

(01:06:52):
no demos, play something great. Here's here's a chord sheet
with you know, letters written on it. Count it off?
You know, we get we got shit? How much you
think all the records I played for all of the
years I've been in what's you've never been a.

Speaker 1 (01:07:06):
Memory of union? I have no idea. If I'm gonna guess,
I'm gonna fuck it up. Just tell us no.

Speaker 2 (01:07:10):
But that's why I want you to guess, because you
don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:07:13):
Okay, when did you start receiving your pension?

Speaker 2 (01:07:17):
Well? I took it a couple of years ago because
I figured, well I better get it before there's nothing. Okay,
But here's the deal. Nobody joins the union anymore, so
you can't replenish the fun for the old guys. So
when the no new guys join, where's the money coming
in to pay the pensions? For life? The worst medical

(01:07:39):
So I thank god I got after sag is I
sing and stuff. But even that's going They're gonna throw
me off of that in October, even though I've been
on it for life. But that's the whole other story.
But the musicians, I mean, you think they would have
gone to bat for us, right, No, they didn't. So
I get one thousand dollars a month taxable at fifty
three percent in California. I wouldn't even be able to

(01:08:02):
afford to live into the freeway for that.

Speaker 1 (01:08:06):
Okay, let me just ask you. Somebody calls you up
to play on a track, do you charge them? And
how much?

Speaker 2 (01:08:17):
These days two things happen. First of all, I don't
do it much anymore. I played on a lot of
people's stuff for free, just saying yeah, man, I love that.
That's great. You know, there's a great guitar player named
Mark Letterry. He's part of the whole Snarky Puppy group
of musicis young musicians that are absolutely phenomenal musicians, incredible.

(01:08:40):
He's a badass guitar player, a sweet guy. And he
just found me and said, hey, man, would you play
on my record? How much did it cost to play
on my record? I said, Mark, I go, what do
you need me for? Number?

Speaker 1 (01:08:52):
One?

Speaker 2 (01:08:53):
Two? If you really want me to do this, I'll
do it for nothing. I said. I'll come up to
my son's place where I'm sitting right and I'll throw
I'll throw something on there. If you like it, keep
it if you don't fuck it. Now that was the choice.
Now somebody that comes and says, I want to pay
you a million dollars to play on my session being facetious,

(01:09:14):
but you know what I mean, like a lot of money.
You got my attention, maybe, but if I don't tag
the music, I don't want to do it, you know.
I mean, I I don't want to take somebody's money
just to be a whore, you know, and take make
them feel bad because I got it done in twenty
minutes and they spend all this money, you know, like, Okay,
I'd rather be enthusiastic about it and do it as

(01:09:34):
a favor. And we do this a lot amongst ourselves
with the barter system, Like I paid all the guys
money throw double scale at least legitimate money to play
on my record. Other people I go like, I'll do
yours if you do my. And we do a lot
of stuff like that, you know what I mean, because
there's not a lot of doing it anymore, you know.

(01:09:56):
I mean, we can make a little bit, but you
know I have a big nut. I mean, I have
a lot of families, divorces and four children, well two
of them are married, they don't need me anymore. But
I got two kids that I still got to put
through school and college, and you know, buy cars and
nurture them until they're adults and they can take care
of themselves. So I mean, I gotta let you know.

(01:10:19):
Being a session player was like the greatest times of
my life. But it's time to move out of the way.
I stopped doing it. When I start feeling like I
better get out before I don't they stop calling me.
I'd rather go out on top and just I had
the good fortune of being able to start a solo
career on the side and do some other weird side
projects and still have the band to make a living.

(01:10:39):
I was told by Carlton Graydon Ritt and all the guys,
you got ten twelve years, then you got to get
out make room for somebody else. When you're a recording musician,
when you're a TV film guy, once you get that gig,
you never leave town. You stay there until you die,
and you get the great pet and six bigger pensions
and all that stuff if you're a recording guy. For
some reason, we got fucked on the deal. I don't

(01:11:00):
know who made that deal, but it's a drag for
all the musicians like myself who maybe don't have a
band to carry on the rest of their life and
make a living. And you know, I feel like you're
a valuable member of the musical society.

Speaker 1 (01:11:21):
Okay, so you're in high school, you go out on
the what's it like going out on the road. You
can't go to a bar, but that doesn't mean you
can't drink, you can't smoke, you can't get laid. What's
it like being nineteen going on the road.

Speaker 2 (01:11:36):
It was a lot of fun because i it sneak
bears out to us and stuff, you know. I mean,
you know, we were, but we weren't drunks at that point.
We were just kids having a good time. When it
all went crazy, and it did like the late you know,
anybody that lived through this, you know, nineteen seventy five
to nineteen ninety five, knows what I'm talking about. I

(01:11:56):
mean everybody. You know, everybody went out of there and
got a little bit out of their minds. You know,
all the drugs, the booth and the hanging and the craziness.
You know, you read about all this stuff when you're
a kid. Oh, when I'm a rock star, I get
to do this and throw TVs out the window and
be an asshole. It's not really how you want to
live your life, you know what I mean? And as
an older guy, I mean, yeah, we had fun, but

(01:12:19):
we took the gigs very serious after hours, whatever and whatever.
But like you know, there was all these rumors about
all the drugs, everything that we were supposed to be doing. Man,
come on, man, to have your own band do that
and then play on everybody else's records doing twenty some
odd sessions a week. You can't be that fucked up man.
If you are, then you don't get called back, so

(01:12:39):
you have a very short career, or you get big
time and outprice yourself. Oh I need X amount of
dollars to do the session. People, you might be able
to get away with that for a minute, but it's
like anybody else when they fall down the ladder, there's
nobody there to catch you. They just move out of
the way and watch it splat. You know. So I
was given a lot of great tips and rules to
live by by my older peers. Do this, don't do that,

(01:13:01):
you know, shut up, don't be like that. And I listened,
you know, but now I you know, we do the shows.
I you know, I haven't had a drink in almost
fourteen years. I don't do drugs. I don't do you know.
I'm That's not how I live. And you know, I mean,
I the booze got to me. That was my poison.

(01:13:23):
I would say. In the two thousands was when I
got out of control and I almost ruined everything. I did,
ruin a lot of things. Mostly I hurt myself and
my reputation because I became a drunk and it was
pitiful and I'm really ashamed of that and I'm really
sorry about it. But I hit the wall and that

(01:13:44):
was it, and I just I threw away the cigarettes
and the booze and didn't look back. You know.

Speaker 1 (01:13:50):
Okay, how did you decide to stop? And how did
you literally stop?

Speaker 2 (01:13:55):
A man? I knew I was swirling the bowl. Man,
I knew I felt like all the time, and I
was just trying to chase that away by doing more.
And one day I was right at the end of
my last marriage. I was so beat down from it.
I was out all night drinking and being an idiot,

(01:14:17):
and I was like ten in the morning, I was like, oh,
I feel so bad. I started drinking in the morning
to make the pain go, and I couldn't look at
myself in the mirror when I was shaving. I'd be like,
I'd look away. Go. I know I looked bad. I
felt bad. I wasn't playing well. I hated myself. My

(01:14:37):
life was falling apart, and I had a little girl
that had just come into the world who's now going
to be sixteen. But at that time, I started going,
this is not good, man, I can't do this, and
people were worried about me, and I was blowing it.
To be quite honest with you, I've been given this
incredible gift of a career. And you know, alcoholism runs

(01:15:00):
my family, man. My mother died from it. You know
other members of my family have been crippled by it
and they've either died or come out of it. And
I didn't want to be a casualty. I figured I'd
better do this and I felt so bad and I was.
It's one of those days. It was like worst day ever.
You know, you wake up in the morning, you feel
like an elephant shit in your mouth and sucked your

(01:15:22):
It sucked all your soul out, and you I walked
out to the outside garage and I opened up the
freezer and there was a bottle of vodka in the freezer,
you know, And I just grabbed it and I started
chugging it like it was water. And it was ten
in the morning, and my then next my then wife
walked out saw me. She and I turned around. She's
caught me, she goes, So it's come to this now, huh.

(01:15:46):
And I suck I and I hated her for telling
me the truth. And I said, that's it, man, I'm
fucking done. I am done. I'm the cigarettes. The booze
does she yeah, yeah, you quit before for a month,
you'll be back, I go, not this time. And I
never did, never went back, never touched a booze again.

(01:16:08):
I did pitifully pick up cigarettes again for a minute
during the pandemic and I was feeling all sorry for
myself and fucked up on antidepressants, and I started and
I quit. I'm not I haven't smoked. I'm not smoking anymore.
But for a minute there, that's a dangerous one. Smoking
cigarettes is awful. It's the most awful thing. And I

(01:16:29):
didn't drink, you know, I mean, that's the one thing
I didn't crack there and I didn't, you know. But
you know, I've done some very shameful things in my life. Man,
I'm not a perfect guy. I'm not trying to put
myself out there as be this saint when I'm not.
But I tried to learn from my mistakes.

Speaker 1 (01:16:47):
So did you go to rehab? Do you go to AA?
Or you just did it all yourselves top one day?

Speaker 2 (01:16:52):
That was it? Well, no, I didn't go at that point.
I had never gone to an AA meeting. I just stopped.
But apparently, you know, there was anger still left inside
of me, which I didn't believe when people told, oh, man,
you know you don't drink anymore. Man, but you're, uh,
you're still mad at everybody, mad at the world, you know.
And I had a chip on my shoulder from carrying

(01:17:12):
around all the negative vibe that was coming on. I
took it as a personal somebody dogged the band or
somebody that I took it personally, which I shouldn't know. Now,
I laugh, I go, okay, well change the channel, you know.
But you know, for a while there I was trying
to drink all that pain and all this other weird
shit that happened from my childhood, which I don't want
to get into.

Speaker 1 (01:17:32):
Waitweit do? Wait wait, give us a hint. What do
you tell you portrayed a relatively pleasant childhood? What mom
my child was actually wrong?

Speaker 2 (01:17:41):
Oh? I've been bullied school. When I was in grammar school,
it was really rough taking the bus every day when
I was still single digits before I found my I mean,
the guitar actually saved my life in school, because I
was when I played at the fifth grade graduation in
the auditorium and we could play. I was in a band.
We could play and the girls screamed for us and
all that stuff. And prior to that, every day was

(01:18:03):
somebody was torturing me, you know. And because I was
little and I was terrible in sports. I weighed about,
you know, ten pounds wet, I was painfully shy, if
you can imagine. But okay, no, but I was man,
I mean, I was afraid of everybody, and everybody saw
my weakness and picked at it. In an era when
I was like I don't want to get on the

(01:18:25):
school bus, seemed like, you know, and my parents, sare
you getting on the school bus? You know? You got
My father's like tough it out. Man, like when you
used to get the old I'll see you at the
flagpole at three o'clock. I'm going to kick your ass.
You had to show up. And I was an easy
beat down, like when I remember playing dodgeball in school
with the big red rubber ball. You're not supposed to

(01:18:47):
throw it at the guy's head. He was always hit
my face smack on full blast, you know, and I
you know it. I know it sounds like, oh, poor
beautiful Luca there blah blah blah, but humiliating, you know.
And then when I was you know, it's just kids
that can be so cruel, and i'd see, I tell
my old man, it's like, I mean, we got to
go show up with the flag boys, like you got

(01:19:08):
to show up. My dad was a marine. You don't
puss out, you know. And you know, yeah, it made me.
It gave me an edge, which I maybe he's still
in there somewhere. It comes out every now and then
something I'm not very proud of. You know. It was
more like fight or flight whatever. I don't know what that.

(01:19:28):
I don't know what I'm trying to say here, but
I mean, emotionally speaking, I had it, and there was
weird shit in my family and stuff, you know, I
want to dig up everybody's dirty laundry. But yeah, it was.
There were as much great as there was, there was
equally some weird stuff. You know. Every family has it, man,
you know, and I you know, I feel comfortable in

(01:19:52):
my own skin for the first time in my life
these last two years coming out of the pandemic, and
I really learned to really appreciate what I had and
who I had, and the people around me, and most
of all my kids, you know, and the people that
I loved to hang out with. Because the last incarnation

(01:20:13):
of the band ended on my ironically my birthday, October
twenty first, twenty nineteen. I walked away from that going,
there's some people here that I'm never going to speak
to again ever in my life. And I said maybe, well,
I said, I got to get away from this, and
then the pen and said, I got I want to
put together another version. I talked to the page. She said,

(01:20:35):
I still want to keep doing this, but there's some
guys that just don't want to be here and hate
my guts and they're going to do this anymore. So
we were going to do all this and then the
pandemic hit and then I was like all dressed up
and nowhere to go. And that started me the depression
and all the other weird stuff. I was really happy
for a while.

Speaker 1 (01:20:55):
Tell me about going to the hospital.

Speaker 2 (01:20:58):
I had a nervous breakdown on this and it was
really scary. I don't know how deep I want to
get into this, because it's they're they're there. There's humiliating
really that I let myself go. But I had a
nervous breakdown thanks to the fucking to overdoing it with
the anti depressed it stuff. I was in there with

(01:21:19):
like psycho murders and home was crying me. I'm like,
I was so not in the right place at the
right time. But I look at it this as God
smacked my ass down. I said, Okay, bud, asshole, one
more try. I had actually semi near death experience, you know,
like I saw the light the tunnel and the light
of God and all these things, and I thought I

(01:21:41):
was dead. I really, I mean I went out. I
don't know how out I was, but when I came to,
I was in a hospital with a guy sitting at
the end of my bed with a gun. Oh yeah,
I'm like, where am I said, I'm in Hell. I
wake up and I looked behind me. I'm in bed thirteen,

(01:22:02):
and I go, I'm this it. I'm in Hell. I
died and went to Hell. I am an asshole. I'm
not worthy of anybody's love or anything. I'm a piece
of shit. And I kept going, I gotta take a
piss can, I gotta take a I go, I'm in Hell,
aren't I? He goes, you know, in Hell? I go,
this is hell? Look around me, this is There's nobody
here but you and me in this we're green room

(01:22:23):
and I'm thirteen. I'm like coming, How did I get here?
What happened to me? And it all started to come
back together, and you know, and so they threw me
in this joint with these insane people. There was a
couple of people in there that were nice to me,
but the guy, the main guy, this Sigmund Freud, wanna
be dude. And he'd be asking me things like looking
at me, like trying to get me to confess the

(01:22:45):
sins I didn't have, you know, you know, and it
was and it was just I realized I gotta play
this guy to get out. And he didn't want to.
He thought it got weird when he started asking me
how much money I made? The Yeah, I realized, why
is he asking how much money you made? Because he's
looking at me like, going, you don't he knew I
didn't belong in this joint. He's trying to figure me

(01:23:08):
out and googled me or whatever. He said, Okay, let's
see what the cats all about. When I he threw
out a number at me, and I laughed at him.
I said, I went like this, No, it's more than that.
That's a finger pointing up for the non visual. Yeah, right,
you know what I mean. I didn't want to say.
I mean, if I say, you know, he threw out
a small figure. I said, I said, I do a

(01:23:28):
little better than that, and I pointed up. I didn't
want to say because I knew what he was trying
to get out him. He said how much more money
than I make than he did? And then he turned
sour on me and he wasn't going to let me
out like I was supposed to be three days out. Okay,
that scared the fuck out of me, and I was
really upset. But anyway, the only way for me to

(01:23:50):
get out was to go to a rehab. So I said, well,
I'm not addicted to anything, but I'll go just to
get out of here. So I said, give me a
I told my son. I was like he had he's
a pay phone. It was like scariest hell in there, man.
I mean, there was guys just being in prison. Man,
I'm going to belonging here? What the fuck? And scared

(01:24:11):
the holy living shit out of me. I mean, more
than anything in my whole life. And I've seen some
pretty frightening stuff in my life. That was the one.
And so I checked myself. I mean, I said, okay,
I'm going to go to this place in Malibu. Make
sure it's a nice place. Cost me a fortune, but
I didn't give a shit. I just wanted to get out,
and I figure, you know what, this would be good
for me. I didn't do it when I stopped drinking,

(01:24:34):
and I didn't drink, but I figured, okay, in order
for me to get out, I'll take a month and
I'll go and I'll do everything they tell me to do,
and I'll still be by the ocean. I could take
a walk by the ocean and you know, just kind
of clear my head. And I met some really nice people.
In there, and there's some other people. I'm going like,
what am I doing in here? Man, like you know,
and they're all like, I'm not allowed to say anything.

(01:24:55):
There are some kids, you know, young people, and that
I really felt or there was struggling really hard. And
I met a couple of nice people that you know,
and I went to all the classes and went to
the meetings on the beach and I did it for
a while. And you know, first thing I did was
called ringo when I got out and gone, dude, I
really fucked up. And you know, his friendship is everything

(01:25:17):
to me. You know, he's a very close brother to me.
And and he talked me down and said, hey, you know,
blah blah blah. I confessed my sins and all that stuff.
I mean, but I didn't fall off the wagon like
other people do with something that was terribly addicting. Or
I didn't start drinking or starting blow or do anything stupid.
But I did do stupid shit with the antidepressants that

(01:25:39):
I was taking, you know, and which were okay by
my now former doctor.

Speaker 1 (01:25:46):
What were the stupid things you were doing? Just taking
too much ketamine? So you were going to a psychiatrist
who was prescribing ketamine.

Speaker 2 (01:25:56):
Well my doctor said it was okay, yeah, and you
get the ship.

Speaker 1 (01:26:00):
Well, was kend of forget when you had this bad experience?
Was keny that was that was working for you before?

Speaker 2 (01:26:07):
Yeah, I mean it would take you to another place,
but you're only supposed to take a little bit of it.
But I was going, well, what happens if you take
a little bit more? And then it got darker and
I was hiding it and it was really a shameful
period of time for me. And then it just I
did too much and went out. And that's when I

(01:26:28):
have no recollection of what really would happened, other than
I woke up in a hospital going what the fuck
happened to me? And where is everybody? I want to
leave here, but they wouldn't let me leave. It was scary.
It was the scariest thing that ever happened to me, Bob.
I'm not kidding you, man. It really put everything into
perspective in my whole life. And I wanted to escape

(01:26:49):
so bad. I didn't want to feel anything. I didn't
want to deal with anything. And this, you know, a
little bit, okay, last for a half hour and then whatever.
But I just once I I realized it made me
feel better. I just kept taking it. It's not illegal,
it's not addicting, but it'll fuck you up if you

(01:27:09):
do too much of it, like anything else.

Speaker 1 (01:27:12):
So did you would you learn in rehab, if anything.

Speaker 2 (01:27:18):
How lucky I really am, and how much my family
meant to me, and how much my career meant to me,
and how I almost lost it all because of feeling
sorry for myself, like everybody else in the world wasn't
fucked over, and like I was the only one. I mean,
that was an incredibly selfish move on my part. I
realized that I almost ruined everything, and I started from

(01:27:39):
ground zero again. I was broken down to the nub,
and I was very active and all the you know,
I got a lot out of it, you know, I
put You know, you get as much as you put
into it, you know what I mean. But it was
the scariest thing that ever happened to me. And I'm
not proud of it. I mean, I don't really talk
about it. I mean, you know, now everybody's gonna know
about it and all that shit, but whatever, I don't care.
I mean, I had some mistakes in my life, but

(01:28:01):
I'm not the only one. It was really surprising that
at my age I would have let myself do that again.
But I had. I kept going, are we coming back?
Is it coming back? No, man, I don't know when
it's coming back. And my depression led me down the
road and I told my doctor, this is what's up.
He goes, well, that's interesting, he goes, that might work

(01:28:21):
for you. Well, once you get a green light from
a doctor to a guy like me, forget about it.
So the first thing I did was abuse it like
a drunk an addict, would you know? So I just
changed poison. So I fucked myself up. But I still,

(01:28:43):
you know, think about AA. I mean, I would go
every day if I needed it, but you know, and
and I went for a while. But I have a
The guy that I met in there, who is now
my psychiatrist, is an addiction expert, is now my sponsor
as well, in the sense of I talked to him
three times a week and sometimes more, sometimes a little less.
But I mean he's helped me through this and he

(01:29:03):
knows everything that I'm doing everything, and I can get
a lot of stuff off my shoulder that I didn't
want to say in front of a group of people
that know me. There's nothing anonymous about alcoholics anonymous, especially
if you live in Hollywood, you know, I mean, the
would be guys at an arm wrestle me on that. Hey,
it stays in the brotherhood and all that. But once
you say something that you wish nobody ever knew in

(01:29:25):
your whole life, and everybody knows about it, even if
they swear not to tell, they still know when they
look at you. And there's some things that I just
didn't want anybody to know about, not you, not anybody.

Speaker 1 (01:29:38):
So the thirty days are up. What happens after they
let you out?

Speaker 2 (01:29:42):
I went home and started my life over again.

Speaker 1 (01:29:45):
Well that's got to be hard after being you know,
in a controlled environment for thirty days, suddenly be alone.

Speaker 2 (01:29:51):
Yeah, it was a little weird. But my older kids
came to my rescue and they fixed up the house
for me and kind of you know, they were really supportive.
You know, all my kids were. You know, my youngest
son's autistic, so he didn't understand why. He's just figured
I went on the road, and you know, but the
rest of my kids were very supportive of me, particularly

(01:30:12):
my older children. They really came to my rescue and
cleaned out all the people that were around that shouldn't
be around anymore. And and it was like an incredibly
painful thing for me to realize how badly I fucked
up and I almost died, and I let everybody down.
I've humiliated myself. Now where do I go? So I

(01:30:33):
own it? You know, I mean, I mean that's part
of the program. I mean, just to own your sins.
So it's it's it's humiliating to talk about, but you
know what, man, maybe it'll help somebody go, wow, you
know how long go?

Speaker 1 (01:30:48):
Did this all happen?

Speaker 2 (01:30:50):
A few years ago? A couple of years ago? Actually,
if you want to get exact about it, because all
the AA guys like to get exact. August twenty fifth,
two years ago. So when it comes up this August,
it'll be two years since the disaster.

Speaker 1 (01:31:05):
So how long did it take you to normalize, to
feel back on your feet, to feel like you were?

Speaker 2 (01:31:11):
I felt normal. I mean there were Like I said,
there's no come down. I wasn't. There's not an addictive
drugs there was. I didn't have any physical.

Speaker 1 (01:31:20):
I'm not talking about coming down from drugs. I've had
my own experience here and you're in the environment, then
you go home and look at the four walls.

Speaker 2 (01:31:30):
I was really happy to be there with my dog
and like you know, everybody ever, I mean, I you know,
my kids forgave me. They understood that I went left field.
You know, it hurt them to watch their old man
like that. I scared my youngest daughter. I was just
she was like, what the fuck is wrong with dad?
You know, because I was just spaced out and I
didn't realize what it looked like to look at me.

(01:31:54):
You know what I mean, when you're inside of yourself,
you think I'm cool, every nobody's everything's all right. But
I wasn't. I was fucking dying inside. And this little
band aid that I would put on with this fucking
shit blinded me to the reality of my situation. And
it's my fault. I can't point the finger at anybody.

(01:32:17):
I mean, it's my fault. And that's the end of it,
you know. And I made a mistake and I fixed it,
and I still believe. I believe in the AA program.
I think it's a fantastic thing. Everybody needs a different
version of it, you know what I mean. There's a
you know, one hundred different kinds of AA meetings in
Los Angeles and different people in their own little clicks

(01:32:39):
and stuff. I just preferred to get my treatment privately,
and it's worked for me very very well, and I've
got a lot of stuff out that's made me a
much better person. The hardest part is forgiving myself. Some
people are gonna hear this a guy. I knew that
motherfucker man, look at that loser. I knew. You know,
they're going to get off on hearing this, you know,

(01:32:59):
and because they don't like me for whatever reason, or
they just get off on other people's pain, having any
fame whatsoever, even at a low level like myself. You know,
people you know, like they like to take you down.
That's why I got off all social media. I don't
I don't look read the comments anymore. I don't do
that because it was like cutting myself. There's always somebody

(01:33:22):
who's gonna you know, I don't need to read I'm great.
I don't need to read I suck. I don't need that.
I try to do what I be the best me
I can be, Try to forgive myself, be a better father,
be a better friend. Maybe someday I'll meet a girl
that makes sense for me, but you know, at this point,
I'm better off alone. You know, I'm working a lot,
work in my and my family is all I care

(01:33:43):
about at this point. You know.

Speaker 1 (01:33:52):
So you talk about when you were married to your
second wife, stopping drinking and having this anger is the
anger now taking care of.

Speaker 2 (01:34:01):
As much as it can be. I come from a
long line of angry men, my grandfather, my father, and
it lessens every generation. My son travels, he's not he's
not angry, he's you know, he can get angry. And
sometimes I go, oh, I see that guy. I know
where that comes from. But they all much. My oldest'll

(01:34:22):
make do impressions of me, Matt, which kind of makes
me laugh. I go, come on, I don't really look
like that. Oh yes, you do nothing. You know. My
kids are you know, gonna be thirty six and thirty
eight next month. They're both May babies or this month,
so I mean, you know, they've seen the whole ride,
and I'm very tight with them. You know, my old
my oldest daughter went through her own alcohol issue, which

(01:34:45):
she's been clean for a long time now, but you know,
it's you don't go into this trying to be an asshole,
you know what I mean. It's always starts out as
fun and some people can stay in that zone. Normal
people have a couple of drinks, spoke a joint, whatever,
you know. I I mean count weed. I mean, that's

(01:35:05):
a whole other thing. But you know, when you start
playing around with drugs that alter your mind or booze
that alters your everything, it never ends well if you
overdo it. You know.

Speaker 1 (01:35:18):
So you have four kids, Two are still in the home,
two are out. Are the two are out? Do you
support them at all? Are they off the payroll?

Speaker 2 (01:35:28):
Well, they're off the payroll. I support them wholeheartedly as
a father, But I don't. I'm not writing any chext anybody. Then,
both of my children married really well wonderful people that
My oldest daughter's husband is a Saint Tony. He's a
beautiful guy. They're trying to have a baby right now,
which is great because I want grandpa something I want

(01:35:48):
on the list. You know, most of my friends have grandkids.
I'm like, I want one of those. And my oldest
son just got married. He married Jonathan Cane's daughter from Journey,
who is a wonderful cat.

Speaker 1 (01:36:03):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:36:03):
I mean, I don't get into anybody's drama. That's their own.
I've lived through my own. I might when we did
the tour with these guys, it's like, I love you both,
I please don't don I want to be involved. I
I've been through this. I don't know. I don't want
to be in it anymore. So we had a great time.
It was great. But she's a wonderful daughter in law.
She's fantastic, beautiful, smart, funny, and they live in a

(01:36:26):
beautiful pad. You know, they're my kids do producing records
and writing songs for people. And he's done very well
in a time when it's almost impossible to do well
in the music business as a young artist coming up.
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:36:39):
So how'd you meet Ringo?

Speaker 2 (01:36:42):
Oh god, do I love that guy. He's been such
a great friend to me and we went an honor
to even say that out loud. I met him because
I knew he had the all stars right, and there
was I go, I want I want to be in
that band more. I think I'm the right guy for
this band. I think I could do. And my dear
friend Greg Bissinette, who plays double dramas with Ringo. He

(01:37:03):
recommended me, and he brought Dave Hart, who's the agent
and producer of the shows. He finds the guys. Ringo
used to change out the band every year and a half,
you know, so it was coming time to change the band.
They were looking for new players, and I and Greg
brought him to a show we were doing Tota was
doing in Paris, and so he saw the show and

(01:37:24):
saw me, and it was sold out arena and we
did great, and he's like, yeah, that guy's okay, So
he ran in. Ringo's the bottom line, it's always up
to him, you know, who he wants in the band
and what music he wants to play or whatever. And
the only thing I did was call up my buddy
Jim Keltner and go Celtner put in a good word
for me. Man, I really want to do this gig

(01:37:45):
because him and Ringo are tight. And obviously there are
a lot of people that have been in the band,
were friends of mine or are still friends of mine.
Why'd you want to do it so badly because it's Ringo? Man?
I thought it'd be a great asset to the band.
I mean, I had got a chance to work with
Paul McCartney on the first time during the Thriller record
with Michael Jackson, and then we did the film and

(01:38:07):
he hired me and Jeff Bacar to go do the
film in London, so we got to hang out with him,
George Martin and Jeff Emerck for two weeks, which was awesome,
beyond austome. And I met Dave Gilmour when I was
there because he wanted Jeff to play, So, I mean,
getting to meet all my heroes is pretty cool. And
then I didn't see Paul for a while, and then
I met George in a club George Harrison at the

(01:38:30):
right three days before after you know, it was the
year Jeff passed away in nineteen ninety two, and we
were doing a benefit tribute concert room at the Amphitheater
and everybody came out to this. Eddie van Halen joined up,
Donald Fagan came out this before Steely got back together again,
and Boz came out. Michael McDonald was there, James Newton

(01:38:54):
Howard was there, all the guys that have played in
the band, you know, Lenny Castro, all of our brothers
came out and played. And then I had met George
a couple of days before. Just wanted to say, Hi,
you're the reason why I play. I was, I was humble,
and I'll and he said, no, sit down, stay for
a while.

Speaker 1 (01:39:13):
You know who you were?

Speaker 2 (01:39:15):
Yeah, surprisingly enough, you know, because I I at that point.
You know, it was nineteen ninety two. You know, he
had heard my name through musual friends, but we never met.
And I said, hey, I'd worked with Paul. He says,
oh yeah, yeah, yeah, he goes and I just started
making him laugh because a lot of people will say
I love the solo you played on Taxman. It wasn't him,

(01:39:35):
it was Paul. You know, I knew in the right
songs and I knew. I said, hey, man, you're the
reason why I played the guitar. I just wanted to
say I love you and thank you very much. I'm
going to leave you alone.

Speaker 1 (01:39:45):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:39:46):
He said, no, sit down for a minute. So we start.
I was drinking still then, so I was my happy,
jovial self at that point. I think I amused him
to a certain degree. And we had a little few
laughs and and I was I was leaving. I said,
you know, we're doing this benefit from our I told
him about losing Jeff and stuff, and obviously he knew

(01:40:06):
something about loss at that point. Uh, losing a band member, brother,
you know, I mean to relate to that. He doesn't
have to be famous to relate to that. There's a
brotherhood that once you joined a band, you just you
either understand or you don't. Anyway, I said, we're playing
like wy don't you combine? You know, combined and hang,
I got the last song we're doing is Little Help
of my Friends, and he laughed. He goes said, well,

(01:40:28):
maybe I maybe I'll show up, and I said, I'll
leave a couple of tickets for you just in case,
but I know you're not gonna come. So we end
up there and we're rehearsing. David Crosby was there. I mean,
like I said, I'm forgetting people that I And we're
rehearsing the end bit and all of a sudden, somebody goes, hey,
somebody's here to see I said, not now, man, I'm like,

(01:40:50):
you know, I'm trying to figure. I'm sitting at the piano.
We're all sitting around, throwing the parts around. He goes, no,
this guy's from Liverpool. I go, you're shitting me. I
turned around. There's George at the MP Theater, the old Amphitheater,
and sitting there smiling at me. He goes, he goes,
he didn't think I was going to show up, did you?

Speaker 1 (01:41:07):
No?

Speaker 2 (01:41:07):
I didn't, And I go, do you want to play
on this? And he goes and he goes in. He
was what I said, little help of my friends, and
all of a sudden I realized we're doing the Joe
Cocker version, you know. So we start playing around and
he's got my old less ball in this in his hands,
playing it, and he goes, well, that's not the way
me and the last I said. I know, I said,

(01:41:28):
I know, I know, this is terrible, and but he
was great and he came out and played. You know
that there's photos of me, him and Eddie Van Hale
and I mean George. He took it a little bit
of a shine to me. And we started hanging out.
Every time he'd come into LA he would, we'd come on,
have dinner and stuff, you know, and he I'd see
him all the time. I've got lots of George stories,

(01:41:49):
but that would take a whole other hour. But long
story short, I stayed in touch with him and then
when that idiot stabbed him at his house. He little
lost touch with everybody. I'd hear like Kelder would say,
George said to say, Hi, he's he's just hiding out

(01:42:09):
at the house, man, you know, like, and I'm like, hey,
I understand, you know, okay, edit we lose George. I
mean try. I mean I was crushed, you know. And
the whole Ringo thing started coming up, and that started
became like, I really want to do this gig, you know,
I really want to meet Ringo and I want him

(01:42:30):
to like me, and I want to do this gig,
and I want to do. My friend Richard Page and
all these great artists that were playing with him at
the time put a good word in for me, and
then Kelder put a good When I finally talked to me,
he goes, because you had everybody in the world calling
me telling you to hire you know, I'm doing a
terrible impression. And the first and I got the gig,

(01:42:50):
but I wasn't allowed to talk about it for like
three or four months. I couldn't tell anybody because the
other band was ending. He didn't want it to get
out that, you know, there was going to be changes, man,
So I had to sit on that, and when I
found out it was all going, I mean, I was
so excited, thrilled to be in the band, you know,
and I figured, wow, this is I told the guys been, look,
I really want to do this band. Give me a

(01:43:10):
couple of months off so I can do this. And
at the time, Todd Rundren was in the band, you know,
and Greg Rawley from Santana Journey in which we did
all the Santana's. Anyway, I thought, you know what I
could as a studio player. I could play everybody else's
stuff just the way they wanted to be played. So
I figured I'd be a good asset to the band.

(01:43:32):
And you know, I remember getting off the elevator in
Canada for the rehearsals, you know, and he was standing
that I just looked at him. It's like he's such
a warm human being. Give me a hug, and he says,
all right, see you in the morning. And I've been
there for eleven years and we become great friends, and
that's a great honor. He's changed my life for the

(01:43:53):
better and a He's been like the big brother had,
you know, just always wise and positive and hilarious. And
it's a joy to be around and make music with him.
And see this guy who's gonna be eighty four in July.
Every time I call him, he's on the treadmill. It's

(01:44:16):
like your FaceTime on the treadmill a lot. You always
bothering me on the faith time. He's never he never stops.
He's working on three EPs at the same time, getting
ready to go on the road. Now we're you know,
we leave in three weeks. We start rehearsals and it's
a thrill. And I told him he's gonna have to
kill me to get rid of me. Man. He laughs
about it. And I have no idea why I've lasted

(01:44:38):
this long. I mean, we just have a great relationship.

Speaker 1 (01:44:42):
Man.

Speaker 2 (01:44:42):
You know, it's one of the most important things that
ever happened to me in my life. I love the man.
I would do any His family, unbelievably great people, His
wife Barbara's fantastic, All the people are the kids, and
all the people I met through him, world class human beings.

Speaker 1 (01:44:58):
Man.

Speaker 2 (01:44:58):
It's made me a better person hundred percent. And that's
why I felt shitty when I blew it. I had
to calm and say, look, man, I really fucked up
because he didn't see it. I mean, I wouldn't show
that side. It was like a secret dark spot that
I would go to that very few people saw. And
I fucked up my relationship with I fucked up everything
with it. I mean, I really lost my mind literally,

(01:45:22):
And now that I've got it back and everybody's all's forgiven.
I made amends with the people that I needed to
do that with, and the people that I have lost
touch with for one reason or another. There's a reason
for that. But for the most part, I mean, I'm
more calm and happy and content and appreciative and more spiritual,

(01:45:43):
closer to God, closer to everything. Realizing that I'm closer
to the dirt napp than I am the beginning, you know,
so I better savor these moments and make the most
out of be healthy and be present, be there for
my kids. You know, I had to make all the effets,
especially to my to my youngest daughter. I scared her
and for that, I'm you know, it's taking a long time.

(01:46:07):
Everything's cool now, we're closer than ever. But you know,
it was a bad time, man, and I'm back and
I feel great, And I wanted to make new music.
I want to go on the road. That was a
huge success for us last two years in the United States,
because that's always been an Achilles deal. We do great
around the world, but getting the US back, you know,

(01:46:28):
that was important to me before I die, And that's
happening right now in terms of touring, what our value
is and finally getting a little respect as they say,
you know what I mean. I mean. I remember Henley
telling me in nineteen eighty when we were working on
his first record, there's a shameless name drop. I go,
why of these guys hate us so much?

Speaker 1 (01:46:47):
Man?

Speaker 2 (01:46:47):
And I was sitting around the table. We were still
like a post session hang and Don goes, He goes, look, man,
he goes. They didn't like us either when we start out,
He goes, But you hang in there and you work hard,
you don't go away, don't. They don't win, and they'll
eventually come around, which is a great piece of advice
that I kind of like at the time. Was like, okay, right, yeah, okay,

(01:47:08):
I'll wait around for another thirty years. Waited forty years
for it. And Ton's a great cat. I love the
death and one of my favorite singers of all time,
but you know, there's a through the years, I've worked
with people that you know, I've stayed friendly with over
the years. You know, we don't hang out all the
time or nothing, but I get an email now and
then what's up and how you doing? And I see,

(01:47:28):
you know, in Ringo's brother in law is Joe Walsh,
one of my all time heroes, and I see him
every once in a while, and we work together and
over the years played together. Uh. You know, so I've
got a chance to work with a lot of my heroes,
which and that's how I pinched myself moments, you know,
and then you I'm losing a lot of my friends too,

(01:47:49):
which is like also very humbling, realizing I better take
care of myself. You know, I'm not I'm the guy.
If I stub my toe, I go to the doctor.
You know what I mean. I'm not. I got a
cyst in my eye. It's you know, it's just a
tear duc thing. But you know, at one point I
during this last tour, I felt my right breast, I'm

(01:48:10):
going with something in here. Man, Oh, this is gonna
be it for me, right, So I go to the doctor.
I find out it's nothing, you know, but I'm already
you know, throwing dirt on myself and in the hole,
you know what I mean. I'm very paranoid about that.

Speaker 1 (01:48:24):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:48:24):
I used up my nine lives a long time ago,
you know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (01:48:29):
And you once told me that Ringo said you were
his last best friend.

Speaker 2 (01:48:34):
He wrote that down once, and he wrote it on
something for me, which I was very touched by. You know.
You know, he says a lot of things like that.
I'd like to see. You know, I'm going to tell
you that we are close buddies. Man. I adore them, man,
but I you know, they ask him. He certainly seems
to treat me, really treats me like like a real friend.

Speaker 1 (01:48:55):
Man.

Speaker 2 (01:48:55):
I cherished one of the most important friendships I've ever had.
I love the man to death. I would do anything
for him. You know. So you're the longest standing member
of the band, right, great Busionet's a little longer than me.
But as far as being a front line guy, yeah,
I think so. I don't know. I never really looked
at it, but that's the rumor.

Speaker 1 (01:49:14):
So you'll do it forever.

Speaker 2 (01:49:18):
Well. It keeps me on the road a lot, you know,
Like I just finished three months with Toto without coming
home and then we go out. But see, working with
him is not work. It's it's a vacation for me
because it's it's a fun environment where I don't have
I can just be the guitar player, Like I don't
have to run the band and take care of everything

(01:49:40):
or nobody yells at me if something screws up or
something like that. You know what I mean, I can
just it's it's it's a wonderful group of guys. You know,
I love everybody in the band, and so I make
it work. You know. It's where where I'm able to
book around them, they book around me. It just means
I'm away a lot. But I mean, I'm not going

(01:50:01):
to ever say no to Ringo unless he wants to
get rid of me. I mean that then that would
be up to him, but we'd still stay friends. But
I think he's at the age now and I'm I
shouldn't speak for him, but I mean he likes to
be around certain people that he's comfortable with, like meeting
like a new bunch of guys. I don't think he
really feels like doing that at this point.

Speaker 1 (01:50:23):
And you like being you know, patritired from the road.
Do you like being on the road or it's something
you have to do for the money, or you know,
I play, I don't experience.

Speaker 2 (01:50:33):
I don't have to do any of that. I was
born for this life, man, you know, I really you know,
some people hate the road, and I can understand that,
but I need to do this. I mean, once you
joined the circus, you can never leave, and all that
this cliches and all that. For me, it's like that,

(01:50:56):
I still man when the house lights go and the
crowd goes. I mean, I forget about everything in my
world for those two hours or whatever it is. And
that's more than money. That's why I started playing in
the first place, before there was money or anything but
the music to care about. When I was just a kid,

(01:51:16):
I never lost that feeling. Sure, you get tired, I
mean there is the you know, harsh reality of the
physicality of it. But man, now, man, I'm if we're
doing it by bus, I'm as sleep. I do the gig,
eat some food, crawling my bunk with my kindle, and
I read. I read spiritual stuff. I read UFO stuff,
for science fiction stuff, you know, anything not music, you know,

(01:51:40):
And I go to sleep early, and I wake up early,
and I feel good. I eat right. I try to
keep it together, you know, make up for the times
that I did.

Speaker 1 (01:51:52):
And you're going on the road because you have to.
But if you sat at home, wa wait wait wait
wait wait when I say I have to, No, I'm
talking about emotionally. I'm not talking about financially for your
identity money.

Speaker 2 (01:52:06):
But I'm a musician. What am I expected? What am
I going to retire and do go back to being
in pandemic mode?

Speaker 1 (01:52:11):
No?

Speaker 2 (01:52:11):
I don't think that's a good idea.

Speaker 1 (01:52:13):
No, But I was going to ask this one question,
assuming you did stay home, do you have enough income
streams from all you know, the songs you wrote, the
record royalties, so that you can make it without going
on the road.

Speaker 2 (01:52:26):
I could. I mean, I got really smart about all
that stuff. You know. I got ripped off and I
pissed away money. I've been divorced twice. I know what
it's like to have money, lose it, and have to
go over again. Now I'm not going to do that again. Now,
I save money. I save for my kids. When I die,
They're going to do real happy A couple of days
after they realized Dad's dead. They go, oh wow, but no,

(01:52:50):
I mean, I mean I saved money. Man. I live
in a nice little house in the hills. I got
one nice car. I don't have diamond rings or spent
you know, I don't worry about money. I spend it
if I want to. But I'm not stupid with it either,
because I've had it, lost it and had to make
it back again. And when you get to be a
certain age, you don't want to have to make it

(01:53:11):
back again.

Speaker 1 (01:53:13):
And then is there anybody who's on a list of
people you haven't met or haven't played with? There's still
out there.

Speaker 2 (01:53:24):
Well, I Peter Gabriel, but I met him, but he
doesn't need me. He's got David, this guitar player. David's awesome.
David Rhoades, great guitar player. But I mean there are
people that Phil Collins. I was a big Genesis band
when I was young, you know, the original band. I
loved all their incarnations. But you know, great musicians, great songs.

(01:53:48):
I you know, I had a thing about being in
steely Dan and for five minutes after the Boss tour
in seventy seven, Irving asked me if I would do that.
I was like, what are you kidding me? Jeff was
going to do it, and we were going to put
starting Toto off. We'd already had done demos for Toto

(01:54:09):
to get a record deal, and Sony came to us
and offered us the deal Columbia at the time without
even seeing the band live. We weren't even a live
band yet. We were just it was Dave and Jeff
coming off Silk Degrees and all that. And obviously Jeff
was and Steely Dan when we were in high school,
Like we heard the Katie Light album before it was out,
We're the rhythm tracks. Jeff would come by and play

(01:54:31):
us cassette of what they were doing, and we were
just doing all Steely Dan stuff anyway, me and Landau.
Landau was Danny Diaz. I was Jeff Baxter. That was
the running wink joke that we had in high school.
And after the Boss thing happened and I met Irving,
who was incredibly nice to me as a kid, it
was what a management team was. Irving was the manager,

(01:54:53):
Craig frun was the tour manager, and Howard Coffin was
the count. And I was nineteen years old and these
guys all took a little shine to me and irving
you know i'd heard, you know, he came said, you
want to go out with Steely Dan, Like does Flipper
have a blowhole? Yes, you know, but I didn't realize
that Donald and Walter had come down to rehearsal and

(01:55:13):
kind of checked me out in the dark, you know.
And then I got to rehearse with Danny Diaz, the
original guitar player that I played the solo on you know,
Do It Again and Your Gold Teeth and Asia and all.
You know. Danny's beautiful cat, great player, really unique and
lovely guy and and his wife are great. Anyway, long
story short, Without even meeting Donald or Walter at that time,

(01:55:36):
I started getting together with Denny Diaz and going over
who's gonna play what part? And then it all fell
apart for whatever reason that I wasn't privy to. And
so I could say I was in Steely Dan for
five seconds, but I never got to record with him.
I did get to play with Donald at the Jeff Tribute,

(01:55:57):
so that kind of fulfilled the fantasy, I think, and
I worked with Walter at a at a guitar thing.
Once we played together on stage, he was very nice.
They were both really really nice to me. But you
know that music is really important to me. That Steely
Dan is an incredibly important band to me. You know, musically,
I mean Donald Faga's Nightfly album is a Desert Island

(01:56:20):
album for me. You know, one of the greatest albums
ever made. Should have beat us in the Grammys. It
was a better record, but we were all fans of it,
you know, and stanzas Test the time. You know, their
music is just it's like it's like there's the Beatles
in Steely those and Hendricks and stuff, and you know,
that music stuck with me my whole life. You know,

(01:56:40):
I go, well, what about Zeppelin? What about Becco? What
about you know Cream and all that. Yeah, of course
that's all there. But in terms of songwriting production, Steely Dan, man,
the Beatles, Steely Dan. Really that's in my DNA heart.

Speaker 1 (01:56:57):
So since you knew and still no three members of
the Beatles, what you learned about the magic of the Beatles?
Why did it become so big? Why were they so great?

Speaker 2 (01:57:12):
Wow? Man, sh it's just great songs. They're the real thing.
What they brought the there It was the combination of
the four of them. I mean, it's magic. It's an
elixir that comes along once in a lifetime, you know

(01:57:34):
what I mean. I don't know if there's ever good
there's I don't think there's gonna be another Beatles again.

Speaker 1 (01:57:37):
Oh we've been waiting and there hasn't been one for
sixty years, so I don't think so.

Speaker 2 (01:57:41):
You know, I think everything they put out still goes
number one, right, you know what I mean. I mean,
it's I mean, I look, I say, the Beatles are
classical music, you know, and the fact that I have
a little teeny piece of sand history with them, you know,
working having the honor of great honor of working with
all three of them at one point or another. It

(01:58:03):
was beyond my wildest dreams. The one of w really
hit me was when I was invited to do the
Beatles fiftieth anniversary of the Ed Sullivan Show, right, and
we were and you know, it was an all star
backing band, Me and Peter Franton on guitar, and you know,
I could go on. Don Wills was the musical director,
and there was all these great players that all the
A list guys, and we got to back all these

(01:58:25):
people that apparently CBS television shows to be artists, sing
Beatles song and to make a long story short, I
was honored to be there, to say the least. And
then right before we were going it was busy week.
We were rehearsals, and then we had the Grammys with
Ringo to be on that show, and then this whole thing,
and Paul was there. It was a nice reunion to

(01:58:46):
see him again. And we were playing right before we
went on. I see Paul and Ringo in the flesh
right here, and then I see the guys, and then
I look up at the screen and they're playing Hard
Days Night black and white, in which my grandmother took
me to see ten times, if not twenty when I

(01:59:08):
was a kid, bought me Beatle Boots the whole thing.
It hit me that, like that little shitty you know,
that little kid with a shit eating grin, is now
standing here fifty years later celebrating this thing with the
real guys, and I would It was at that moment
in my life I said, I really fucking pulled off
the dream. I really pulled this off. I'm dems here.
I mean, what am I doing standing here? This is incredible?

(01:59:29):
I can I pinched myself, but I like, I got
a little of a clempse. Man, I was a little
tear in my eye. You know, I'm like, like, this
isn't ma, And I kept it was a personal moment
that I not really share it. You know, I'm telling
you this story. A couple people in my family know
how I felt about it. But Ringo did that for me. Man,
Ringo is such a friend. I mean he would dragged
me along to be a part of this thing. You know,

(01:59:51):
I didn't even ask him. I just said, Man, I'd
love to be a part of that and to have
been there, to be a part see the fifty years
of my life flash before in my lies. It was
a it was a moment I'll never and it missed.
Made me really really appreciate all of it not much more.

Speaker 1 (02:00:10):
And finally, are you ever Steve or we always Luke? Well?

Speaker 2 (02:00:16):
I started out as Steven, which is what my mother
called me with a V. She was the only person
they called my grandmother. My mom and my grandmother called
me Steven, but uh I was Steve. Uh Luke happened
because I started hanging around with a lot of guys
named Steve. I think it really got solidified in high
school when Steve Pacar was the leader of Still Life,

(02:00:39):
which was the band that we were, which is the
second generation of the band that Jeff Pacar and David
paichad in high school and they went off to be pros.
Steve took over the band called it still Life. And
with Steve it's every time somebody said Steve, both of
us would answer, it's like, no, you're Luke. You're Luke okay, okay,

(02:00:59):
and that I've been that ever since high school.

Speaker 1 (02:01:02):
And do your ex wives girlfriends call you Luke or
do they call you Steve.

Speaker 2 (02:01:08):
Nope, not one of them. I said, no, it doesn't
sound right coming out of you. Anywise, they don't call
me Steve. They might refer to me in third person.
Is like, I have a Luke. You know, he's not
here right now. Just knowing that that's maybe how somebody
knows me. But you know, it's almost like I don't
even hardly answer to Steve anyway. You know what I mean,

(02:01:30):
I'm either Dad or Luke, and you know, Steve is
just something that's all right, I have to fill out
this passport, work permit or something.

Speaker 1 (02:01:41):
Okay, Luke. This has been amazing. I can't thank you
enough for being so open and honest in a world
that's so guarded. And you are definitely that genuine person
I know over twenty years of knowing you, and you're
someone who stays connected, and it sounds like you're in
a really good place now.

Speaker 2 (02:02:01):
I am man. You know, I went to the darkness. Man.
Everybody's life has darkness, and some people don't want to
talk about it, you know. I mean, I'm lucky I
pulled myself out of the mud man. Thanks for having me.
I feel great life is. I'm really positive right now,
really super positive place.

Speaker 1 (02:02:17):
I have nothing I can say they can top that.
That's what life is really about. That, as you say,
feeling good about yourself and family. So thanks for doing this, Luke.
Till next time. This is Bob left Sex