Captain Kirk Douglas

Captain Kirk Douglas is the longtime guitarist for The Roots. Over the past 21 years he’s seen the group evolve from a touring act, to the house band for The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, to having their own successful music festival in Philly. All the while continuing to record albums for themselves and others.

Between The Roots' many commitments, Kirk has also found time to record a solo project under the name Hundred Watt Heart. His most recent offering “New Unknown”  was recorded in the basement of his childhood home on Long Island where he first fell in love with the music of Van Halen, Hendrix, Sly and the Family Stone, and so many others.

On today’s Broken Record Justin Richmond talks with Captain Kirk from the Roots’ green room in 30 Rock about the seductive pull he felt as a little kid seeing electric guitars on the cover of an old Kiss album. He also reminisces about his early days gigging around New York City in the ‘90s while also working as a preschool teacher. And he recalls the elation he felt when Prince played one of his guitars on the Tonight Show, only to smash it onstage at the end of the performance.

You can hear a playlist of some of our favorite Captain Kirk Douglas & The Roots songs HERE.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. Captain Kirk Douglas is the longtime guitarist for The
Roots and someone I've always considered to be their secret weapon.
Kirk started playing with The Roots in two thousand and three,
just as their guitar driven hit song The Seed was
taken off. Over twenty one years, he's seen the group

(00:35):
evolve from a touring act to anchor it around the
Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, to having their own successful
festival in Philly, all the while continuing for the most part,
at least, to record albums for themselves and for others.
Between the band's many commitments, and there are many, Kirk
has also found time to record a solo project under

(00:55):
the name hundred Wattheart. His most recent offering, New Unknown,
was recorded in the basement of his childhood home on
Long Island, where he first fell in love with the
music of Van Halen, Hendrix, Sling, the Family Stone and
so many others discussed in this episode on Today's Broken Record,
I talked with Captain Kirk from the Roots Green Room
in thirty Rock about the seductive pole he felt as

(01:17):
a little kid seeing electric guitars on the cover of
an old Kiss album. He also reminisces about his early
days gigging around New York City in the nineties while
working as a preschool teacher, and he recalls the elation
he felt when Prince played one of his guitars on
This Night Show, only to smash it on stage at
the end of his performance. This is broken record liner

(01:41):
notes for the digital age. I'm justin Mitchman. Here's my
conversation with Captain Kirk Douglas of the Roots. This is
the third place we were set to do this. This
is amazing. I'm glad it worked.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
Out as am I.

Speaker 1 (01:54):
I'm so grateful to you for engineering this as well.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
I'm impressed with myself.

Speaker 3 (02:00):
I have to say, just because you know, there was
a time when I was learning ableton and it took
a while for me to like learn how to how
to do it. And I was sort of forced to
learn how to develop my skills with self recording because
of the pandemic, because when doing things for the Tonight Show,

(02:22):
we all had to do it from home. I was
dabbling with it self recording at the time, and then
once it once we went to lockdown, is like, okay,
we're on, you're on. You have to figure this out,
and you know, not just recording, but just how to
send files, how to sync files up, you.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
Know, how to match video with audio.

Speaker 3 (02:43):
And it wound up enabling me to you know, develop
a little new skill set just and then be able
to record myself, send things in for the tonight show.
And then when I had some extra time to record
my own music too. So it and then when I'm
not recording, then I go into life and I kind
of forget that I'm able to do this. So moments

(03:05):
like these where you're like, I don't have an engineer
like three years ago, I'd be like, I guess we're
just not doing this anymore.

Speaker 1 (03:10):
We're talking to each other micro Yeah, my iPhone's good, right, yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
So yeah, it's always cool to learn a new thing.

Speaker 1 (03:18):
Absolutely so, even in your musical life, you weren't necessarily
recording at home to pro tools or able to in
or doing home recordings in that way previously.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
No, because well, let's set the stage, you know.

Speaker 3 (03:35):
So we are at thirty Rockbell Center, and we are
in the rehearsal room slash recording room slash dressing room
for the roots. This room serves many purposes, but pre
recorded music that you hear on The Tonight Show is
birthed here in this room. A lot of recordings that

(03:57):
wind up on Roots albums from how We Got.

Speaker 2 (04:02):
Over forward We're recorded. A lot of that stuff's recorded
in this room. Why is Up? Ghost?

Speaker 3 (04:09):
With Elvis Costello? A lot of that stuff was recorded
in this room. A lot of the collaborations that take
place with the Roots and fellow artists, the rehearsals for
such collaborations take place in this room. So check Korea,
has you know been in this seat? You know, Herbie
Hancock has been in the seat that you're sitting in.

(04:30):
Steven Tyler, Oh my goodness, George Benson, Steve Lucather, Oh man,
what's so fun about moments like that? This room is
so small and a lot of legends have been in
this room. Yeah, that's always fun.

Speaker 1 (04:46):
When you guys got the Tonight Show gig right and
you got sort of working with Fallon, Was this your
room or did you did you have this initially?

Speaker 3 (04:53):
Yeah, this has been our room since we did Late
Night with Jimmy fallonk and so for fifteen years essentially.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (05:01):
Yeah, we got in and we're like, damn, this room
is small and They're like, oh well, Conan's band's room
was even smaller. So they're like, okay, good enough for me.
Max Weinberg the mix Warnberg seven getting.

Speaker 2 (05:11):
Up for us?

Speaker 1 (05:11):
Yeah yeah, yeah, go up for Max and Jimmy Lavina.

Speaker 2 (05:14):
Yeah yeah yeah. Shout out to them.

Speaker 1 (05:16):
They're amazing. Did you guys do the John Legend album
here too? The Wake Up? Some of that done?

Speaker 2 (05:21):
You know, we used a studio that was on forty
eighth Street.

Speaker 3 (05:25):
Againness, the name escapes me, but back when forty eighth
Street was kind of like a more music row street.
But eventually, you know, after being you know, using a
studio around the corner, I guess we realized, you know that, hey,
we can make quality recordings here. You know, quest Love's

(05:46):
drunk Ruth is right next to you over there. And
from sitting in this spot and recording so much, and uh,
seeing what Steve, our engineer, was doing, you know, I
got to have a front road seat to you know,
how to do recordings. And I asked him a lot
of questions, much to his chagrin. Yeah, but he was

(06:07):
often gracious enough to answer, and that also gave me
the curiosity to say, oh, I wonder how you can
record at home. And then I also you know, hearing
a lot of things about records that you love and
discovering that not all of them were done in.

Speaker 2 (06:24):
Big budget recording studios.

Speaker 3 (06:26):
And you know, the longer I live, the longer I
listened to podcasts and read articles more I discover that,
you know, some of my favorite records were done in
a home environment. And you know, if you have a
place that has a great vibe, you can you know,
capture a lot of moments with that.

Speaker 2 (06:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (06:48):
Yeah, So hundred watt Heart is project what would you
call it? A project? A group of yours?

Speaker 2 (06:53):
Is it project? Slash group?

Speaker 3 (06:55):
It's music that I write and I perform it with
a drummer, Rick Sheridan, who is in a band called
Earl Greyhound previously, and he's just like a you know,
good friend for law time since like the nineties cool
and through his friendship, I learned a lot of music
and you know, we would just sit around and listen

(07:16):
to music, and he exposed me to music I'd never
heard before. And it was around this time of meeting
him that I was also discovering the roots. And I
also during that time I held the roots in the
same regard that I held so many groups that you know,
are part of the fabric of music that we know

(07:37):
and love, you know, earth Wind and Fires, the Funkadelics,
just the classic soul groups, the Jackson Five, you know,
I mean Stevie Wonder, Like I had literal mixtapes, you
know that would have you know, the Roots on it,
that would have Stevie on it, that would have Marvin
Gay on it.

Speaker 2 (07:54):
Like, I don't know, I just saw them in the
same echelon.

Speaker 1 (07:58):
Had you seen them live at that point?

Speaker 3 (08:01):
Yeah, yeah, I guess it was around ninety eight, no
even earlier, maybe ninety seven when I first saw them
live at the time. The guitar player Vernon Reid from
Living Color. He was a huge influence on me, and
I remember I got to meet him when I moved
to Manhattan. I remember the day I was I was

(08:23):
going to play with a drag queen named Head of Lettuce.
That was my first gig getting paid in New York
playing with the drag queen.

Speaker 1 (08:30):
It's a great name of Head of Lettuce, Head of
let Us.

Speaker 3 (08:33):
Yeah, And I remember I was on my way to
that gig at Don Hill's and I saw Vernon in
the street and I'm like, yo, Vernon, I gotta play
this gig. But later on tonight, I'm going to go
see the Roots, and Verne's like, oh, I actually I'm
playing with them tonight. So I saw him play with
the Roots, and I remember watching them and just being like, wow,
I would love to be in a band like this.

(08:54):
And at the time, when I was playing with Head
of Lettuce, that was the only gig I had.

Speaker 2 (08:58):
I was playing with a host.

Speaker 3 (08:59):
I played with like ten or eleven different bands back
in the late nineties.

Speaker 2 (09:05):
But yeah, I saw them.

Speaker 3 (09:06):
They played five nights at the Knitting Factory, five nights straight,
and I saw it like, I think three out of
those nights because the tickets were fairly cheap at the time.
I was a preschool teacher, but I could afford to
see the Roots. It was cool to like see that
up close, and I remember thinking like that would be
I would love to be in a band like this.

Speaker 1 (09:23):
Yeah, you know, that's It's interesting that Vernon was playing
with them at that time, and he must have just
been sitting because they didn't really have a guitarist.

Speaker 2 (09:29):
Yeah he was.

Speaker 3 (09:29):
He was just sitting in with them. He wasn't it
was not he was not a permanent member at all.

Speaker 1 (09:34):
How did Vernon sound with them?

Speaker 3 (09:36):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (09:36):
He did his thing.

Speaker 3 (09:37):
You know, It's like he was very much himself, very
much Vernon Red, and it wasn't up for the whole time.
I think they brought her up at like the end
of the show. And at the time, you know, they
had Rozelle Godfather Noise. He was there doing what he does,
his his beat box box and so much more. They

(09:57):
had started doing I guess, you know, their jam sessions
at Black Lily, and I guess they were also doing Wetlands,
but I somehow didn't see them at Wetlands, So there
was always an element of you know, they weren't a
jam band, but they were a band that jammed with people,
So I guess essentially they were.

Speaker 1 (10:15):
Yeah, some of the best jams I've seen, by the way,
and I've seen some great groups. You had jam, yeah,
you know, but on some of the best jams I've
seen is you with the Roots.

Speaker 2 (10:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (10:25):
Well, when the Roots just started doing Late Night with
Jimmy Fallon, you know, there was a lot of talk
I guess about you know, really they're going to be
on are they getting saw or they're selling out, and
I guess our response to that was by having a
weekly jam session at the High Line, which I believe
is no longer there, and you know, people from Tom

(10:50):
Morello would come and jam with us. Vernon definitely came
and jammed with us and sat in Reverend Vince. You
go on stage, you had no idea what was going
to happen, like literally having no idea, just start playing
and our manager, God Rest his soul. Rich Nichols would
just be on the side of the stage making hand
gestures to us, uh for what he wanted to hear

(11:11):
coming out out of us musically, what really?

Speaker 2 (11:14):
Yeah, yeah, he do that, just.

Speaker 3 (11:16):
Like I don't know what this meant, but this is
what he wanted to like, you know, I'm just I'm
gesturing my hands up in the air, but.

Speaker 1 (11:21):
Almost like you're gestured almost like like bigger more Yeah, yeah, yeah,
that's and that's what we aim to give him.

Speaker 3 (11:28):
You know, Rich has always loomed heavily as you know,
a father figure to Amir and Tarik and then further
down the line to the rest of us in the band,
you know, and he's sort of you know, everybody that
you see on that stage was sort of curated by
Rich Nichols.

Speaker 2 (11:44):
You know, he's sort of the.

Speaker 3 (11:45):
Mastermind that brought a Mer and Tarique quest Love and
Black Thought, brought them together and said, you guys have something,
and cultivated that, nurtured that alongside with them. He was
sort of like the uh, the unseen sort of producer
behind so many of the Roots, all of the Roots albums.
Really partially why I think it's you know, been taken

(12:06):
such a long time to come up with the next
Roots album because it would be the first one without
Rich Nichols, and whatever the Roots puts out is, you know,
we want it to be something that would be worthy
of his legacy.

Speaker 2 (12:20):
Of his legacy. Yeah wow.

Speaker 3 (12:21):
So he's almost like the like a Yoda figure, like
a paternal figure, a north Star of the Roots, like
a George Martin if you will, you know, a fifth
beadle too, you know, that one that's off stage, but
one that whose presence, you know, he casts a bright

(12:43):
shadow over the band.

Speaker 1 (12:45):
Yeah, any group that is together as long as the
Roots have been, including the Roots with you as a
part of the Roots, I guess you to survive, you
have to learn the wather changes. But it is wild.
As you're talking, I start to think about all the
various iterations and and just the things that have kind
of transpired, you know, from I guess you're joining the group,

(13:09):
know Rozelle at some point to party not being a
part of it, Rich passing the Tonight show like a
Hubbard leaving, like just things that are like, at one
point seemed foundational to the group, right, and you guys
are able to navigate it.

Speaker 3 (13:23):
Yeah, yeah, I just think of doing a podcast right
now in this building, you know, just it's like a university,
you know, thirty Rock University, and the Roots is like,
you know, we're all sort of students of that, and
being a member of the Roots is like the Roots
is a university in and of itself, you know, and

(13:47):
just like listening to Questlove Supreme, just watching how other
members of the band, you know, are able to pivot
outside of the band and still you know, keep the
band itself as something that you always come back to.
You know, it doesn't have to be oh, well, you

(14:09):
want to do a bunch of other things. You know,
It's either that or be a member of the Roots.
It's yeah, and you see that from you know, the
core members that you know, just from reading you know,
Black Thoughts latest book.

Speaker 1 (14:21):
You know, there's always so beautiful man. Yeah, it really
blew me away when I read that.

Speaker 3 (14:25):
Yeah, fantastic and just I mean it only makes sense
because he's a wordsmith, you know, in the booth and
on record, so he lends that to you know, the
page you know that we all can read. Yeah, just
watching all that, it's like you have all of this
information that if it's if you look at it like
as a class, you know, you see this potential syllabus

(14:48):
before you that you are able to ignore.

Speaker 2 (14:52):
But it's you're making best use of your.

Speaker 3 (14:54):
Time if you participate in it and if you use
it all as inspiration.

Speaker 1 (14:59):
What did join in the Roots? How did that impact
your guitar play?

Speaker 2 (15:04):
Well?

Speaker 3 (15:04):
At its most basic level, I think my timing just
in terms of keeping time growing up, I always paid
more attention I guess to leads and solos and stuff
like that, and playing in the Roots just really reinforced
the concept of pocket. And there's you know, no better

(15:26):
drummer to develop that with on a stage in front
of like a large group of people and in a
recording situation than Questlove. Because he spent so much of
his formative years with a metronn with classic records with breakbeats,
hours and hours like the proverbial you know, ten thousand hours,

(15:50):
like he logged them and then some And also when
that was not happening, he spoke about it, you know,
so you know, he'd call me out like yo, pull back,
you know, like and then you know, you listen, you
listen to the other players and you see how they're playing,
and you're like, oh, I want to meld with everybody

(16:11):
and to bring awareness to if you're not doing that.

Speaker 1 (16:15):
Is there anyone you could look to to sort of
feel like, Okay, maybe if I just do something like
this or if I approach it like the way this
person did.

Speaker 3 (16:22):
Was there any well, the guitar players in James Brown group,
you know.

Speaker 1 (16:28):
Catfish Fish.

Speaker 2 (16:31):
Yeah, yeah, Boots himself, you.

Speaker 3 (16:33):
Know, because he played a lot of guitar on all
the Funkadelic records, but like a lot of the p
funk I hear that.

Speaker 1 (16:39):
He did a lot more like well even just him
playing drums on Flash Flag Yeah.

Speaker 3 (16:43):
Yeah, yeah, it's crazy stuff like that. But yeah, and
then and then you know the concepts of everything being
on the one with with p funk and.

Speaker 1 (16:53):
Just uh that unity of everything.

Speaker 2 (16:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (16:56):
Yeah, coming down on the one absolutely.

Speaker 2 (16:59):
The Michael Jackson records.

Speaker 3 (17:01):
You know, the players like Steve Lucather, you know, like
what he does on like human nature stuff that like
really makes the song. Yeah, you know Andy Summers, you know,
on every breath you take. These are guitar players that
like play these like iconic parts that you're they just
weave themselves in the song and become somewhat of a

(17:23):
glue in music.

Speaker 1 (17:25):
And U's a really interesting point. Like you know, obviously
like in Van Halen Eddie's driving thing, Yeah, but in
Andy Summers has equally iconic guitar parts. And my view
and ever thought about it, but it's really like serving
the song.

Speaker 3 (17:39):
Yeah, that's at the end of the day, it's all
about serving the song, serving the music.

Speaker 4 (17:43):
You know.

Speaker 3 (17:43):
That's everybody you know should have that mindset. When everybody
has that mindset, the music elevates.

Speaker 1 (17:50):
Guitar players notoriously sometimes don't have.

Speaker 2 (17:52):
That mind Yeah.

Speaker 3 (17:53):
Yeah, I mean, and there's a time and place, I
guess for everything. There's times to step out, of course,
you know, and to shine of course. But you know,
with the roots, it's like everybody like trying to create
something that's greater than the sum of its parts.

Speaker 2 (18:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (18:08):
Yeah, and the roots sort of like reinforced that concept,
like watching p Funk like we'd be on the tour bus,
like watching James Brown videos, watching Marvin and montro like
and just like checking out what the band is doing
and gaining inspiration from that.

Speaker 1 (18:24):
Wow. After a quick break, we'll be back with more
of a conversation with Captain Kirk. We're back with more
from Captain Kirk Douglas. When did you pick up the
guitar and who were you starting to listen to and
how did it all evolve?

Speaker 3 (18:42):
Oh? Well, I mean all right, I have Jamaican parents, okay,
so I'll start with that, and they were their music
was very prevalent in our household, and my dad was
a record collector and avid record collector. He was an audiophile,
so grew up with you know, Big Moran's Power Amp

(19:05):
Moran's preamp Tenois speakers. I mean, I remember these Tenois
speakers as you know, to my three year old body.
These were monoliths that helped me learn how to stand.
But not just learn how to stand, but sound came
out of them.

Speaker 2 (19:20):
You know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (19:21):
And my first memories of music was like the song
Daniel from Elton John and then in the same night
hearing Easy by Commodores along with various you know, reggae songs.
You know, my dad would have his friends come over
and play music.

Speaker 1 (19:39):
With the reggae records. Where those have been records he
knew from from Jamaica, Jamaica or did he would he
pick them like he.

Speaker 3 (19:46):
Brought them over from Jamaica. I'm the only one in
my family that was born in America. So they lived
in Jamaica for a while and then they came to Brooklyn,
and I was born in Brooklyn in seventy two and
then but so yeah, when anytime he'd go to Jamaica,
he'd come back with records.

Speaker 1 (20:00):
Do you have those records still?

Speaker 2 (20:01):
Absolutely? Yeah, Yeah, they're all out in Long Island.

Speaker 1 (20:04):
That's so cool.

Speaker 3 (20:06):
My mom is in the house that I grew up in.
My dad's no longer around. He passed nine, but he
left behind that same stereo system, those same speakers, those
same records, And so that's what would happen during the week.
But on Sundays, you know, Sunday was church day and
it would all be all about classical music.

Speaker 2 (20:25):
You know.

Speaker 3 (20:25):
My brother, his name is Handel, named after the composer Handel,
but Beethoven Bach, you know, church hymns. That's what would
be playing all day Sunday or most of the day's Sunday.
When I was five, they moved out to Long Island,
and you know, once I started to go to school,
that's when I started getting exposed to rock music. And

(20:47):
when I was seven, I had a friend in my class,
Chris Garcia.

Speaker 2 (20:52):
I went to his.

Speaker 3 (20:52):
House and he had these Kiss records and I remember
seeing them and being like, what is that? You know,
they looked like they looked like superheroes. They looked like
and then they're holding these scepter like color full, shapely.

Speaker 2 (21:12):
Things.

Speaker 3 (21:12):
These objects that I discovered were guitars, and and they
looked cool. They sort of embodied like, you know, part skateboard,
part sports car, part scepter. They but they the sound
that was coming from the speakers was created by these things,
and I was transfixed and I wanted to be a

(21:33):
part of that. His brother had a guitar, that's thing,
So seeing one up close, I was just I was
so attracted to it.

Speaker 2 (21:41):
Yeah, we had a fake Les Paul copy.

Speaker 3 (21:43):
It was Sunburst, but it sort of looked like, you know,
you look at a Sunburst guitars, like it looks like
there's fire within this that's being that's being contained inside
this instrument, and yeah, I want some of that, you know.
So and he played and just so hearing, you know,
him just being able to sort of have sway over
this sound and just seeing you know, that it was

(22:06):
someone accessible. Like I begged my parents for a guitar,
you know, and there was a shopping mall and there
was a store called Family Melody, and they sold electric guitars,
and you just seeing them all lined up in their
various colors and shapes, and I remember buying Guitar Player
magazine before I could play, just looking at it, like
like looking at Professor Boy looks at Victoria's Secrets, you know,

(22:30):
like just being so excited by yeah.

Speaker 1 (22:33):
Yeah guitars in the looks.

Speaker 2 (22:36):
Yeah I was. I was. I was all in.

Speaker 3 (22:38):
And then finally my parents relented and they got me
like a really cheap guitar that it's broken, but I
still have the remnants of it at my mom's house.
And then I think I started getting to Van Halen.

Speaker 2 (22:49):
I heard, I saw.

Speaker 3 (22:50):
Now we're at the time when MTV is birthed, and uh,
I would go over my babysitter Iris.

Speaker 2 (22:56):
I would go over to her house. We didn't have cable,
but they had cable, they had MTV, and.

Speaker 3 (23:02):
Then I was seeing the videos by you know, by
Styx and by Van Halen and Huey Lewis, and.

Speaker 1 (23:10):
It's around like eighty four eighty five.

Speaker 3 (23:12):
Yeah, we're talking, yeah, like exactly like eighty two eighty
and then there would also be the Friday Night videos
and then you know, that's when you start around that time,
you start seeing Sha Ka Khan videos and uh around
then eighty four, and then you start seeing Prince, you know,
and then then there's like, okay, you know black people
can do this too, you know, because my other exposure

(23:35):
to music for my brother was really Slide the Family
Stone and uh Jackson five and Beg's like ABC and
the Stand Record you know those and the Kiss records
like so that was sort of like set the fat
my musical foundation at the time.

Speaker 1 (23:55):
Man. And you know, honestly too, like those Jackson five
records and those sly Stone records. Great guitar records.

Speaker 2 (24:01):
Yeah, and I wasn't, but I didn't really.

Speaker 3 (24:04):
As a kid, I was so attracted to the distortion
and heavy guitars, you know, like when I heard Easy
by the Commodores and hearing the guitar soul and I
was like, that's a guitar solo.

Speaker 1 (24:16):
You know, it is a tasty one.

Speaker 2 (24:19):
Yeah, yeah, yeah for sure.

Speaker 3 (24:21):
And then as I got a little bit older, you know,
living on Long Island, like you know, hair metal started
to be a big thing.

Speaker 1 (24:26):
There's a movie called Heavy Metal Parking Lot. Yeah, yeah,
have you seen that?

Speaker 2 (24:29):
Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (24:30):
That was that going on in Long Island.

Speaker 2 (24:32):
That was so going on in Long Island.

Speaker 1 (24:34):
Man.

Speaker 3 (24:34):
You know, I went to high school with like twelve
hundred kids, like a graduating class of twelve hundred, that's
just a graduating class.

Speaker 2 (24:43):
And there was like maybe ten black kids in all
of that.

Speaker 3 (24:46):
And I was into the music I was into, and
so I you know, I kind of didn't feel very
much accepted by a lot of the black kids. And
I also didn't feel accepted by the white kids. When
I say not accepted, like it wasn't like anybody like
turned me away, but I just felt like a on

(25:10):
the peripheria sense of otherness. But it was nothing that
ever bothered me. But I definitely found my crew with
the musicians and just you know, like I remember bonding
over you know, bands like you know Motley Crue at
the time or Queens Reich and stuff like that. So

(25:31):
you're hanging with the heavy metal parking lot. I was
hanging with the heavy and we had a band Overdrive.
And actually the dude from this band, his name was
John Hamson. He looked like he should on he should
be on the headbanger's balls. Him, Keith Salomido, Paul Doxy,
Marci Otis, Chris the Otis, shout out to all these cats.

(25:52):
And I joined their band everything, and like like if
you looked at a picture of us, I'd probably be like, wow,
one of these things does not look like the other,
you know. So I remember we did a Battle of
the Bands when I was fourteen, and I remember we lost,
and I remember going home afterwards and looking in the
mirror at myself and I had like spandex on, and
I had like rip jeans, and I had like the

(26:13):
mess shirt on, and I had my glasses and my
short little laugh ro. I remember looking at myself in
the mirror and be like, I just don't know if
this is the right look or if this is the
right thing for me. You know, as much as I
dig this music and everything, I just remember looking at
myself and be like, come on, you.

Speaker 1 (26:31):
Know, little crisis of identity?

Speaker 3 (26:33):
Yeah, yeah, and yeah, which is I guess the right age,
you know. But I remember turning fifteen, and that's when
I got heavily into motown, like just getting into and
that's when I started really noticing guitar and its presence
in old soul music and in like you know, the
intro to My Girl and stuff like that, be like,

(26:54):
that's a guitar and this I can play these things, yeah,
and I don't need a loud, overdriven app to do so.
And these are amazing songs and this is a great
vibe and I don't need a particular look to participate
with it. And also it was around this time that
I started getting into Hendricks. I remember Guitar World came

(27:14):
out with an all Hendricks issue, and I remember my
first Hendricks record was Live at Winterland that just it
was just released on CD. So it was like, you know,
hearing Hendricks on stage and my dad was allowing me
to play CDs on his huge stereo.

Speaker 2 (27:30):
Okay, so upgraded, yeah exactly.

Speaker 3 (27:33):
So it was that live at Winterland Hendricks, and I
was able to see how black music fit into rock
and roll and sort of you know, do the backtracking
and seeing like how I could be part of this
music that I was into and how you know, oh
my goodness, Hendricks was a forefather in fact, and just

(27:56):
seeing like my place in it more so.

Speaker 1 (28:00):
Like you're not an intruder or moving yourself.

Speaker 3 (28:05):
And then it was around this time shortly thereafter when
Living Color came on the scene, and there was like,
oh shit, that was such a moment of validation and
just like a world just got very technicolored really fast. Wow,
And I was super fanished. I remember they played in
SNL and I remember getting Vivid on CD and I

(28:26):
just remember like just dancing in my basement to this music.

Speaker 2 (28:30):
And then I must have gotten my heart broken.

Speaker 3 (28:33):
And then I discovered the Smiths and the Cure and
Fishbone you know, goth if you will, you know, and
then I started getting into seeing how the guitar could
create a different sort of tapestry with this music that
the Cure was doing what the Smiths was doing, and
Cocktail Twins bands like that.

Speaker 1 (28:54):
You have the guitar driven stuff like rock and roll Boy,
it's then you have like soul where guitars and accompaniment
kind of thing, but in that music it's more like
it's almost like used like a sound effect almost.

Speaker 3 (29:06):
Or like oh yeah yeah yeah, very son tapestries and
just textual stuff that you're not like like in your
mind's eye, you're not seeing this swashbuckling guitar hero, but
there's the subliminal thing that guitar does, so that's triggering
something within you emotionally sonically, and it's also the textual

(29:29):
aspect of like what a keyboard does. So there's that
sort of cold wave, that sort of cold British sort
of element, you know with coarus pedals and a lot
of delays, and then some of what you two is doing,
there's like some.

Speaker 2 (29:43):
Aspects of that.

Speaker 3 (29:45):
So those teen years it was just like such a
time of discovery as what the guitar could do in
music and the way it could be percussive, the way
it could be melodic, the way it could be textual,
the way it could be noise and attitude just seeing
like it does not have to be one thing, and
you don't have to be one thing, and you through

(30:07):
use of touch and am settings and effects and note
selection and rhythmic choices, you can be all of these things.
And just so as I was growing as a teen,
it was just pulling me into this forest of sound
and falling in love and just feeling very romantic and

(30:27):
being into music that spoke to that side of life
of being a misin thrown and also you know, noticing
my blackness and also becoming more aware of not fitting in,
which does not have to be something that's recognized, you know, racially.
You know that's universal sort of existential, you know moment

(30:51):
that people go through. And I felt it in my
own way, and I was blessed to be able to
be playing music at the time, and I started going
out and I'd start going to like Soul Kitchen back
in the day, there's this club, Soul Kitchen, where they
would start playing they would play Mandril, they'd play p funk,
they play silvers like.

Speaker 2 (31:11):
It was just yeah, the first time I heard you heard.

Speaker 3 (31:14):
That, that blew my mind, blew my mind. And just
hearing how funk and how rock was fusing, and I'm
discovering seventies electric band Miles, and I'm getting I'm meeting
people that are into that, and you're jamming and you're
playing in front of people. It's just like New York
at the time in the mid nineties, late mid to

(31:36):
late nineties, it was a beautiful time.

Speaker 1 (31:39):
But nobody does seem like a special time. I mean,
all these errors were sort of seemed to be colliding. Yeah,
and some of that stuff's gone now, you know.

Speaker 3 (31:45):
I mean I can't quite tell because you know, like
I the other night, I went out to see a
band and at my age now like I have kids,
you know, like I and you know, with age comes wisdom,
and I'm not able to be out mad late as
I was every night in my twenties, you know. So
it's just like and when I went out, I was

(32:05):
just like, you know, I was in the Lower East
Side and it was like, you know, there's mad people
out and just like there were bands playing, and it's
just like you just got to know where to go.

Speaker 2 (32:14):
You know. I wasn't there for the sixties.

Speaker 3 (32:15):
Those that were there for that time, they're probably like
y'all missed out, you know, So maybe it's so much
of it has to do with the hormones coursing through
your body at a particular agent, being at that place
at that time. And if you're hearing music you love,
if you're getting laid, it's a beautiful time in New
York City. You know, if you could afford to eat,
if you got if you could afford to be here,

(32:37):
you're chilling.

Speaker 4 (32:38):
You know that it may be that it could be
that simple.

Speaker 2 (32:44):
So anyhow, I was working as a preschool teacher during
the day.

Speaker 1 (32:47):
How did you get that get and where were you teaching?

Speaker 2 (32:51):
And you say that likes can we find them? Funny?

Speaker 3 (32:55):
Funny?

Speaker 2 (32:55):
You should ask them you can find them.

Speaker 3 (32:57):
But right before I left Long Island, I was I
used to work with the developmentally disabled. They used to
work with autistic children and I was a direct care counselor.

Speaker 2 (33:08):
How did you get involved?

Speaker 1 (33:09):
That's beautiful, Well I was.

Speaker 3 (33:10):
I remember working at the mall while I was going
to Suffolk Community College, and I remember somebody came in
with a group of people from They were developmentally disabled
and there was autism.

Speaker 2 (33:26):
I saw. I saw kids with Down syndrome and they
came into my job.

Speaker 3 (33:29):
I remember selling soap to people and you know, questioning
about what I'm doing for a living, you know, what
do I want to what I really want to do
with my life. And I remember them coming in, and
I remember feeling a little uncomfortable when they came in,
and I remember asking the person that was that was
there with them, who was sort of like leading them

(33:49):
around everything, like where they were from, and so I'm
from this place, mary Haven, and you know, we're on
what's called community exposure and then you know, trying to
make sure that nobody touches anything. And then they could
only stay for so long and then they left. But
I remember that feeling stuck with me, like why did
I feel uncomfortable about that?

Speaker 2 (34:06):
And then I'm thinking, and I'm like, well what am
I doing?

Speaker 3 (34:10):
Like I'm you know, I'm selling soap, you know, in retail,
like and I just I don't know.

Speaker 2 (34:16):
I just had this sense that.

Speaker 3 (34:17):
Like, I want to make money, but I want to
like it if there is there a way I can
make money and help people.

Speaker 2 (34:24):
And I just switched jobs.

Speaker 3 (34:26):
And I wanted to do something that was like more
felt more serving humanity. So I just did that for
like a couple of years, and it was great, you know,
and playing guitar for that population was so gratifying. But
so when I moved to Manhattan, I was trying to
get a job doing something similar and I needed a

(34:46):
degree to do that, and so it was like, I
need to like do some more school. And I was
also at the time discovering playing music at night. So
I was, you know, trying to like figure it out,
like am I going to go back to school?

Speaker 2 (35:00):
I'm going to do that.

Speaker 3 (35:00):
And and then I had a friend that worked as
an insistent teacher at a preschool and their preschool was
looking for assistant teachers, and so I worked there for
a year or two, and then I I was taught
at Greenwich House Preschool for maybe six years.

Speaker 2 (35:17):
I taught at Greenwich House Preschool.

Speaker 3 (35:18):
And many of not many, but I can say there's
like three or four students of my for former students
I've seen within the past five years, like randomly, like
I was, I was trying to get my Apple computer
fixed and.

Speaker 2 (35:34):
He's like, are you Kirk.

Speaker 3 (35:35):
I was like yeah, He's like you changed my diaper,
you know what, hopefully twenty years ago, but yeah, he
was like, you know yeah, And I had him come
down to the tonight show. He brought his mom. You
had like a little reunion. He's having a kid. So yeah,
I definitely have been able to see the circle of

(35:55):
life happen before my eyes.

Speaker 1 (35:57):
Incredible.

Speaker 3 (35:58):
Yeah, yeah, it's it's crazy gig and I mean so
I would gig at night playing. There's a band called
the Velt that I They were known as the Velt,
then known as a Pola Heights at some point, but
now they're back to being the Belt, the Veldt. They're
still playing out. That was one of the bands I
played with. I played with Greg Taates, Burnt Sugar, played

(36:19):
with Amani Yuzuri, played with Tomorrow Colli god Alice Smith.
I remember playing with her, you know, sometimes interpretive Dance.
You'd be playing for that too, and many of the
things would be like you know, coming up with things,
you know, all improvisation based. So that was part of
like my my musical like diet in education. There's a

(36:42):
band called the Bell Band. We used to play at
this place, the Bell Cafe. They called this the Bell Band.
We were just every Sunday just just set up instruments
and just play whatever came to our minds. And that
was very influenced by what Miles was doing, like seventies period. Miles, Yeah, yeah,
like Mahavishnu type of stuff, just you know, Mandril type

(37:05):
of stuff, just like meters and just you know, and
I'd bring like everything that we've talked about for the
past hour, like to the table sonically in terms of
what would fit. And you know, through effects, you know,
you learn how to like take up textual space and
create things that are ethereal and then you know, sample

(37:26):
yourself and then come in with something that's just more
riff oriented or something that's you know, just more supportive
to what are the keyboards are doing and just and
it was all like see your pants and then occasionally
get to like rip asolo too, like all that stuff was.

Speaker 2 (37:41):
It is like no holds barred type of creation. It was.
It was such a.

Speaker 3 (37:46):
Freeing playground and that I think was a big part
of my transition to getting to play with the roots
because around that time, from playing with one of these
poets amani User, I think Rich Nichols, who I had
spoke about spoken about before, came to one of those
gigs and gave me his card. Within I think the
next year, I got a call because the guitar player

(38:09):
for The Roots at the time, Ben Kenny, left the
Roots to join Incubus. They had just put out Phrenology
and they were about to go embark on a tour
of Japan, and Vernon was playing with them while they
were doing a brief European tour. But Vernon couldn't stay
because he had to go and continue with Living Color.

(38:29):
But they needed somebody more permanent and.

Speaker 1 (38:32):
That's a very guitar driven record for Phrenology.

Speaker 2 (38:36):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, And.

Speaker 3 (38:41):
I auditioned with some other people and I got the
gig and I had to give my two weeks notice
to the preschool.

Speaker 2 (38:47):
Wow, you're still with the joined the Roots?

Speaker 1 (38:51):
Yeah, after this last break, we were back with the
rest of my conversation with Captain Kirk Douglas, we're back
with Captain Kirk. So when you joined for that is
are you joining under the guise of just for that tour?
Is that the understanding?

Speaker 2 (39:10):
Kind of put this way.

Speaker 3 (39:11):
I did the first show with The Roots and I
had my ticket stubs from the Nitty Factory. I had
them to sign it because I didn't know if it
was just going to be on that tour or what.
And then after the Japanese tour, then I got itinery
with more dates on it, and I was like, oh, okay,
I guess I might be sticking around, but I as.

Speaker 1 (39:33):
You toured by that point, like internationally.

Speaker 3 (39:36):
One of the many gigs that I played before playing
with the Roots was with a guy named TM Stevens,
who is a bass player who played with John McLaughlin.
He was a bass player that played with Steve Vai
during some time. He played with Miles. For a brief period,
he played with the Pretenders. Remember like, there's that Pretender's

(39:59):
album Get Close. There's a black dude that's playing on
bass for that. I didn't TM Stevens. He was in
that band with Bernie Warrel. Interestingly enough, the Pretenders.

Speaker 2 (40:09):
I don't know, the Pretenders had a record.

Speaker 4 (40:11):
Yeah, Yeah, So I played with him and that with
TM Stevens, that was sort of like a black rock,
living color type of situation, very funk influence but also
pretty metallic.

Speaker 3 (40:25):
I played internationally with Team. We went to Germany once
and we went to Japan once. Yeah, but going to
Japan with the Roots was definitely different. It was definitely
on a grander scale.

Speaker 1 (40:36):
The Roots must have been I mean they must have
been pretty big in Japan at that time, right, yeah.

Speaker 3 (40:39):
I mean, well this is just when the seed came
out and they had on their hands, like, you know,
a hit. So I got to see them, witness that
alongside with them, on stage with them, you know, it's like, well,
we have a hit now, you know. It's like before
I joined the band, they open for the Beastie Boys.
That was like a big tour that they had done.
I shortly after I joined, they did some opening dates

(41:01):
with Dave Matthews band, Got It, And that was like
when I saw like a really big audience for the
first time, I remember, And it was the first time
I ever saw top shelf catering. Like any opportunity to
do anything with the Dave Matthews Band, I mean, even
I'll rody it, you know, just if I have access
to that catering. And then I remember seeing Dave Matthews
in the parking lot. It was like, Hey, would you
want to come up and play all on the watch

(41:23):
Tower with us tonight? And I'm like with you, you know,
and He's like, yeah, just come up. At the end,
he invited me to do that, and it was insane.
It was just like playing with them was just like
being in the eye of the storm and just like
you're looking at the crowd and just like it was
a great crowd, you know that was there for us
when we were opening. Yeah, but it definitely looked different
like when you're on stage with the Dave Matthews band.

Speaker 2 (41:45):
And looking at his fans crowd.

Speaker 3 (41:47):
Yeah, like like completely on whatever you're doing, and it
was it was such an experience, man, at that point.
Then it started to feel like, Wow, I think I'm
part of the Roots now. You know. It's weird when
I think about it, because it's kind of like in
the grand scheme of things, like it's like this short
period of.

Speaker 2 (42:04):
Time that felt kind of long.

Speaker 3 (42:05):
I joined the band in three and then we started
you doing work with Jimmy Fallon for Late Night with
Jimmy Fallon that started in nine, I know.

Speaker 1 (42:15):
I mean the Roots pre Fallin were like on the
road all the time a lot.

Speaker 2 (42:21):
It's like two hundred and fifty days a year.

Speaker 1 (42:22):
How was it transitioning from you gigging here at night,
you're doing preschool during the day, to you're on the
road two hundred fifty days a year.

Speaker 3 (42:29):
That was a big adjustment because I joined the band
just after I got married. Wow, you know, I got
married with the thought that, well, you know what, I've
been playing music a while now.

Speaker 2 (42:39):
Of course, I just turned thirty.

Speaker 3 (42:41):
I feel like it's safe to say that I'm not
going to start traveling the world or anything. And I
feel like I've had just, you know, all the experiences
I've need to have in my life, and I feel
like now's a good time to like, you know, settle
down and get married.

Speaker 2 (42:56):
This is perfect.

Speaker 3 (42:57):
And then I joined the Roots, and now now you're
about to start touring the world, you know. So I'm
looking back, I'm so happy that it played out that
way because I feel like, you know, I had a
sort of a grounding that would make me being out
on the road like that at that age just kind

(43:18):
of messy, you know. And I feel like just the
groundedness from being together with someone and it just allowed
me to just focus more on the situation in hand,
you know, playing the music and doing the work, and
you know, it was fun, it was exciting, and but
it was like a lot of time away. But it

(43:39):
also was a situation where I felt like every time
we'd get back together, there'd be like a rejuvenation.

Speaker 2 (43:47):
Of our romance, you know.

Speaker 3 (43:50):
And then once we started having when we started having children,
that was definitely challenging. You know, our son was born
in five and so like for the first four years
of his life, you know, I was on the road heavy,
and that was definitely challenging, definitely challenging for my wife,
and definitely challenging for me to be away while that
was happening. But when it came into play that we

(44:13):
were going to start working with Jimmy for Late Night,
that was such a game changer in terms of just
coming home every night for dinner, sleeping in the same
bed every night, and like, you know, you really notice
it when you know, you got this gig and different
bands come through all the time to play on the
Tonight Show, and the first questions that they would ask

(44:35):
us was questions about what's it like to just be
in one place and not have to travel so much.
And then we really got the sense of, oh, wow,
we're really lucky to be in this situation right now.
But then shortly, you know, within a couple of years
what wound up happening is any moment that we weren't
doing the show we'd be out on the road, so

(44:57):
then you'd find yourself with like kind of two jobs.
It's really been a blessing and just and you know,
so many bands also that I've discovered from this job.
You know, bands I've never heard of that, you know,
because you know, as you get older and as you
are a parent, you if you're not actively trying to
stay in the loop, you slowly life slowly ushes you

(45:20):
out of the loop.

Speaker 1 (45:22):
And who was of the bands you've discovered, dude?

Speaker 3 (45:24):
Oh, I mean bands like Tame and Pala, you know.
I mean, it's like doing this show. It's like the
first time you know there's gonna be somebody on the
shows names edg Ed Sheeran. Okay, you don't don't know
who this is, and you're seeing them on stage for
the first time, and it's in this room, but it's
also like happening on the world stage.

Speaker 4 (45:44):
You know.

Speaker 2 (45:45):
Also Unknown Mortal Orchestra.

Speaker 3 (45:47):
I love that man, And that's the first time I
ever saw them first time, you know, Gary Clark Jr.

Speaker 2 (45:53):
Sat in with us, you know what I mean, Like
I never heard of it.

Speaker 1 (45:56):
I wasn't playing with them.

Speaker 2 (45:57):
It was insane.

Speaker 3 (45:59):
It was insane, just like watching it like close up
and just and again like seeing you know people that
are like legends in their first TV involvement, you know,
so seeing him, you know, he was like kind of
nervous but ripping, you know. And the fun part is
just seeing it all up close, you know, seeing it

(46:19):
like not on YouTube, not on your phone, but right
in front of you, Like is It's been amazing?

Speaker 1 (46:25):
How was the Prince stuff? Make Prince? That was a
funny story about Prince your guitar.

Speaker 2 (46:30):
Yeah, what a day that was.

Speaker 3 (46:32):
I remember I saw I think I saw a known
Moratal orchestra the night before he came, because I remember
like being backstage meeting Reuben Wilson and saying I wouldn't
mind hearing Prince do a cover of So Good at
Being in Trouble. I remember saying that because I actually
Prince is going to come to the Joe tomorrow.

Speaker 2 (46:48):
Little did I know.

Speaker 3 (46:49):
So I'm home, I get a call that says Prince
came to play it at fallon. He's playing with his
group a Third Eye Girl. I think that's what they're called.
Yeh all go man. Prince made it to the rehearsal,
but his guitar did not, and he needed a guitar
to borrow, and so you know, they asked if it

(47:11):
was cool if he borrowed one of mine. So I
have my guitars here and probably in this very spot
is this is a kind of a near replica of
the guitar, but it had a purple strap on it
when he came in, and I guess he came in,
saw that guitar, saw the purple strap and be like,
I want to play that one. He played it for
rehearsal and I got pictures sent to my phone of

(47:31):
Prince playing my guitar, which I was over.

Speaker 2 (47:34):
The moon about.

Speaker 1 (47:35):
Ridiculous.

Speaker 3 (47:36):
So he does rehearsal, his guitar shows up, It does
the rehearsal, rest of rehearsal with his guitar. It comes
to show time, and right before we start the whole show,
the music booker at the time comes to me and says,
Prince wants to buy your guitar and use it for
the show. And I'm like, oh wow, Prince can use

(47:58):
my guitar for the show, but he can't buy it.

Speaker 1 (48:00):
Did you feel weird? Saying no, a little bit?

Speaker 3 (48:04):
I mean, well, I mean I said he could play
the guitar, but feel weird saying no, no, because it's
my guitar. I want that guitar. It's not for sale,
so it would be weird, you know. No, I didn't
feel weird about it.

Speaker 1 (48:15):
No, no, not.

Speaker 3 (48:16):
So anyhow, so he so my guitar leaves my post
where I'm standing on stage, and then it comes back
to me and so I'm I guess he didn't want
to use it. No harm, no foul. He does two songs.
He does the first song with his guitar. He had
this vox electric guitar. He does the first song, and
then right after this song, he comes up to me.
He's like, yo, let me see that of the guitar.

(48:38):
And I'm like sure, so I give him the guitar.
He does Bambi Prints song, Bambie shreds, yeah, yeah, And
at the end, I'm thinking he's about to play behind
his head, but he lifts it up, but he doesn't
put it behind his head.

Speaker 2 (48:55):
He lifts it up and he tosses it.

Speaker 3 (48:58):
And came crashing into the ground and it was like
feedbacking and he just like does his strut off stage,
you know, and Jimmy's like, you know, reducing him off.

Speaker 2 (49:09):
You know. That was Prince.

Speaker 3 (49:11):
And then we played the outro to the show and
there's footage of our bass player Mark Kelly.

Speaker 2 (49:16):
He's just laughing hysterically and you see I'm laughing too,
but it's not a normal laugh.

Speaker 3 (49:22):
It's just like it's a laugh that like I know
I'm on camera like this sort of like maniacal look
on my face, like what the fuck just happened. So
then after the show, Keith comes up to us and
he comes up to me. It's like Prince wants to
talk to you. And I'm like, really okay, like I
want to talk to Prince, you know. And then I

(49:43):
go and he's back listening to the mix of the
music and I can't hear what he's saying because the
music's so loud, but I could make out the words
like I'm sorry, I'll take care of it.

Speaker 2 (49:53):
Definitely said I'll take care of it.

Speaker 3 (49:55):
But he was talking about what happened with his other guitars,
like it was going out of tune.

Speaker 2 (49:59):
Or just some excuse. And then the mixing is over.

Speaker 3 (50:02):
Walking out of the room, I'm holding the guitar and
the two pieces is and it broke on the on
the headstock is where really broke And I'm like, all right,
well you broke it.

Speaker 2 (50:11):
You think you can at least sign it, you know,
And he's like, oh, I haven't signed anything since the seventies.

Speaker 1 (50:18):
He wouldn't sign it.

Speaker 2 (50:19):
He wouldn't sign it. Yeah, And I was just in shock.
I was like, damn, that's cold.

Speaker 3 (50:27):
But to his credit, his people called me and they
wired a great sum of money to my account. If
I had a choice between the signature and the money
they wired into my account, I would definitely taken the money.

Speaker 2 (50:39):
For sure. My car didn't need servicing.

Speaker 3 (50:42):
But what's ironic with the whole thing is that guitar
that he chose to play is normally not in the building.
It's normally like at home. I always keep that at home.
It was only in the building because we had rehearsal
that night and I wanted to use the guitar for
the show that the rehearsal was for. And the show

(51:05):
that the rehearsal was for was at Carnegie Hall and
it was a Prince tribute.

Speaker 1 (51:14):
Yes, well you knew how to pick the guitar for
thee Yeah.

Speaker 2 (51:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (51:19):
What was cool about it is the guy that sold
me the guitar, great luthier that builds his own guitars,
Matt from Thirtieth Street Guitars, Matt Brewster, and he fixed
the guitar in time for me to use it that night.

Speaker 2 (51:33):
Wow, you know.

Speaker 3 (51:34):
And Chris Rock was also there and he did like
a Prince spoken words song. I forgot which one he did,
but I told Chris Rock the story. He was like, well,
now you have your own Prince asshole story, you know.
And now it's at the Cleveland Rock and Roll Hall
of Fame and I'm trying to get that guitar back
now because I think it's been there long enough. It's

(51:55):
gathered enough mojo, I think, and I'm ready.

Speaker 2 (51:58):
To have it back.

Speaker 1 (51:58):
Now.

Speaker 2 (51:59):
You want to play it again? I want to play
it again. It's instruments are made to be played.

Speaker 1 (52:02):
Oh my gosh. Yeah, was that the only time you
met Prince was the.

Speaker 2 (52:05):
I met him once at a Grammy.

Speaker 3 (52:07):
He had a Grammy party and that was right after
he did his famous Super Bowl performance.

Speaker 2 (52:12):
Wow. So I met him shortly after that, a few
days after that. I think it was.

Speaker 1 (52:16):
Talk about mojo, yeah, right.

Speaker 3 (52:18):
And I met him right before one of his shows
at the Garden along with Questlove. He like reintroduced me
both times Questlove introduced me. You know, I was like
right there when he was hanging with him. So yeah,
I had three and I was really looking forward to
like seeing him again.

Speaker 2 (52:36):
After that happened, you know, never got to.

Speaker 1 (52:40):
Have That's so sad.

Speaker 2 (52:42):
Yeah, man, yeah, strategy man.

Speaker 1 (52:44):
There's a song on the New Unknown which is the
hundred Heart under What Heart record Breadth of Fire, I
mean Breath the Fire Jesus christ Man.

Speaker 2 (52:54):
Thank you man.

Speaker 1 (52:54):
That's another moment where I'm like, how did you I mean,
he's just that good again, I mean, how do you
make that sound live and improvised? On the Well, It's
like that's.

Speaker 3 (53:03):
A song that it like has like a lot of
the melodies and themes are like kind of curated on
that song. Like it's you know, it's a guitar solo,
but it's like a it's a it's kind of like
a piece, you know, and like throughout time, you know,
like there's like the basic melody of the song, and
then when it goes off on this tangent, like like
many days of thinking of that rhythm and like things

(53:25):
have come to me and like and like sometimes I'll
sing some of these ideas into a recorder and like
trying to remember to play that next time, you know,
and then some then there's some of it that's like
totally off the cuff, you know.

Speaker 1 (53:39):
Would you mind playing a couple of just the motifs
from there?

Speaker 2 (53:43):
No, if you just wait a second, Okay, So yeah,
the main groove of is like.

Speaker 3 (54:00):
It's just started out of like this basic that basic progression,
that basic riff, and then you have like all the
percussion that happens, and it's like a guitar solo, but
it's like kind of like wanted something like because if
the guitar is like singing, yeah, so it's just like

(54:35):
it's something like you can almost attach your own lyric
to whatever the guitar is doing on that thing. And
then as the song goes on, you start getting into
things that you know probably can't be sung guitar wise,
the guitars, I guess expressing like the lyrics that can
only be like felt and not sung. Maybe every other

(54:58):
song had vocals on it. I thought it'd be cool
to like give people a break from my vocal. I
wanted to give myself a break from my own vocal.
Not that I don't like the sound of my own voice,
but I thought it'd be cool to have it instrumental track,
something that's you know, there's no words to take you
any sort of direction, to just give you the listener
their own interpretation of what's going down.

Speaker 1 (55:19):
There's another cool song on their land of Look Beyond You.
Mind playing through a little of that?

Speaker 5 (55:24):
Yeah, come hits far too long since sweet fun.

Speaker 3 (55:59):
Like I was thinking kind of like some kind of
Pink Floyd dark side of the moonish, you know.

Speaker 2 (56:03):
But that song was recorded I recorded.

Speaker 3 (56:08):
I record the whole album at my mom's house and
it was recording the basement and uh with the drummer
Rick Sheridan.

Speaker 2 (56:16):
A lot of it was recorded over COVID, and for
that particular.

Speaker 3 (56:19):
Song, about a week before, I played the drummer Rick
that song on my guitar and I don't know how
he remembered it, but he was like, Yo, we should
play that song again.

Speaker 2 (56:33):
You know.

Speaker 3 (56:33):
I was, as I told you, I was dabbling with
home recording, so I just had three mics on his drums.
I had Mike on his kick drum, Mike on his snare,
and overhead mike. And what I did was I played
my guitar directly into my interface, so you there's no
bleed onto the drum tracks. And we played that song

(56:53):
for the first time since he heard it, so we
really never played.

Speaker 2 (56:56):
The song before.

Speaker 3 (56:58):
So when he sat down to play it, it felt
so natural to him and could have been, you know,
cannabis induced, but he was definitely in the zone.

Speaker 2 (57:08):
I was in the zone. We were both in the zone.

Speaker 3 (57:10):
And we played that whole song, that whole take down
from top to mobom for the first time ever. So
it's what you hear on the recording is the first
time we ever played it. I edited it down because
it's probably twice as long as what's on there, and
then it was just built on top of from there.
So that's what you're hearing on Land of Look Beyond
beautiful song. I appreciate that you listen to it. The

(57:34):
album's been out, you know, since the end of twenty
twenty two, but I just got the vinyl done now.
So now this is the challenge of playing with the
roots and trying to have a side project.

Speaker 2 (57:47):
It's like, you know, you're just.

Speaker 3 (57:49):
Juggling all the blessings, you know what I mean, and
you know, some things take time. And you know what's
great about music and what's great about recording is it's
manifestation in actions. Like you imagine something, there's a seed
of an idea that comes into your mind and you
record it and you throw it and you know, there's

(58:10):
a time when Landa Looked Beyond was just like a
little chord progression.

Speaker 2 (58:13):
I was playing for myself.

Speaker 3 (58:14):
And then it became this thing, you know, and uh,
that's one of the most gratifying things about recording, like
hearing an idea that started in your mind and then
for me to get that idea out and have it
come out of speakers, especially the speakers.

Speaker 2 (58:32):
That I grew up listening to music. That's what a
musician does.

Speaker 3 (58:37):
That's all they want, pull you, the listener into our
world and saying this is this what I'm about. This
is here's a little musical museum of the things that
I dig and maybe.

Speaker 2 (58:48):
Some of the residents.

Speaker 1 (58:48):
It's all in that record. It's the musical equivalent of
what we just talked to me. It's like all these
you hear, all of the the influences and more and
just the years of work that you put into your craft.
It's like it's it's beautiful, man.

Speaker 2 (58:59):
Thank you.

Speaker 3 (59:00):
I really appreciate you reaching out to have this conversation.

Speaker 1 (59:05):
Appreciate all the years of you juggling your blessings for
our benefit. Man's it's yeah, yeah, You've given us more
enjoyment than we could repay. So thank you. Well.

Speaker 2 (59:14):
I try to give out what I've been getting.

Speaker 1 (59:19):
Thanks again to Captain Kirk Douglas for talking through his
origin story and for playing songs from his project Hunter
Watt Heart for us. You can hear it along with
our favorite songs from his work with the Roots, on
a playlist at broken record podcast dot com. Subscribe to
our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash broken Record Podcast,
where you can find all of our new episodes. You

(59:40):
can follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record
is produced and edited by Leah Rose, with marketing help
from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is Ben Tollinday.
Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you
love this show and others from Pushkin, consider subscribing to
Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription that offers

(01:00:02):
bonus content and ad free listening for four ninety nine
a month. Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple Podcast subscription
And if you like this show, please remember to share, rate,
and review us on your podcast app. Are theme musics
by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.