Phil & David are thrilled to welcome Don Was -- famed record producer, musician and Blue Note Records President -- for Jersey Mike's sandwiches and the first part of an epic conversation about Don's remarkable life in music and all that jazz. They start by paying tribute to the late great Brian Wilson, the subject of Don's brilliant 1995 documentary, "I Just Wasn't Made For These Times." Coming in Part 2: Don talks about working with Bonnie Raitt, The B-52s, John Mayer, Was (Not Was) and much more. To learn more about building community through food and "Somebody Feed the People," visit the Philanthropy page at philrosenthalworld.com.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello David, Hey Phil, we have someone very special, someone
who was special and it still.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Was was not was special? Yeah, he was.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
He just was and is special. By the way, what
does that mean?
Speaker 3 (00:13):
Was not was?
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Oh, now you're going too deep. We will save that
for the second of the two episodes. We're gonna run
okay with Don Was and Don Was is one of
the greatest record producers, musicians, coolest cats I've ever met.
I've known him for I think exactly as long as
I've known you, or maybe a little longer.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Who's better?
Speaker 2 (00:36):
He was better you not was better? But so we're
gonna hear. This is gonna be the first of two episodes,
and we're gonna be talking about. First, we paid tribute
to Brian Wilson, who he worked with and made a
great documentary about, who recently passed. We talked about the
Rolling Stones.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
You like them?
Speaker 1 (00:55):
I do like that?
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Yes, we talked about Ringo Great. We talk about Bob
Dylan heard his job running Blue notut record, So we
don't have we.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Have no time to s this is an accomplished person.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
And then we'll come back later in the year with
an episode about his was not was about Bonnie Rap
Bonnie rape.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
B fifty two Ladies and Gentlemen. Don was.
Speaker 4 (01:25):
Let's build the beans to the fat, food for thought,
jokes on tap, talking with our mouthsful, having fun, BEEAs
Cake and humble Pie, serving.
Speaker 5 (01:39):
Up slass lovely.
Speaker 4 (01:41):
The dressing on the side, it's naked, lush clothing optional.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
I want to start today by thanking you for a
record you produce and a documentary you made that changed
my life. And there's in a very intimate way, so
not too intimate that it don't get uncomfortable. But I'm
a little un when thirty years ago you made an
(02:10):
album with Brian Wilson and a documentary called I Just
wasn't made for these times. It is a revelation, just
like we were talking about Peter Grahlmick's books about Elvis,
my understanding emotionally of Brian, who I ended up working
with quite a bit. It was very helpful. That movie
was game changing. But it's not really for me. It's
it's my favorite one of my favorite music docs ever
(02:34):
and favorite albums ever. And in fact, we're going to
go through each of us and we're going to try
to ask for like three favorite Brian Wilson recordings and
to sort of pay tribute to him now that you
know we we lost one of the giants. All three
of mine are from that album, So Phil not so much.
(02:55):
But I guess what I want. I want to This
is the last thing I would tell you is that
my wife did not in a way that comes up
in our episode we did with our Wives. She never
loved music. It wasn't her thing that and I mentioned
this to her last. I brought up the movie. She goes,
that's the movie that made me love music. And I
think that's how I can't think of a higher company.
(03:16):
Then I probably would not be married thirty one years
now if you hadn't made her love music.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
So you owe him one exactly.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
So fuck you, John was. We're switching.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
This is why I'm his partner because we share Samwich nice.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Yes, and if you're unhappy, we'll switch with you. So
uh and Jersey Mike say, is significant, But I guess
what I wanted. I will tell you why. But first
let's just talk about Brian for a little bit. What
was that experience in your life? Was it as I'm
sure it was meaningful in your life as well.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
Oh, it's one of the most powerful musical relationships I
ever had. He certainly the greatest of them all in
terms of writing and producing and arranging and just having
a vision for where rock and roll could go. He
did things. Actually, the reason I made the movie was
(04:15):
because things that he dreamed up that had never been
done before had become such a common part of the
musical vocabulary that you know, you could play Caroline Know
for somebody and they go, yeah, but yeah, that's kind
of been done. But the idea that he did all
(04:35):
these things first, and that he had such a huge
impact on the music that followed, and that really, no
one's done it any better than him. No one's dug
in more emotionally, even with more depth, with more heart
and soul and gotten that across and the music.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Did it come easily to him? Or was he like
a mad obsessive guy.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
I didn't know him in that period, but I'm guessing
mad obsessive. I think that he was always thinking about music,
always coming up with things. I met him in the
late eighties. I was producing The Knack. Doug Tiger was
my buddy from junior high.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
School, who will come up later in this episode.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
And they turned me on to the Smile bootlegs that
were out at the time, and I'd never heard anything
like it in my life. Man blew me away, And
that's probably to the detriment of the Knack. That's all
I was listening to. I stopped paying attention to the record.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
That was a serious fun you were having when you
were producing the album. Serious fun.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
By the next and that, my wife and I ended
up at some big charity dinner for the Red Hot
and Blue the Pediatric AIDS compilations, and I found myself
in the buffet line, right behind Brian and doctor Landy.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Great way to meet people. I always say, yes.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Exactly, you really get to know. I'm thinking doctor Landy
might have overstepped and taken an extra shrimp or something.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
On point for him. Well, I couldn't contain myself because
that's all I was listening to. So I just started gushing,
and I think I scared Brian a little bit, but
they invited me over to the studio. He said come
on bye, and so I became friendly with him. I
started playing little gigs with him. We're doing a duo
(06:46):
one time, there's another it's a pediatric age benefit at
somebody's house. Really bizarre thing in the afternoon, a lot
of little kids. Ronald Reagan was there, Paul Abdul was,
it was Elizabeth Glais, it was alive, it was it
was a fair foundation and Jackson Brown and Brian were
the artists.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
That's a good double bill, good double bill.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
So it's just.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Mainly I think of them as two artists who you
produced and gave a break to.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
Well, uh, I was. It was just Brian playing piano
and me playing bass, and we did a version of
California Girls. It was abominable. And after that Brian said, man,
we really fucked that well. And then all the parents
came and grabbed the how do you diminished behalf? We
and we did another old Beach Boys song and it
(07:38):
wasn't much better. And then he did Love and Mercy,
which was still relatively new at the time, and it
was the most transcendent thing I've ever experienced ever. I
think on stage, I don't know what he plugged into.
He told me that he was watching this we were
outside and that the sun was going down over the
hills and he felt a spiritual force overtake them. But
(08:02):
it was just, I mean, it was a perfect reading
of love and mercy, and he was completely immersed in it,
and all I could think was, oh, man, if people
could only see this part of him. And at that
point there were just a lot of sort of headlines
about the twenty four hours shrink and everything, and it
really clouded the legacy of his contributions. So I'd signed
(08:29):
him to a label I.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Started, which I know, the label I could never pronounce corambolage. Yeah,
you make it easy for the terrible choice.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
It's a billiard's thing. It's a term. It's when you
make all the balls, you know, move over the table out.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
And the break break.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
And this was a moment like after you and Bonnie Rait,
you know, had these epic rise that you signed every
old hero like I think you had Felix, Cavalarians.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
Cavar, Chris Christofferson and Brian Wilson.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
That's not bad group of artists, a nice group.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
And we dealt with Brian first. I was just trying
to think, how can we clear up the misconception about him,
not really misconception, but how can we put the focus
back on what makes him so great? Everyone says, oh,
Brian Wilson's a genius, but to non musicians, that was
kind of hard to grasp, especially if you'd start by
(09:27):
playing four h nine or something like that. So we
told the story of why he was great and was
so unique about his contribution. That was the film. I
came out of this gig where I just thought, Man,
if people could just see this never it just seemed
impossible at that point in time that he was ever
(09:48):
going to be able to tour, let alone finish smile
and do those incredible shows.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Well, it struck me that I believe that moment with
a game changer for you. It was a game changer
for my wife literally made her understand had a passion
for music from that moment on, and it started with
like she went from owning no records to like investigating
Brian Wilson deeply.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
Through that that's worth making a movie.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
But it was important, I think for Brian because if
you think about it, I believe doctor Landy, you know,
the twenty four hour Shrink disappeared shortly after or in
the middle of this problem in the middle, by the
time we were shooting a movie, he was gone, and
then Brian had If you I've always thought if you
could have Phil when if you went back in time
(10:35):
to high school and thought, who's gonna survive to ripe
old age? I don't think Keith Richards, Brian Wilson who
got did pretty well, and that these like Brian had
this amazing second act. And I do think you. I'm
going to give you a little credit for because that
movie it just sort of captured and and and so
(10:57):
we'll begin Phil, We're gonna each you are favorite Brian Wilson,
soones and if you would tell us when you jump in,
but you start with your your first one that you
sent me.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
God only knows.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Now, I mean people.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Say that's the best song of all time. I don't
know if that's the case, but it's sure, it's great.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Yeah, it's hard to argue. It's hard to pick a
better song anywhere from anybody than that.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
And it's literally in the title. I always thought it's
like a divine song and it has divinity in it.
I think, is it. Paul McCartney's the one who always
says it's like the best song every.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
What is the for novices like me? What is the
innovation in that song?
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Innovation? Well, it's not on a number of levels, I
think you but.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Like, what what did we never hear before.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
You if you if you sat down and wrote out
the chords and followed the voice sings the way he
the way he's he can play an F chord by
playing that F and an A and a C and
that that's an F chord, and that's how most people
do it. Or you don't never have to play any
of those three notes, and you can imply it. Listen
to a Herbie Hancock record, you know you fill in
(12:13):
the space around it thereby implying that court Wow. So
the thing that separates the men from the boys sometimes
is being able to come and find a combination of
notes that that's an F chord. But that tears you
up inside.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
That's like writing too. We find that it's best to
say it sometimes without saying it. Yeah, exactly same in music.
I love that.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Yeah, Yeah, you don't. It's poetry. You don't want to
you don't want to hit it on the head. Who
was T. S. Eliot who wrote about uh I forgot? What?
What do you call it? The partnership between the artist
and the viewer or the reader or the listener. You
know that that they're that they're your partners. You have
(12:59):
to build room in there for them to bring their
own inner emotional lives to the song. So uh, you
got to do that, not just with the lyrics, but
in the music too.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
So he, by the way, for those who don't know,
was one of the very early beach boys.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
You know.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
He he didn't fit, didn't like.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
Wearing the He wrote Little Douce Coop.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
They just haded out having all the cats around. Very good.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Uh So let's hear a little bit of.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Of the most famous song in the world.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
God only knows.
Speaker 6 (13:38):
V shin Doom so not good, jummy, God knows why name.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
My first song that I picked. And it just partly
because and again I'm telling you, like, I don't know
if there's streaming services where you can see the movie.
I know it's on YouTube. I saw it on YouTube
again just to talk to you. Yeah, I just wasn't
made for the times.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
And yeah, I think it's I think it's it's it's
you can buy it on Apple and Amazon.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Oh great, you should, but I really recommend seeing it again.
But there's a version of a song called you know
not one of the uber classics that you there's a
few that you sort of revisit in the h and
I think Warmth of the Sun is to me again
(14:52):
like God only knows. And you know, Brian worked with
lyricists and you know, sometimes got a magical work out
of you know one. Tony Asher was a like admin
Mike Love, you know, you know, not one you would
necessarily think would be a T. S. Eliot type poet.
But he just told me about what you think of
Warmth of the Sun, because it has a very important
(15:14):
sort of part in the documentary.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
Even Yeah, no, it's it's a really touching song that
that's the one that they wrote the knight Kennedy got killed, right, Yeah,
so that they were they were feeling the emotions, right,
Are you guys old enough to have been around then?
I was three, you're three, you see, you don't really remember.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
If I do remember it, it might be my first
actual memory.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
Yeah. Well it was a traumatic notice and time stopped. Yeah,
it was. I think I'm seventy three. So it's the
pivotal it's the watershed moment in my life. Everything changed
after that. Yeah, in the world, and well you could imagine,
(16:01):
you don't even have to imagine, you know, what they
were shield that night, and so to have that song
explode out of them. It's just such a powerful, poignant,
sorrowful song, you know, to.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Dream it's a different world.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
Well also, it's like, the the thing about Brian that
I think Don sort of alluded to is that, like
the initial especially on the East Coast or maybe in Detroit,
it was surf rock. Originally it was like you know
that it was car songs and beach songs, and then
Warmth of the Sun. It begins to have all these
(17:04):
this depth, this sort of like and what I found
you did, And I guess I'll jump to my second
song because it's connected in my head Till I Die,
which is very applicable. Now, one thing you did is
you got to the soul of Brian in part by
having some of the background singers who were soul singers
(17:24):
working with him. And it's the weird thing is is
like we have these perceptions like Brian white guy from
like you know, you know, southern California. The truth is soul,
soul doesn't know a color. So and he was very soulful.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
Very soulful. Yeah, he was all soul man, and that's
that's what he was. There was there, there was in
his great songs when he felt like doing it. There
was no fluff there was There was not a wasted
syllable or a wasted note. It was all. Everything was
(18:01):
there because it had emotional power until I die. It's
worth it to sit down at the piano and try
to figure out the chords to it, because it defies
every rule and formula of songwriting. It starts on a
(18:22):
chord and gets back there, but for the rest of
it it's in no key. You can't you wouldn't know
what key. I know where it starts and where it
ends up. It moves in such a wild way. And
yet despite the complexity of it, you know, a seven
year old can sing that song and you can go
(18:44):
as deep as you want into the lyrics. But it's
really the most captivating portrait of loneliness and isolation. Uh.
You get a sense of what he was going through
(19:04):
every day. It was a beautiful confessional h and this
is No one ever wrote a song like that but
until he wrote that, and it really extended the boundaries
of popular music and certainly of rock and roll. He
(19:46):
started with a pretty simple formative which no one had
used before, but he took four freshman harmony and Chuck
Berry and combined them four freshmen were pretty uh intricate,
h even though they were a pop group. Yeah, you know,
they're probably like the new kids in the block of
their time, but a lot of sophistication in those harmonies,
(20:09):
and that caught his ear and he, as a kid,
he understood it, absorbed it, and then took it to
ten other levels that no one ever had gone to before.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
You may have been there at the time, because I've
had the pleasure of working with Don on a lot
of TV shows and stuff. But there was one time
when we were doing for charity a version of Across
the Universe with like Everyone's bono Stevie Wonder at the
Grammys for like a fundraising thing. But we were backstage
and someone, i think one of the Velvet Revolver guys, said,
(20:42):
anyone here good at harmony? And Brian Wilson said, like
a little shyly put his hand because I'm pretty good
at harmony, and I'm like, pretty good at harmony. You
freaking invented harmony for everyone else in there.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
There's like a straight line. When I listened to the
Beach Boys, it seems to be a straight line from
barbershop quartets to them.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
Yeah, right, that's true, That's absolutely true.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
And then you say it's this four freshman mixed with
Chuck Berry and there are there are riffs from Chuck
Berry even. Yeah, in some of the earliest I.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
Think there's a lawsuit, right.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Yeah, that's how you know something special when there's litigations.
What's one of your absolute favorites. By the way, I'm
always assuming that, like you were asking Brian to do
certain songs, were you pushing him or was he ever
calling for any of these songs that you guys did
in that movie.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
I so long ago, man, I don't actually remember. Thirty
years he was involved, you know, that's it didn't just happen.
You know, we had to work on him and work
up the arrangements and everything. So he liked all the choices.
He loved every one of those songs, and I think
at that point he was touched that people appreciated it.
(22:05):
He was in isolation, man, he was in a bubble.
And actually, if you watch the movie, which took over
the course of three weeks we filmed it, you see
him come out of a shell. You can see the
earlier interviews he's a little rar and at the end. Man,
he's all sophisticated talking about books he's reading, and he's
(22:26):
and he's straightforward. And that was just by being back
in the action movie sets are exciting as you know,
you know, I mean, there are all these people around us.
It's a lot less it's a more vibrant scene than
being in a recording book.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
And there's a lot to learn from just that somebody
dealing with issues, right, you bring them out. You can
bring them out. You don't just leave them alone.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
No, And he saw that people did appreciate what he
had done and understood it, of course, and I think
that meant the.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
Whole Well, that's something Phil always talks about in something
he's sort of like. For instance, he took an interest
in following up with like Carl Reiner and all these legends,
and you would think all of them, everyone knows how
important they are. Every generation or so. People need to
be reminded, like Brian Wilson's reputation thirty years ago when
(23:20):
you made that movie was not what it ended like.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
It's like many older people and I guess people who
have troubles, they're not necessarily outgoing. They just need a
little nudge Hey, come on out, Hey, let's go have dinner.
Let's have dinner with your friends, because they're not calling him.
I have these wonderful dinners with Carl Reiner and Neil Simon,
mel Brooks and Norman Lear. They weren't calling each other
(23:47):
because you know how it is, you lose touch and
unless somebody's organizing a dinner, maybe you're not going.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
That was going on with Brian. Mean, we were all
going to Musso and Franks with him in. That's a
group that Brent Wilson and some fine organized. They were
good friends to made that, yeah, and they made sure
that he was among people who loved him and appreciated him.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
Listen, you that social life is literally what can make
you live longer.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
Yeah, absolutely, But yeah, it's you can you can have
success and you know, you can see your bank account
get larger, but in the core of your soul, you're
still the insecure kid you were when you were six
(24:35):
years old or whatever. Yeah, I still think you ship and.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
And you know, all the money in the world doesn't
cure loneliness.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
So uh well, Plus, I mean you can rent people, well,
had rented people that were not necessarily that good for him.
I remember, maybe right before this time, he wrote a
memoir which I don't think he really wrote, and his
Todd Gold to Gold, Yeah, yeah, And I remember going
(25:07):
to a party at Todd's house and yeah that was
Dr Landy was there. I don't know if you remember this.
Brian was supposed to perform again one of those backyard
This was even more stripped down backyard him at a
piano and Brian started. The power went off and Brian
started playing uh ah, Rhapsody in Blue, and Doctor Landy
(25:29):
stood up and started shouting at him, sing the damn words,
you know, And I was like, oh boy, this is
not a this is not.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
A good scene.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
So wait, don you were going to pick a favorite?
Speaker 3 (25:39):
Oh yeah, I would have picked till I died.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
But oh, look at you.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
What I what I've been listening to lately? Well, there's
one I got to play on it. Uh the song
is that, I guess the last album he made, No
pure pressure. We actually some good stuff, real good stuff.
So there's a song called the Last Song. And fuck,
(26:08):
I don't know if I can get through this with
that tear or up. Oh, we didn't know what it was.
I was there with I'm trying to remember who was
playing guitar. I think Greg Lease might have been there.
Jim Keltner was playing drums. I was playing bass, and
we just had chords in front of us and we
were running through it a little bit with him, and
then he started singing it and I realized what the
(26:30):
song was. It was him saying goodbye, fuck And I
looked at Keltner and we both lost our show. It
was just it's such a beautiful song, you know, if
only we could find the time to come back and
(26:50):
play a little more music for you, play for you again.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
When something's that emotional, it's a it's a weird question.
But do you do a lot of takes of a
song like that or does he get it in one?
Speaker 3 (27:06):
Well, thankfully we didn't have to sing it, No, but
I mean him, I wouldn't have been able to get
to it if I had to sing it. But does
he It probably wasn't the final take, you know, but
he was just laying the song. But he knew what
it was, and he'd had the song yeah for a while.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
It was must be so hard to do that song
if you're him, or for anyone doing like a goodbye song.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
Yeah, I think he was concerned with getting it right, well,
the feeling right. But I just I understood that this
was his coda. Yeah, and I was just really honored,
you know that he called me to play bass on it.
You know, he could call it so many better bass players.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Oh, come on, you you deserve it. And you've had
a lot of honors like this. You played with some
of the great It was really touching.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
It was a beautiful moment.
Speaker 7 (27:59):
He said, there was a time was one week. There
was just another chance for me.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
Now once I hadn't got the stones. But ten years
before that, or maybe it's long twenty years before that,
we were making Bridges to Babylon And it's the last
night of the sessions in la and Keith got a
song called how Can I Stop Once I Started, which
is the last song on that album. Yeah, and it
(28:46):
was we just had never gotten around to cutting it,
and we had to cut it that night. Charlie had
a car waiting in the alley outside in the studio
taking the airport. He had like a seven am flight
back to London. Yeah, and we're sitting around playing the
song and a lot of other people played. Keltner again
was playing second drums. I played a bullitzer piano and
(29:06):
we're all in a big circle studio too. It Western,
it's the original name of East West, or it's now
called East Western. It was ocean Way at the time,
ri Cello at the time. And it goes off into
this bit at the end it's supposed to have just
sort of fade out, and then Charlie goes to the
(29:27):
times and it's almost like it breaks into like a
love supreme kind of thing and shorts playing on it,
of sacks, and it just takes off into this whole
other thing that was unintended, and it soars, and I thought,
oh my god, this is the this is the last
song the Rolling Stones are ever going to play. I
just it was such a tough record to make that
(29:49):
I never thought they'd do another.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
I was gonna say, that's famously the one where I
was always told they were in different studios, they weren't
talking to one another.
Speaker 3 (30:21):
It was actually they were talking, you know. And but
there were a couple of studios going in there. There
were Keith songs and mixed songs, and I just thought, wow,
I'm here for when what a code of man? This
the soaring thing at the end, and of course Charlie
was back in a week and we were coming.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
So good. It must be weird when a band is
like a company like that, I mean, like an industrial company. Yeah,
and they all have their own lives. You think of
you know, our our images, the Beatles, they all were
in the same car and they went and did the
gigs all together, and they lived together and they had
(31:01):
fun together or yes, but when you reach this level,
of course, Charlie has a whole other life that he
has to get to, and Mick and Keith, they all
have their own lives. These are older gentlemen now.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
But you know something, Yeah, despite that, the thing you're
describing does exist. It's still it's no different than the
band I was in when I was in sixth grade.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
The band, I mean, the thing, the innocent part that
I'm describing from the beginning of touring around them being buddies.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
Our little exactly what we do and now we've got
history doing it. Yes, and they don't act like a
big money making machine. They are one. They're aware of it,
but that's A that's absolutely not why they do it,
and B that never enters into the actual act of
(31:58):
making music. The Rolling Stones. Their music making when they
play together, it's as pure as kids.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
You described once to me, and once I think was
when you were making Lonesome and Blue with like which
is it's going to be on my list of tracks
I want to ask about. But the album is like
really them going back to their roots and being as
great as ever. But you said something to me which
was exactly like Howie Epstein from the Heartbreakers jammed with
(32:29):
them once as an audition to like when Darryl got
the current job. But he came back to me and
he said the same thing you said to me, which
was they are the most fun band, forget the most
the best band.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
They go.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
They are throwing things to one another, They're they're kidding
one another, they're setting everyone up. It is They're the
biggest blast of a band you could ever play with.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
Everything is jocular and relaxed and fun. And it reminds
me of there might be a term for it. But
in baseball, before the inning starts and they're like six
balls around the infield, what is it warm up?
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Yeah? Right, yeah? But then explain why then they're in
different studios and there must be some friction.
Speaker 3 (33:17):
It was really about having a vision of how they
wanted their songs done, and and they just didn't agree.
Mick was always wanted to make a modern record and
Keith was trying to make a rootsy kind of record.
And they look they're at their best when they do
it together. And then and they and they're so different
(33:40):
that it's like pulling a rubber band. You pull it
so taut that when you let go it really sores. Man.
And that's if there's not some tension in a band,
the band's going to stink. You can be sure of it.
If if I make a record and there's no tension
at all in the making of the record, I start
worrying about this must just be boring because there's nothing
(34:03):
worth fighting for here.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
Nobody's challenging anybody. But I heard an interview with you
where you said that, you know, the producer has to
be this enthusiastic force and not a cheerleader. But give
the artist the confidence to do what they want to do.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
You wanted to feel comfortable about taking a chance, and
it's okay if they fall in their face. Yes, you know,
that's that's to me, It's okay, that's what That's what
we're here for. It's to try a new thing. You
don't do anything great without, you know, putting yourself in
jeopardy a little bit. So that's when the stones are
the best. Misuse a good example of something that was
(34:43):
a modern record. You could play it at Studio fifty four.
You could play it. Sounds great in Paradise garage and
rock and roll fans like that.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
So that's a great example. Was Keith not as excited
about a record.
Speaker 3 (34:58):
Like that he was? He was into He wanted to collaborate.
He understands that it's a conversation, right, and that they're
at their best when they collaborate.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
Because I was going to say, he's got to recognize
what a great groove that is.
Speaker 6 (35:14):
That that's all.
Speaker 3 (35:15):
I never heard him say anything bad about that record.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Yeah, but you also when you say collaboration with Keith,
I wrote liner notes for them. I got to a
little window into the two of them, which I can
talk about if you want. But the thing is what
I do. What you've said that Keith said is because
you've been in the in the studio with him, and
you said he always said incoming, like when he had
an idea, he knew he was the channel of something
(35:41):
and he you know, so there's a collaboration with Mick
and then there's a collaboration.
Speaker 3 (35:45):
Yeah, well you find that with even higher power than Keith.
They find all the great people. And I'm sure it's
not just I know, it's not just limited to music.
I'm sure you both experienced it. Yeah, right, cooking, yeah whatever,
you know, Yeah that, But well here what one time
I asked Bob Dylan, I said, how come you can
(36:06):
write Gates of Eden and I can't? And he said, well,
if it makes you feel any better. I remember moving
the pencil over the paper, but I didn't write it.
It came from somewhere out there. Yeah, I heard him
say stuff like this. Yeah, so I thought at the time,
I thought he would be a nice you know, and
he didn't want to make me feel bad, you know,
like because I'm a better song right. But then I
(36:29):
started noting. Right around a period of time, who's nineteen
eighty nine, ninety, I was getting to work with all
my heroes and they all said the same thing. Brian
Wilson said the same thing. You know. Mc keith will
tell you the same thing. Willie Nelson, Chris Christophers, and
they tell you the same thing. The great songs came through.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
So I mean, it's another way to describe the gift.
If I say something funny spotutaneously, did I think of it? Yeah?
Who put the thought in my head? That's the That's
what they're saying.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
Yeah, well we never know, and that's kind of the
It's both the beauty of being involved in an artistic
pursuit and curse. It's like surfers, man, That's why I
like it too. You can learn how to stay up
on the board and ride and get really good, be
a champion, be the best rider there ever was. But
(37:22):
you don't control the fucking waves. You know you've got
you got to surf the waves that get sent to you.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
But that intuition of knowing how to ride them and
what they're going to do from your experience, that's the art.
Start to feel it. You want to get to the
point I'm guessing as a musician where you're not thinking
about your lessons, you are the music.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
That's that's exactly, that's that's the goal. It takes a
long time to get there.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
When you say the waves just to well finish up
now with Brian Wilson, yeah, my question to you surfs
up for this episode. I got to when he was
making his last record he did with the Beach Boys.
Got they asked me to go into the studio, which
was East West or Cello or whatever it was called
at that point. I'll never forget it because I've been
(38:09):
asked to do a lot of interviewing Brian and it
was always like the highest leverage risk gig in interviewing
in public to interview him. This was not in public,
This was like just the two of us. But at
one point when he pointed to the room where pet
Sounds was made, you know where the tracks were cut
or whatever, and he pointed to a hole in the
(38:32):
wall like indentation, He goes, that's where my dad pushed
my head in. He just like and he started. It
wasn't like crying. He had that matter of fact way
of just saying amazing stuff. Another time, we were doing
a pet soundstock and his British documentary maker guy who
had interviewed everyone for forty years, said I want to
interview you, but I also want to have you there
(38:53):
in case I have to tap out if anything goes crazy,
and of what happened he talked to Brian shut down,
which could happen is I'm sure you might have observed,
so I tapped him. But I guess my question for
you is, did Brian know he was so hard to
read at certain times? The one thing I couldn't tell
was I think he did, maybe at the end, know
(39:15):
how great he was. But do you think he understood
his own genius.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
I think he knew that he made great records that
had an impact. But I found that even the greatest artists,
because of this phenomenon where the spark comes from somewhere else,
the lightning comes from without there's a tremendous amount of
(39:47):
insecurity that comes with it, you know, because people are
expecting you to deliver that all the time. It's like,
it's just like lightning. Man.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
Yeah, I was to deliver lightning. I think that I
was waiting, but the delivery never showed up.
Speaker 3 (40:03):
Yeah, So that's it. You're at the mercy of this
proces delivery, you know. So it's it's it's just the
greatest gift that that you're tuned into these impulses and
that they can travel, so that you can become a
vessel for these things. But it's also a curse because
people think you can do it forever and when you
don't turn on you.
Speaker 2 (40:23):
Well, love and mercy. Let's end this little Brian section
with let's hear a little love and mercy, because what
I the reason you there's a version that was, like,
you know, put out on a solo record, Brian Wilson.
It's very nice, it's produced and all that, but the
version I Love is on I just wasn't made for
these times. It's almost more it's I think it's more
of the sort of like prayer for and I remember
(40:45):
when people would pass away, Brian, at least on social media,
it was always love and mercy and whoever it was
who was passing. So we say love and mercy to
Brian Wilson, and let's hear that version from I just
wasn't made for these times, directed by Don was so.
Speaker 5 (41:02):
You and your friends. I was lying in my room
in the news a lot of people.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
And now we get it to the rest of your
whole life. That's okay, do you mind doing that? I
just thought it was topical.
Speaker 1 (41:28):
I didn't get to Barbara Ann.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
I was trying to say you. Brian didn't write Barbara.
But but he sang it with Dean Torrance. Do you
want to get to it?
Speaker 1 (41:37):
No, there's something funny about it though.
Speaker 3 (41:40):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (41:41):
I married a girl named Monica Haran. Her father was Bob,
and so for years she thought that was the name
of assault.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
And by the way, Phil also chose maybe the one
that everyone would think everyone would choose, which is should
be chosen His Good Vibrations a pretty amazing piece of recording.
Speaker 3 (42:07):
Yeah, I remember, I think, I mean, that.
Speaker 1 (42:10):
Seems innovative, that song, excitation.
Speaker 3 (42:36):
Just everything about it is, including the way he made
it in these little pieces.
Speaker 1 (42:41):
Oh what what's that like?
Speaker 3 (42:43):
He'd go and record forty five seconds of music and
then that would be the session. But he knew it
was going to be the middle part.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
Of it is the genius part, the the low part.
Speaker 3 (42:56):
That seems to me that if you ask Mike Love, yes, yes,
but I like my love. But I got to hang
out with him, that's it. And I always felt bad
for him because he was the front man to this band,
that's his life's work. And then every time he opened
a magazine, it's the genius and the and the four schmucks,
(43:17):
you know, and that's that's that's unfair. And that's a
that's a rough thing to have to live with day
after day after day.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
That people listen to the podcast and they love David
and they think I'm this idiot.
Speaker 7 (43:30):
David.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
Actually, you know, God bless him because I wouldn't meet
you without him. He's one of like musical savant in
that and his knowledge of music is incredible.
Speaker 3 (43:41):
His memory is incredible. I can't remember you.
Speaker 1 (43:44):
I can believe it is amazing. I'm good with the sandwiches. Well,
your kids too, yea, how old do they know?
Speaker 3 (44:03):
Well, moldus forty seven. Wow, on's thirty one.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
And they're in the music business, all.
Speaker 3 (44:10):
Three of them.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
Isn't that great?
Speaker 3 (44:11):
Yeah? Yeah, real great.
Speaker 1 (44:14):
You didn't try to dissuade them.
Speaker 3 (44:16):
No, but I didn't make them do anything, right, I
just kept instruments around. You never made him practice, which
is something I recommend to every parent. Don't make your
kids practice. It's supposed to be the thing that you
escape to to get away.
Speaker 1 (44:30):
I've heard both theories. I've heard musicians tennis players say
they forced me. I hated it, but I guess I'm grateful.
Speaker 2 (44:40):
And then the opposite, Well, you've got.
Speaker 3 (44:42):
To practice eventually, Yes, you gotta get the hook.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
You gotta want to cheek.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
Gotta want to do it. Yeah, but we all want
to when we see our favorite stars on TV play instruments,
we all want to do it. I want to do,
but it's sticking with it.
Speaker 3 (44:57):
To do the work. Yes, this kid, Tony was forty seven.
He was in a drum He was in Eve six.
He's still got Bam with his wife called Dead Posey,
the Still Tour and stuff like that. He when he
was thirteen, he came to me and said, I want
to take drum lessons so that I can program a
drum machine the way a drummer would which was you
(45:20):
had to be that age. Anyone younger would never have Yes,
when they had the machines that work right. Well, I
never heard that before. All right, let's do it. So
he took drum lessons. Never made him practice. He didn't
practice once for about four years. Yes, and then Guns
and Roses put out use your Illusion, and I brought
it the CD hold for him, and that just it
(45:42):
spoke to sixteen year old tone and he started putting
headphones on and sitting there for four hours a night.
You know, you couldn't get him off the drums. He
just kept playing to the record over the careat and
then that's that's when you start taking serious lessons if
you want to if you want to get good at it.
The the people on our label, Blue Note Records, Yeah,
(46:03):
I ask all the artists about this. How much practice
do you do? They practiced between three and six hours
every day.
Speaker 2 (46:10):
Don was Not only are you one of the greatest
producers and musicians of all time, a great documentary director,
you are the only person I can think of who
became a president of a record label, not only a
record label, the greatest jazz label of all time, which
is why we are honoring you by having Jersey Mikes.
Because I grew up. I don't think I've ever told
(46:31):
you this. I grew up. I was bar Mitzfood about
a mile from Rudy Van Gelder's studio Cliffs. Yes, I
was in the corner of the corner of Tenafly and
Englewood and Anglewood Cliffs.
Speaker 3 (46:45):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (46:46):
And so I could walk to Rudy Van gelders And
can you explain how this guy, Rudy Van Gelder made
help make Blue Note the greatest label of all time?
Speaker 3 (46:57):
He was an a pometrist, but Trade and the Blue
Note records that were recorded before somewhere around nineteen sixty
one were recorded at his parents' house in the living
room and they cleared the furniture. They still lived there,
and he made he set up a little control room
(47:17):
in the kitchen and there's a piano in the living room.
Speaker 1 (47:19):
And just because he was a fan.
Speaker 3 (47:21):
Yeah, and I think he charged less than the studios
in New York, but he captured the sound. It's a
really unique sound. Is it's not classic high fi, you know,
it's not like it's not like kind of Blue or
the things that were cut at CBS Day. It's more
(47:43):
like I put it in a league with Chess Records, motown,
you know, like regional people's music, you know, folk in
the sense that it's not industrial, right. And he recorded
the between Blue Note ninety percent of our records that
(48:09):
were recorded in the fifties and the sixties.
Speaker 2 (48:13):
And into the seventies, so between Hack and Sack and
Englewood Cliffs like Coltrane, and.
Speaker 3 (48:19):
Then he did all the Impulse records do so he
did love superb. I went to meet him when I
(48:46):
got the gig at Blue Note. That was I went
over his studio to meet him, and he wasn't well,
and he was notoriously private about his techniques, so he
used to like put tape over or the logo of
the microphone, so no one could tell what microphones he
was using. And he couldn't touch the board. There was
(49:06):
a yellow line that no one could cross in front
of the console. So he and so he was notoriously
a little crabby. And uh so he came down to
meet me. He said, all right, what do you want
to know? And I said, I want to know where
John Coltrane stood when you cut Love Supreme. He said,
(49:26):
he said, right there, same place I put all the
saxophone players. I said, so you're saying like Wayne Short
stood there to do speak note He said, all the
saxophone players were there, the trumpet players were here, the
piano was and he had a methodology he had after
he moved out of his parents' place, he built a
pretty cool room. A student of Frank Lloyd Wright built
(49:48):
this thing where the ceiling was high and the sound
didn't bounce back, so he could get a really cool sound.
Everyone bled into everybody's microphones, so it sounds you can
hear the room. But you hear you hear just the
really harmonic frequencies. Now you don't hear the dissonant reflections.
It's just a great sound of interesting. That's the difference
(50:11):
between a great recording studio. And it's not about what
kind of board they have, because everyone's got the same gear. Basically,
it's the reflection properties at the wall. Yeah, vibe, but
also there's a sonic thing. Yeah, like clap your hand
in here. You hear the reflection, Yes, that paint, that
shape of wall, the shape of room is going to
(50:32):
reflect certain frequencies, right. What you want are the harmonic,
beautiful frequencies to come back, because they're going to get
in the microphone whether you want it or not. So
some rooms just are just creamy and beautiful and others
don't give you ugly harmonics that create a blurry.
Speaker 1 (50:49):
So you're not necessarily looking for a perfectly dead room
when you record, No.
Speaker 3 (50:54):
No one is. You know, you'd have an whatever it's
called an anacoid chamber. You know, no reflection, right, you
got it. Everything's got reflections, so you want the reflection
to be good. My favorite records are records that are
cut where you can hear the room in the room
sounds great.
Speaker 1 (51:12):
Do you have a favorite room?
Speaker 3 (51:14):
I got a few of them. Yeah, Yeah, I just
had a great experience last week. For the first time ever,
I recorded with an orchestra. Patricia Yearwood recorded with a
full like sixty five piece orchestra on the Eastwood stage
at the Corner lot. Yeah. They're just going there. There's
still a throat, man, you know, like the history of
that place, right and the energy of it, because all
(51:37):
the sound stages are jumping, man, and you're pulling you
go in there. It sounds like a movie soundtrack just
by putting by virtue, putting the strings, and there's so
many soundtracks have been cut in this big room that
you recognized the sound of the walls.
Speaker 1 (51:52):
Does it make the orchestra sound bigger?
Speaker 3 (51:54):
It's a rich sound, it's beautiful. The walls are just
and they've tuned the walls.
Speaker 7 (51:59):
You know.
Speaker 3 (51:59):
You you put different materials up and you mess with
it until until you get.
Speaker 2 (52:05):
So someday people will ask where did Phil stand or
sit during this podcast lunch? Yeah, by the way, we
did have We were in Nashville once doing something and
we recorded quickly asked t Bone to uh, you know,
be on the podcast and he produced it so because
he asked us to come to his studio and then
(52:25):
he set the mics and all that and mic Wow,
it had more vibe than anything we've.
Speaker 1 (52:30):
Ever Well he did pick up the guitar a little bit.
Speaker 3 (52:33):
Yes, that also love him. Yeah, he's great. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (52:38):
So I want to run through some of these records
that have changed my life in different ways or your life. Uh,
and then just if we love stories, so if there's
any story behind it. The first thing is really interesting
because I was trying to figure out how we met,
which I'm sure you don't wouldn't remember either, But we've
known each other for I think thirty at least thirty
(52:59):
something years, and it might have been when you were
doing Ringo. Working with Ringo on the Time Takes Time album.
That was one where we had great producers like you,
jeff Lynn, Phil Ramone, Peter Peter Asher. You did one
of my favorite songs of all time, which I love
so much. We did a whole podcast. I don't know
(53:21):
I dragged you into a podcast about this song.
Speaker 3 (53:25):
So tell this.
Speaker 2 (53:26):
We're gonna hear a little of a song called Way
to the World. Uh, and then you tell me what
you remember of working with Ringo, and I believe you
found this song which I love.
Speaker 1 (53:35):
So Here's Way to the World.
Speaker 5 (53:48):
Yeah, I know you, but you got.
Speaker 3 (54:01):
What do you remember? Well? It was written by Dylan
O'Brien Brian Adaherty, who I think is just a wonderful
song writer. We're still good friends. And he got that
song to me. Rango dug it. We went in and
cut it. Kind of remember everybody who played on the session.
(54:23):
I think Mark Goldenberg, Mark Goldenberg played, Ben Mount was
on it. Maybe did Hutch play bass. I'd have to
look at it. But the what I remember is I
asked Ringo if he wanted a chart, you know, do
you want to look at music? While he said no.
Put the lyrics in front of me though, and I
(54:44):
was like, wow, that's that's something you hear drummers say
every day. And then listen to his drumming on like
some Beatles stuff like something. Yes, he's he's playing like
a guitar player. He's put phills in that a guitar.
He's very musical. He's playing the song, he's playing to
(55:05):
the lyric, not counting barers or anything. And that's why
he's such a great drummer, one of the most maybe
the most underrated drummer.
Speaker 1 (55:14):
That's what I would say.
Speaker 3 (55:15):
He's got such a field. When on that very first session,
which was that song, I thought, oh, I get it, man,
you couldn't have the Beatles without his playing, without his feel.
Speaker 2 (55:27):
You actually don't. The funny thing is, I remember Tom Petty,
who you know, you knew when you still deal with
a lot of hardborker. I was around the Heartbreakers when
I moved here, right before I right when I met you,
and he had just like you, got all the Beach
Boys tapes. Later he got all the Beatles tapes from
George I think it was, and he said to me,
he goes listen to them. He goes until Ringo joins.
Speaker 1 (55:49):
It's not the Beatles, right, It just great, so distinct.
It's so distinct his drumming, even for a novice like
me can recognize it.
Speaker 3 (55:58):
But he was.
Speaker 1 (55:59):
He's so dissed in history. So I love that you're
saying that. I think it's great.
Speaker 3 (56:05):
Great. Also, he swings like crazy, it's just and.
Speaker 1 (56:09):
He makes it look effortless.
Speaker 3 (56:11):
That's the other thing.
Speaker 1 (56:12):
He looks tired when he's playing.
Speaker 3 (56:14):
But it's so in a weird way, and so you
think he doesn't know how to play drums. But he's
a great drummer. I've gotten to play with him a lot.
We had we started a band at one point.
Speaker 1 (56:25):
Did you talk to him about like his upbringing and
how is that just a natural ability?
Speaker 3 (56:31):
Is it just people? Are you kind of play like
who you are?
Speaker 1 (56:38):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (56:39):
So if you have a big personality, you play with
a big personality. You can't hide in music like we could.
We could have invited like Charles Manson to this lunch
we have.
Speaker 1 (56:51):
He's always busy.
Speaker 3 (56:57):
Well, for the first ten minutes, you'd go, this is
an interesting cat man. I got a I'm going to
the rollodex in my head. I never met anybody quite
like him, And it might take you ten minutes before
you said, wait, now, there's something seriously off with this cat.
Speaker 1 (57:14):
I always say I was gonna name my book. Everyone's
nice in the meeting.
Speaker 2 (57:20):
Well, by the way, Jolie Manson was a guy pitched
as an artist by the Beach Boys.
Speaker 1 (57:25):
Yeah, you know that, that's right.
Speaker 3 (57:27):
You know it was like it was those those murders
were and are killing. Basically, it's because it's Terry Melcher's
house had to do with him not getting Scientific Club.
Is that true?
Speaker 1 (57:37):
I had no idea.
Speaker 3 (57:38):
Yeah, the Beach Boys, yeah, you see.
Speaker 1 (57:40):
That, And of Hitler had sold one painting.
Speaker 2 (57:44):
Right moving on from Hitler.
Speaker 3 (57:47):
But the point is you can fool people in conversation
for a little while anyway, you can prolong the truth
coming out, but you can't do it at all in music.
If you play music with someone for a minute and
a half, basically know who they are, so we.
Speaker 1 (58:06):
Can have disagreements. Let's say the Rolling Stones. They but musically, yeah,
like when they put when they put that ship away
and they play, they know exactly.
Speaker 3 (58:21):
Any ephemeral animosity or disagreement disappears.
Speaker 1 (58:25):
It's like jazz, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (58:27):
It was very much like jazz. Yeah, I always liken
them to like that Miles Davis group in the sixties
with Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter and Tony Williams and
Ron Carter that the it's about a conversation.
Speaker 1 (58:41):
They know where each other is going and then they
pick up on each other like an improvisation.
Speaker 3 (58:47):
And go and just like a conversation is you know, Yeshurst,
this conversation what you say I have respond.
Speaker 1 (58:53):
To and look how great it's going.
Speaker 5 (58:55):
But this is the kind of.
Speaker 1 (58:58):
It's kind of jew What what is mixed genius?
Speaker 3 (59:05):
Well, there are a number of things. First of all,
he's a great phrasing genius. So he lays the thing that, yeah,
he's got some gift that we've discussed together, but that
we don't we don't understand exactly what it is. But
he's all right. Claudia Schiffer, you say she's photogenic, right,
(59:26):
because you're looking at it the magazine. Yes, she jumps
out and gets right in your face, and you notice
the watch she's wearing, and that's why she's a successful model. Right,
But she's got that quality. She jumps off the page.
Mick Jagger jumps out of the speakers at you. I
think that the speakers is like when they're they're along
(59:48):
the console. I think of that as being the fifty
yard line. Yeah, okay, who can get into my territory?
If you can't, If you're not getting into my territory,
the record sucks, you know.
Speaker 1 (59:58):
So he's the greatest front man of all time. Also physically, yeah,
nobody moves like him. So that's a Jesus special genius.
Speaker 3 (01:00:05):
And he's got a way of making you. You can
be sitting in the Rose Bowl with one hundred thousand
other people. You can be in the back and you
think Mick Jagger's talking right to you. That's that's kind
of true. Yeah, a few people have Bruce Springsteen's got
He's got Peter Gabriel, He's got that. It's a weird quality.
(01:00:26):
And Nick knows he's got it, he doesn't know what
it is, and he's not doing anything in particular to
make that happen, right, And I know some other singers
that have leap out. Garth Brooks when I recorded him, man,
I couldn't believe it. Man, he he jumped out.
Speaker 2 (01:00:43):
I thought you just worked with Chris Gaines, but you
also worked with Garth Brooks.
Speaker 3 (01:00:49):
Yeah, and he jumped out so far it was like
he was behind me. Just so much personality and charisma.
Chrisma's part of it too. So mix got this incredible gift.
If you listen to Tumbling Dice, no one in their
right mind mixes the vocal that low. But it's in
(01:01:11):
the right place because even though he's almost buried, he's
so powerful.
Speaker 2 (01:01:16):
He leaps up right and you lean into him.
Speaker 1 (01:01:18):
Mate jagger Don.
Speaker 2 (01:01:20):
That may have also, if it wasn't Ringo, it might
have been around the time you were producing Voodoo Lounge.
That was the beginning right of the first Stones. And
this track that I want to feature is I again
like I had grown up you met with with some
girls we talked about earlier, and like that was really
where I came into the Stones. But I felt like
(01:01:43):
they found their way back. When the song Love is
Strong on Voodoo Lounge, I just love it and I
always think I believe the video was David Fincher, and
to me it was like if I wasn't already a
Stones fan, it would have I would have fallen in
love with them.
Speaker 1 (01:02:00):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (01:02:00):
So let's hear Love is Strong.
Speaker 1 (01:02:04):
And he was so swe We got to me just
appear a.
Speaker 7 (01:02:14):
Dock the doc.
Speaker 5 (01:02:22):
To swim damn doctre.
Speaker 2 (01:02:28):
So Mick, Uh, he's good. What about this Keith guy?
Because I, I will say, like watching their dynamic. When
I wrote these liner notes for forty licks, it was
hysterical because I don't know to tell me if this
is true to your experience. A Mick called me. Mick
told me what he wanted me to do. Mick negotiated
the fee, uh and not that big a fee, and
(01:02:49):
I had to ask for okay, I want to sign
free tickets and I want to sign it.
Speaker 7 (01:02:53):
You know.
Speaker 2 (01:02:54):
He did all that. Then I wrote the notes, and
then Mick sent them to Keith, who said, there's one
more line on Mick, then there's on me. Give me
another line. And mixed note was take out the one
bit of Yiddish you put in, and also take out
the take out the sentence about me being knighted, because
(01:03:14):
that will break up the band all over again. Is
this all true to your experience of their dynamic.
Speaker 3 (01:03:22):
I don't know him to be an anti Semite outside
of that.
Speaker 2 (01:03:27):
Oh no, he didn't say it. That know, I cast
no aspersion.
Speaker 8 (01:03:33):
He just didn't want attributed to him this. I'll probably
have to cut this whole thing out. But what he
did say was, David, could you cut the place where
you called me call yourself the stone schlepperd because this
is going to over twenty three Arab nations.
Speaker 2 (01:03:47):
That's what I said.
Speaker 3 (01:03:51):
He's he's in ascute marketeer. Yes, I don't know the
Keith was counting the lions. I don't I don't really
believe that. But he it might be metaphorical that he
didn't feel fully represented, and that that's possible, and is he.
Speaker 2 (01:04:07):
I think of him as one of the most pure
musical forces ever of all time, you know, as as
great as the heroes he had. You know, I know
how much he loved Chuck Berry enough to put up
with hail rock and roll all that.
Speaker 3 (01:04:22):
I think if he is, he is all that to us,
everything that people love about him and assigned to him
as a hero. It's true, that's not true. But the
surprising thing is how he's also incredibly well read and
very very fucking smart man.
Speaker 1 (01:04:41):
And still alive, alive and sharp man.
Speaker 3 (01:04:45):
You know that's he's got the quickest He's got a
quick mind. Man, He's he's glib, He's there was a retort,
and and also a really interesting observation.
Speaker 1 (01:05:04):
I just love listening to him talk.
Speaker 2 (01:05:07):
The best interview in music history, because he does not
give a fuck.
Speaker 1 (01:05:11):
He will tell you, like in that the Chuck Burry Doc.
He's so phenomenal in that because he tells you, this
guy's a pain in the ass, but I love him.
Then he tells you warts and all stories. He's just
great and I've loved all his solo stuff too, without
the band.
Speaker 3 (01:05:29):
He's fantastic. He's a heroic, soulful artist.
Speaker 1 (01:05:34):
Have you seen the this old French documentary about making
Sympathy for the Devil? The whole doc is about. It's
on the Criterion channel right now.
Speaker 3 (01:05:46):
Yeah, no, I think I saw it when it was new. Yeah,
it's it's a very.
Speaker 2 (01:05:51):
Activity for the Devil.
Speaker 1 (01:05:53):
You got to see it.
Speaker 2 (01:05:55):
In college. Is a midnight movie, and that is a
it's a weird movie. It is a yeah godard right, yeah,
but you.
Speaker 1 (01:06:03):
Also get an insight into how they build a song. Yeah,
and adding all these layers. It was very different when
they started working on it, and is that how most
of their songs come to be? Just piling on Let's
try this sound, let's try that sound. Let's add these drums,
let's have violins now, let's.
Speaker 3 (01:06:23):
Yes, And they take the time that for Voody Lounge,
we rehearsed in Ireland for almost a month before putting
anything on tape. Tried a number of different ways with it.
And they don't like to beat a song to death.
They know it's about feel more than anything else. So
if we do four or five takes one day and
(01:06:45):
we don't have it. We just put it aside and
go back to it another day. This has done over
a period of time. They're not quick albums to make
their lifestyle albums. You lived that album for a year.
Speaker 2 (01:06:58):
But there's an exception, right, you're some blue.
Speaker 3 (01:07:00):
Didn't you do that?
Speaker 2 (01:07:01):
I remember you were so happy. I think we were
doing some Grammy PBS show or something and you were
in the middle of that, or you had just done that.
You said like it was the best thing ever?
Speaker 3 (01:07:11):
Was three was? Well, it was really cool. It was
It wasn't meant it was an unintentional album. We were
making a regular studio album with original songs and had
hit some kind of brick wall I can't remember what
it was, and Keith just wanted to cleanse the musical palette,
so he said, let's let's play Blue and Lonesome, which
is this great old Little Walter song that they used
(01:07:34):
to play and when they were just starting and thankfully
the engineer Chris Sharma hit record and it was like, whoa, man,
that's the rolling wow. Wow, you know what a Because
it's not a it's not a karaoke version of the
blues that they do. They reinterpreted the blues and added
(01:07:55):
a British thing to it, so they play it differently
than than anyone else does. But they that's how you know.
I heard Spider and the Fly. That's the first blues
I remember hearing in my life, and I thought they
invented the blues. Although they were, they were actually very
generous about giving.
Speaker 2 (01:08:15):
Credit, unlike another big British band of that era. I
could name what I want, but they did give credit.
Speaker 1 (01:08:22):
No, yeah, a lot of people don't give Well, it's
the famous diss that they were just a blues cover
band and that's not fair.
Speaker 3 (01:08:28):
No, it's not.
Speaker 1 (01:08:29):
But it is a fact that it's in them.
Speaker 3 (01:08:33):
Yeah, it's in them, and they and they brought something
new to it. They interpret it their way and it's
a really cool way.
Speaker 2 (01:08:39):
But didn't they meet on a train like uh yeah,
looking at each other's albums or I guess whatever, I
guess who had someone had a Muddy Waters record or something,
and it's like, I think, of there's still th that's
why they're still together. There's still those two guys who
have that common ground whatever else.
Speaker 3 (01:08:57):
Yeah, that's there's a lot of common ground there, you know,
not to mention the history. You know, you don't get
to there's not enough time to do that twice in
your life, to put a band together like that, and
and to evolve and to know intuitively where the other
person's going to go before they go there, and be
(01:09:19):
there to meet them like that.
Speaker 2 (01:09:21):
And I came in in the eighties. You I think
saw them a little earlier, maybe in Detroit. I saw
them in the I don't know when you first saw them.
Speaker 3 (01:09:27):
I saw them.
Speaker 1 (01:09:28):
I saw them in the eighties.
Speaker 2 (01:09:29):
Yeah, eighties. And they were a better band when I
saw them at so far, you know, a few months
ago than they were.
Speaker 3 (01:09:36):
In the eighties.
Speaker 1 (01:09:36):
It is incredible. Do you think there's more in them?
You think they're going to keep recording.
Speaker 3 (01:09:41):
I think yeah, they're making a new record now. I'm
sure they'll played till they drop. And it's and it's
just simply because that's what they do, you know, That's
who they are. That's what they do. It's got nothing
when people say don't they have enough money? Yet? They
got to come back for the money. You think Bob
(01:10:01):
Weirr was playing in San Francisco last week for the
money with you? No, But.
Speaker 2 (01:10:09):
If he's played with me.
Speaker 1 (01:10:10):
He's definitely not being called dinosaurs for forty years already.
Speaker 3 (01:10:14):
Yeah. No musicians play, that's that's what you do.
Speaker 2 (01:10:18):
Yeah, Ringo says, I'm a drummer. If I don't drum,
that's when I get in trouble.
Speaker 3 (01:10:23):
Exactly right. Yeah, that's absolutely true, even just on a tour. Man.
We're booking a tour now and Larry Shenkins, my manager,
saying you sure you want five shows in a row,
I said, give me seven. You book them every day,
the bad days of the days when you don't play,
you know, that's yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:10:43):
One thing you recorded one. We'll move on from the
Stones in transition to Bob Dylan with you did a
record which I love called Strip the live sort of
intimate Stones records, the best live record. That's my favorite
of all you got. Was it your idea of having
to do like a Rolling Stone by Bob Dylan.
Speaker 3 (01:11:01):
Or no, I don't remember. Probably not.
Speaker 1 (01:11:03):
I don't think about that like I do.
Speaker 3 (01:11:05):
I lost. It was great and it was just it
was just like one take. It was kind of screwing around,
you know, and uh, and well it was a live album,
but I mean just I remember in the rehearsal where
it came up, because that's another one we rehearsed for
a month to get to the point where we could
play them. It was meant to be an Unplugged, but
for whatever reason, Unplugged was like a brand name that
(01:11:27):
was owned by MTV and they didn't want to so
they called it a strip. But that was that was
their version of it, and there was a TV show
that went with it, and uh yeah, I just remember
it's just kind of for fun. They started playing it
in the rehearsal and it's like, well, this is really cool.
Speaker 2 (01:11:49):
There's something very meta about it, like it's a okay
(01:12:20):
now Dylan, having been around him again, my hero named
a son after him. All that the most interesting, maybe
the most interesting mind I've ever been around, But that
producing him. I want to hear my one of my
favorite songs he ever did is on the record you
produced Born in Time. So let's hear a little Born in.
Speaker 5 (01:12:41):
Time arising with a wave of reach just never.
Speaker 7 (01:12:50):
You get in the.
Speaker 5 (01:12:55):
Well Born Time.
Speaker 2 (01:13:00):
Under the red sky? What was that experience? Like? I
think it was like in that reaction action thing that
happens in music and science and life. It's like I
got the feeling that Bob had just sort of had
a very sort of well reviewed record, and I think
he had the desire to fuck with it a little
(01:13:23):
bit and do something else.
Speaker 3 (01:13:27):
I just I think he might have just been a
little overextended at that period of time because he was
making the Wilbury's album at the same time, so he
was going up to Jeff Lynn's house or whatever and
then coming back, and so his attention was divided a
little bit. But I don't think he went into it
(01:13:50):
haphazardly or with a desire to sabotage it. It's just
I also think that I wasn't ready for I could
have used a few more years of producing under my belt,
because I feel like I made a mistake in there.
(01:14:16):
He was trying to If you listen to it, you
can kind of hear it as it foreshadows his next
musical stage. You can hear the change in his voice
and just how he's approaching certain things. And he was
he was hearing something in his head, and instead of
nurturing chasing the vision of what he was going for,
(01:14:39):
I was trying to throw him back into what he'd
already done. I want, I want to make a retro
ish Stylon record, which is the dumbest fucking thing you
can do. And I just chart that up to my
own inexperience. There's a there's a moment that I'll never forget. Man,
on the very first session, did the assistant engineer shouldn't
(01:15:02):
have done this, but he did. He ran that's of everything,
so all the conversation in between, and he gave it
to me. So I was driving home from the first
session and I got to a point where Bob was
sitting at a piano telling me something that he wanted
to do, and I told him why it wasn't going
(01:15:22):
to work before we did it. And I pulled the
car where I want I want to throw up. I thought, Man,
all your life, you just want to make music with
this guy. This is your hero. He's telling you he's
got an idea, and you told him, you overruled him
before he even tried it. Well, I've tried never to
(01:15:47):
make that mistake again, and I'll go down a manhole
for two weeks with somebody.
Speaker 1 (01:15:51):
If you know a lot of people, they don't realize
that they made the mistake. To the fact that you
owned it and you learn from it. Oh yeah, that's
what makes us grow.
Speaker 2 (01:16:03):
And I love stuff on that record. Born in the
Time is one of my favorites.
Speaker 3 (01:16:08):
It was a great song. I didn't fully get it
when we were doing it, Born in Time, in time
for what that was? Like? What is a wordplay? But
we cut it. I didn't fully get it though, And
then about I don't know, maybe ten years later, eight
years later, I don't know. I did some mushrooms and
(01:16:28):
put it out. Oh, I get it. Born into a
world of time, the world where there's time, because there's
only time here. Time doesn't really apply across the universe
in the same way. Right, we're the one. I get it. Man,
(01:16:48):
he's talking about being born into this life.
Speaker 7 (01:16:51):
And I.
Speaker 3 (01:16:55):
Guess I must have sent him a note. It was
probably still mailed. I don't think I emailed him that,
you know, I sent it through somebody. It got to him,
and the day he got and called me at seven
in the morning and we talked for a couple hours
about it, and he recommended some other books to read
along those lines and everything. And but that's that's just
(01:17:20):
how it is with great artists like that. Sometimes it
takes a minute for you to catch up to him.
Speaker 2 (01:17:24):
I had the experience which I won't go into have
told I've talked about it, but I had. He wanted
me to write a treatment for something, and I had
the experience of I did not understand what he said
till so much later, because that's his mind does not take.
He takes leaps that mere humans cannot.
Speaker 1 (01:17:42):
That's how I feel about Kubrick movies. Sometimes you see
him the first time, you're like, I'm not sure. I
know there's something there, but I'm not getting it. And
then second time you see it, third time you see it,
you're like, oh, best movie ever made exactly.
Speaker 9 (01:17:59):
That's just part one of our amazing conversation with the
Great Don was. Look forward to part two, with Don
discussing his soulful collaborations with the Great Bonnie Rait, building
a love shack with the B fifty twos, his band
Was Not Was, and something.
Speaker 1 (01:18:12):
New and amazing.
Speaker 9 (01:18:14):
Naked Lunch is a podcast by Phil Rosenthal and David Wilde.
Theme song and music by Brad Paisley, produced by Will
Sterling and Ryan Tillotson, with video editing by Daniel Ferrara
and motion graphics by Ali Ahmed. Executive produced by Phil Rosenthal,
David Wilde, and our consulting journalist is Pamela Chella. If
you enjoyed the show, share it with a friend. But
if you can't take my word for it, take Phil's and.
Speaker 1 (01:18:36):
Don't forget to leave a good rating and review. We
like five stars.
Speaker 9 (01:18:39):
You know, thanks for listening to Naked Lunch, a Lucky
Bastard's production.
Hello David, Hey Phil, we have someone very special, someone
who was special and it still.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Was was not was special? Yeah, he was.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
He just was and is special. By the way, what
does that mean?
Speaker 3 (00:13):
Was not was?
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Oh, now you're going too deep. We will save that
for the second of the two episodes. We're gonna run
okay with Don Was and Don Was is one of
the greatest record producers, musicians, coolest cats I've ever met.
I've known him for I think exactly as long as
I've known you, or maybe a little longer.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Who's better?
Speaker 2 (00:36):
He was better you not was better? But so we're
gonna hear. This is gonna be the first of two episodes,
and we're gonna be talking about. First, we paid tribute
to Brian Wilson, who he worked with and made a
great documentary about, who recently passed. We talked about the
Rolling Stones.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
You like them?
Speaker 1 (00:55):
I do like that?
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Yes, we talked about Ringo Great. We talk about Bob
Dylan heard his job running Blue notut record, So we
don't have we.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Have no time to s this is an accomplished person.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
And then we'll come back later in the year with
an episode about his was not was about Bonnie Rap
Bonnie rape.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
B fifty two Ladies and Gentlemen. Don was.
Speaker 4 (01:25):
Let's build the beans to the fat, food for thought,
jokes on tap, talking with our mouthsful, having fun, BEEAs
Cake and humble Pie, serving.
Speaker 5 (01:39):
Up slass lovely.
Speaker 4 (01:41):
The dressing on the side, it's naked, lush clothing optional.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
I want to start today by thanking you for a
record you produce and a documentary you made that changed
my life. And there's in a very intimate way, so
not too intimate that it don't get uncomfortable. But I'm
a little un when thirty years ago you made an
(02:10):
album with Brian Wilson and a documentary called I Just
wasn't made for these times. It is a revelation, just
like we were talking about Peter Grahlmick's books about Elvis,
my understanding emotionally of Brian, who I ended up working
with quite a bit. It was very helpful. That movie
was game changing. But it's not really for me. It's
it's my favorite one of my favorite music docs ever
(02:34):
and favorite albums ever. And in fact, we're going to
go through each of us and we're going to try
to ask for like three favorite Brian Wilson recordings and
to sort of pay tribute to him now that you
know we we lost one of the giants. All three
of mine are from that album, So Phil not so much.
(02:55):
But I guess what I want. I want to This
is the last thing I would tell you is that
my wife did not in a way that comes up
in our episode we did with our Wives. She never
loved music. It wasn't her thing that and I mentioned
this to her last. I brought up the movie. She goes,
that's the movie that made me love music. And I
think that's how I can't think of a higher company.
(03:16):
Then I probably would not be married thirty one years
now if you hadn't made her love music.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
So you owe him one exactly.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
So fuck you, John was. We're switching.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
This is why I'm his partner because we share Samwich nice.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Yes, and if you're unhappy, we'll switch with you. So
uh and Jersey Mike say, is significant, But I guess
what I wanted. I will tell you why. But first
let's just talk about Brian for a little bit. What
was that experience in your life? Was it as I'm
sure it was meaningful in your life as well.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
Oh, it's one of the most powerful musical relationships I
ever had. He certainly the greatest of them all in
terms of writing and producing and arranging and just having
a vision for where rock and roll could go. He
did things. Actually, the reason I made the movie was
(04:15):
because things that he dreamed up that had never been
done before had become such a common part of the
musical vocabulary that you know, you could play Caroline Know
for somebody and they go, yeah, but yeah, that's kind
of been done. But the idea that he did all
(04:35):
these things first, and that he had such a huge
impact on the music that followed, and that really, no
one's done it any better than him. No one's dug
in more emotionally, even with more depth, with more heart
and soul and gotten that across and the music.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Did it come easily to him? Or was he like
a mad obsessive guy.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
I didn't know him in that period, but I'm guessing
mad obsessive. I think that he was always thinking about music,
always coming up with things. I met him in the
late eighties. I was producing The Knack. Doug Tiger was
my buddy from junior high.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
School, who will come up later in this episode.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
And they turned me on to the Smile bootlegs that
were out at the time, and I'd never heard anything
like it in my life. Man blew me away, And
that's probably to the detriment of the Knack. That's all
I was listening to. I stopped paying attention to the record.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
That was a serious fun you were having when you
were producing the album. Serious fun.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
By the next and that, my wife and I ended
up at some big charity dinner for the Red Hot
and Blue the Pediatric AIDS compilations, and I found myself
in the buffet line, right behind Brian and doctor Landy.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Great way to meet people. I always say, yes.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Exactly, you really get to know. I'm thinking doctor Landy
might have overstepped and taken an extra shrimp or something.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
On point for him. Well, I couldn't contain myself because
that's all I was listening to. So I just started gushing,
and I think I scared Brian a little bit, but
they invited me over to the studio. He said come
on bye, and so I became friendly with him. I
started playing little gigs with him. We're doing a duo
(06:46):
one time, there's another it's a pediatric age benefit at
somebody's house. Really bizarre thing in the afternoon, a lot
of little kids. Ronald Reagan was there, Paul Abdul was,
it was Elizabeth Glais, it was alive, it was it
was a fair foundation and Jackson Brown and Brian were
the artists.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
That's a good double bill, good double bill.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
So it's just.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Mainly I think of them as two artists who you
produced and gave a break to.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
Well, uh, I was. It was just Brian playing piano
and me playing bass, and we did a version of
California Girls. It was abominable. And after that Brian said, man,
we really fucked that well. And then all the parents
came and grabbed the how do you diminished behalf? We
and we did another old Beach Boys song and it
(07:38):
wasn't much better. And then he did Love and Mercy,
which was still relatively new at the time, and it
was the most transcendent thing I've ever experienced ever. I
think on stage, I don't know what he plugged into.
He told me that he was watching this we were
outside and that the sun was going down over the
hills and he felt a spiritual force overtake them. But
(08:02):
it was just, I mean, it was a perfect reading
of love and mercy, and he was completely immersed in it,
and all I could think was, oh, man, if people
could only see this part of him. And at that
point there were just a lot of sort of headlines
about the twenty four hours shrink and everything, and it
really clouded the legacy of his contributions. So I'd signed
(08:29):
him to a label I.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Started, which I know, the label I could never pronounce corambolage. Yeah,
you make it easy for the terrible choice.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
It's a billiard's thing. It's a term. It's when you
make all the balls, you know, move over the table out.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
And the break break.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
And this was a moment like after you and Bonnie Rait,
you know, had these epic rise that you signed every
old hero like I think you had Felix, Cavalarians.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
Cavar, Chris Christofferson and Brian Wilson.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
That's not bad group of artists, a nice group.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
And we dealt with Brian first. I was just trying
to think, how can we clear up the misconception about him,
not really misconception, but how can we put the focus
back on what makes him so great? Everyone says, oh,
Brian Wilson's a genius, but to non musicians, that was
kind of hard to grasp, especially if you'd start by
(09:27):
playing four h nine or something like that. So we
told the story of why he was great and was
so unique about his contribution. That was the film. I
came out of this gig where I just thought, Man,
if people could just see this never it just seemed
impossible at that point in time that he was ever
(09:48):
going to be able to tour, let alone finish smile
and do those incredible shows.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Well, it struck me that I believe that moment with
a game changer for you. It was a game changer
for my wife literally made her understand had a passion
for music from that moment on, and it started with
like she went from owning no records to like investigating
Brian Wilson deeply.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
Through that that's worth making a movie.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
But it was important, I think for Brian because if
you think about it, I believe doctor Landy, you know,
the twenty four hour Shrink disappeared shortly after or in
the middle of this problem in the middle, by the
time we were shooting a movie, he was gone, and
then Brian had If you I've always thought if you
could have Phil when if you went back in time
(10:35):
to high school and thought, who's gonna survive to ripe
old age? I don't think Keith Richards, Brian Wilson who
got did pretty well, and that these like Brian had
this amazing second act. And I do think you. I'm
going to give you a little credit for because that
movie it just sort of captured and and and so
(10:57):
we'll begin Phil, We're gonna each you are favorite Brian Wilson,
soones and if you would tell us when you jump in,
but you start with your your first one that you
sent me.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
God only knows.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Now, I mean people.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Say that's the best song of all time. I don't
know if that's the case, but it's sure, it's great.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Yeah, it's hard to argue. It's hard to pick a
better song anywhere from anybody than that.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
And it's literally in the title. I always thought it's
like a divine song and it has divinity in it.
I think, is it. Paul McCartney's the one who always
says it's like the best song every.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
What is the for novices like me? What is the
innovation in that song?
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Innovation? Well, it's not on a number of levels, I
think you but.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Like, what what did we never hear before.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
You if you if you sat down and wrote out
the chords and followed the voice sings the way he
the way he's he can play an F chord by
playing that F and an A and a C and
that that's an F chord, and that's how most people
do it. Or you don't never have to play any
of those three notes, and you can imply it. Listen
to a Herbie Hancock record, you know you fill in
(12:13):
the space around it thereby implying that court Wow. So
the thing that separates the men from the boys sometimes
is being able to come and find a combination of
notes that that's an F chord. But that tears you
up inside.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
That's like writing too. We find that it's best to
say it sometimes without saying it. Yeah, exactly same in music.
I love that.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Yeah, Yeah, you don't. It's poetry. You don't want to
you don't want to hit it on the head. Who
was T. S. Eliot who wrote about uh I forgot? What?
What do you call it? The partnership between the artist
and the viewer or the reader or the listener. You
know that that they're that they're your partners. You have
(12:59):
to build room in there for them to bring their
own inner emotional lives to the song. So uh, you
got to do that, not just with the lyrics, but
in the music too.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
So he, by the way, for those who don't know,
was one of the very early beach boys.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
You know.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
He he didn't fit, didn't like.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
Wearing the He wrote Little Douce Coop.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
They just haded out having all the cats around. Very good.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Uh So let's hear a little bit of.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Of the most famous song in the world.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
God only knows.
Speaker 6 (13:38):
V shin Doom so not good, jummy, God knows why name.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
My first song that I picked. And it just partly
because and again I'm telling you, like, I don't know
if there's streaming services where you can see the movie.
I know it's on YouTube. I saw it on YouTube
again just to talk to you. Yeah, I just wasn't
made for the times.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
And yeah, I think it's I think it's it's it's
you can buy it on Apple and Amazon.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Oh great, you should, but I really recommend seeing it again.
But there's a version of a song called you know
not one of the uber classics that you there's a
few that you sort of revisit in the h and
I think Warmth of the Sun is to me again
(14:52):
like God only knows. And you know, Brian worked with
lyricists and you know, sometimes got a magical work out
of you know one. Tony Asher was a like admin
Mike Love, you know, you know, not one you would
necessarily think would be a T. S. Eliot type poet.
But he just told me about what you think of
Warmth of the Sun, because it has a very important
(15:14):
sort of part in the documentary.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
Even Yeah, no, it's it's a really touching song that
that's the one that they wrote the knight Kennedy got killed, right, Yeah,
so that they were they were feeling the emotions, right,
Are you guys old enough to have been around then?
I was three, you're three, you see, you don't really remember.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
If I do remember it, it might be my first
actual memory.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
Yeah. Well it was a traumatic notice and time stopped. Yeah,
it was. I think I'm seventy three. So it's the
pivotal it's the watershed moment in my life. Everything changed
after that. Yeah, in the world, and well you could imagine,
(16:01):
you don't even have to imagine, you know, what they
were shield that night, and so to have that song
explode out of them. It's just such a powerful, poignant,
sorrowful song, you know, to.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Dream it's a different world.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
Well also, it's like, the the thing about Brian that
I think Don sort of alluded to is that, like
the initial especially on the East Coast or maybe in Detroit,
it was surf rock. Originally it was like you know
that it was car songs and beach songs, and then
Warmth of the Sun. It begins to have all these
(17:04):
this depth, this sort of like and what I found
you did, And I guess I'll jump to my second
song because it's connected in my head Till I Die,
which is very applicable. Now, one thing you did is
you got to the soul of Brian in part by
having some of the background singers who were soul singers
(17:24):
working with him. And it's the weird thing is is
like we have these perceptions like Brian white guy from
like you know, you know, southern California. The truth is soul,
soul doesn't know a color. So and he was very soulful.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
Very soulful. Yeah, he was all soul man, and that's
that's what he was. There was there, there was in
his great songs when he felt like doing it. There
was no fluff there was There was not a wasted
syllable or a wasted note. It was all. Everything was
(18:01):
there because it had emotional power until I die. It's
worth it to sit down at the piano and try
to figure out the chords to it, because it defies
every rule and formula of songwriting. It starts on a
(18:22):
chord and gets back there, but for the rest of
it it's in no key. You can't you wouldn't know
what key. I know where it starts and where it
ends up. It moves in such a wild way. And
yet despite the complexity of it, you know, a seven
year old can sing that song and you can go
(18:44):
as deep as you want into the lyrics. But it's
really the most captivating portrait of loneliness and isolation. Uh.
You get a sense of what he was going through
(19:04):
every day. It was a beautiful confessional h and this
is No one ever wrote a song like that but
until he wrote that, and it really extended the boundaries
of popular music and certainly of rock and roll. He
(19:46):
started with a pretty simple formative which no one had
used before, but he took four freshman harmony and Chuck
Berry and combined them four freshmen were pretty uh intricate,
h even though they were a pop group. Yeah, you know,
they're probably like the new kids in the block of
their time, but a lot of sophistication in those harmonies,
(20:09):
and that caught his ear and he, as a kid,
he understood it, absorbed it, and then took it to
ten other levels that no one ever had gone to before.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
You may have been there at the time, because I've
had the pleasure of working with Don on a lot
of TV shows and stuff. But there was one time
when we were doing for charity a version of Across
the Universe with like Everyone's bono Stevie Wonder at the
Grammys for like a fundraising thing. But we were backstage
and someone, i think one of the Velvet Revolver guys, said,
(20:42):
anyone here good at harmony? And Brian Wilson said, like
a little shyly put his hand because I'm pretty good
at harmony, and I'm like, pretty good at harmony. You
freaking invented harmony for everyone else in there.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
There's like a straight line. When I listened to the
Beach Boys, it seems to be a straight line from
barbershop quartets to them.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
Yeah, right, that's true, That's absolutely true.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
And then you say it's this four freshman mixed with
Chuck Berry and there are there are riffs from Chuck
Berry even. Yeah, in some of the earliest I.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
Think there's a lawsuit, right.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Yeah, that's how you know something special when there's litigations.
What's one of your absolute favorites. By the way, I'm
always assuming that, like you were asking Brian to do
certain songs, were you pushing him or was he ever
calling for any of these songs that you guys did
in that movie.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
I so long ago, man, I don't actually remember. Thirty
years he was involved, you know, that's it didn't just happen.
You know, we had to work on him and work
up the arrangements and everything. So he liked all the choices.
He loved every one of those songs, and I think
at that point he was touched that people appreciated it.
(22:05):
He was in isolation, man, he was in a bubble.
And actually, if you watch the movie, which took over
the course of three weeks we filmed it, you see
him come out of a shell. You can see the
earlier interviews he's a little rar and at the end. Man,
he's all sophisticated talking about books he's reading, and he's
(22:26):
and he's straightforward. And that was just by being back
in the action movie sets are exciting as you know,
you know, I mean, there are all these people around us.
It's a lot less it's a more vibrant scene than
being in a recording book.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
And there's a lot to learn from just that somebody
dealing with issues, right, you bring them out. You can
bring them out. You don't just leave them alone.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
No, And he saw that people did appreciate what he
had done and understood it, of course, and I think
that meant the.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
Whole Well, that's something Phil always talks about in something
he's sort of like. For instance, he took an interest
in following up with like Carl Reiner and all these legends,
and you would think all of them, everyone knows how
important they are. Every generation or so. People need to
be reminded, like Brian Wilson's reputation thirty years ago when
(23:20):
you made that movie was not what it ended like.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
It's like many older people and I guess people who
have troubles, they're not necessarily outgoing. They just need a
little nudge Hey, come on out, Hey, let's go have dinner.
Let's have dinner with your friends, because they're not calling him.
I have these wonderful dinners with Carl Reiner and Neil Simon,
mel Brooks and Norman Lear. They weren't calling each other
(23:47):
because you know how it is, you lose touch and
unless somebody's organizing a dinner, maybe you're not going.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
That was going on with Brian. Mean, we were all
going to Musso and Franks with him in. That's a
group that Brent Wilson and some fine organized. They were
good friends to made that, yeah, and they made sure
that he was among people who loved him and appreciated him.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
Listen, you that social life is literally what can make
you live longer.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
Yeah, absolutely, But yeah, it's you can you can have
success and you know, you can see your bank account
get larger, but in the core of your soul, you're
still the insecure kid you were when you were six
(24:35):
years old or whatever. Yeah, I still think you ship and.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
And you know, all the money in the world doesn't
cure loneliness.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
So uh well, Plus, I mean you can rent people, well,
had rented people that were not necessarily that good for him.
I remember, maybe right before this time, he wrote a
memoir which I don't think he really wrote, and his
Todd Gold to Gold, Yeah, yeah, And I remember going
(25:07):
to a party at Todd's house and yeah that was
Dr Landy was there. I don't know if you remember this.
Brian was supposed to perform again one of those backyard
This was even more stripped down backyard him at a
piano and Brian started. The power went off and Brian
started playing uh ah, Rhapsody in Blue, and Doctor Landy
(25:29):
stood up and started shouting at him, sing the damn words,
you know, And I was like, oh boy, this is
not a this is not.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
A good scene.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
So wait, don you were going to pick a favorite?
Speaker 3 (25:39):
Oh yeah, I would have picked till I died.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
But oh, look at you.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
What I what I've been listening to lately? Well, there's
one I got to play on it. Uh the song
is that, I guess the last album he made, No
pure pressure. We actually some good stuff, real good stuff.
So there's a song called the Last Song. And fuck,
(26:08):
I don't know if I can get through this with
that tear or up. Oh, we didn't know what it was.
I was there with I'm trying to remember who was
playing guitar. I think Greg Lease might have been there.
Jim Keltner was playing drums. I was playing bass, and
we just had chords in front of us and we
were running through it a little bit with him, and
then he started singing it and I realized what the
(26:30):
song was. It was him saying goodbye, fuck And I
looked at Keltner and we both lost our show. It
was just it's such a beautiful song, you know, if
only we could find the time to come back and
(26:50):
play a little more music for you, play for you again.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
When something's that emotional, it's a it's a weird question.
But do you do a lot of takes of a
song like that or does he get it in one?
Speaker 3 (27:06):
Well, thankfully we didn't have to sing it, No, but
I mean him, I wouldn't have been able to get
to it if I had to sing it. But does
he It probably wasn't the final take, you know, but
he was just laying the song. But he knew what
it was, and he'd had the song yeah for a while.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
It was must be so hard to do that song
if you're him, or for anyone doing like a goodbye song.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
Yeah, I think he was concerned with getting it right, well,
the feeling right. But I just I understood that this
was his coda. Yeah, and I was just really honored,
you know that he called me to play bass on it.
You know, he could call it so many better bass players.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Oh, come on, you you deserve it. And you've had
a lot of honors like this. You played with some
of the great It was really touching.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
It was a beautiful moment.
Speaker 7 (27:59):
He said, there was a time was one week. There
was just another chance for me.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
Now once I hadn't got the stones. But ten years
before that, or maybe it's long twenty years before that,
we were making Bridges to Babylon And it's the last
night of the sessions in la and Keith got a
song called how Can I Stop Once I Started, which
is the last song on that album. Yeah, and it
(28:46):
was we just had never gotten around to cutting it,
and we had to cut it that night. Charlie had
a car waiting in the alley outside in the studio
taking the airport. He had like a seven am flight
back to London. Yeah, and we're sitting around playing the
song and a lot of other people played. Keltner again
was playing second drums. I played a bullitzer piano and
(29:06):
we're all in a big circle studio too. It Western,
it's the original name of East West, or it's now
called East Western. It was ocean Way at the time,
ri Cello at the time. And it goes off into
this bit at the end it's supposed to have just
sort of fade out, and then Charlie goes to the
(29:27):
times and it's almost like it breaks into like a
love supreme kind of thing and shorts playing on it,
of sacks, and it just takes off into this whole
other thing that was unintended, and it soars, and I thought,
oh my god, this is the this is the last
song the Rolling Stones are ever going to play. I
just it was such a tough record to make that
(29:49):
I never thought they'd do another.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
I was gonna say, that's famously the one where I
was always told they were in different studios, they weren't
talking to one another.
Speaker 3 (30:21):
It was actually they were talking, you know. And but
there were a couple of studios going in there. There
were Keith songs and mixed songs, and I just thought, wow,
I'm here for when what a code of man? This
the soaring thing at the end, and of course Charlie
was back in a week and we were coming.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
So good. It must be weird when a band is
like a company like that, I mean, like an industrial company. Yeah,
and they all have their own lives. You think of
you know, our our images, the Beatles, they all were
in the same car and they went and did the
gigs all together, and they lived together and they had
(31:01):
fun together or yes, but when you reach this level,
of course, Charlie has a whole other life that he
has to get to, and Mick and Keith, they all
have their own lives. These are older gentlemen now.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
But you know something, Yeah, despite that, the thing you're
describing does exist. It's still it's no different than the
band I was in when I was in sixth grade.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
The band, I mean, the thing, the innocent part that
I'm describing from the beginning of touring around them being buddies.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
Our little exactly what we do and now we've got
history doing it. Yes, and they don't act like a
big money making machine. They are one. They're aware of it,
but that's A that's absolutely not why they do it,
and B that never enters into the actual act of
(31:58):
making music. The Rolling Stones. Their music making when they
play together, it's as pure as kids.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
You described once to me, and once I think was
when you were making Lonesome and Blue with like which
is it's going to be on my list of tracks
I want to ask about. But the album is like
really them going back to their roots and being as
great as ever. But you said something to me which
was exactly like Howie Epstein from the Heartbreakers jammed with
(32:29):
them once as an audition to like when Darryl got
the current job. But he came back to me and
he said the same thing you said to me, which
was they are the most fun band, forget the most
the best band.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
They go.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
They are throwing things to one another, They're they're kidding
one another, they're setting everyone up. It is They're the
biggest blast of a band you could ever play with.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
Everything is jocular and relaxed and fun. And it reminds
me of there might be a term for it. But
in baseball, before the inning starts and they're like six
balls around the infield, what is it warm up?
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Yeah? Right, yeah? But then explain why then they're in
different studios and there must be some friction.
Speaker 3 (33:17):
It was really about having a vision of how they
wanted their songs done, and and they just didn't agree.
Mick was always wanted to make a modern record and
Keith was trying to make a rootsy kind of record.
And they look they're at their best when they do
it together. And then and they and they're so different
(33:40):
that it's like pulling a rubber band. You pull it
so taut that when you let go it really sores. Man.
And that's if there's not some tension in a band,
the band's going to stink. You can be sure of it.
If if I make a record and there's no tension
at all in the making of the record, I start
worrying about this must just be boring because there's nothing
(34:03):
worth fighting for here.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
Nobody's challenging anybody. But I heard an interview with you
where you said that, you know, the producer has to
be this enthusiastic force and not a cheerleader. But give
the artist the confidence to do what they want to do.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
You wanted to feel comfortable about taking a chance, and
it's okay if they fall in their face. Yes, you know,
that's that's to me, It's okay, that's what That's what
we're here for. It's to try a new thing. You
don't do anything great without, you know, putting yourself in
jeopardy a little bit. So that's when the stones are
the best. Misuse a good example of something that was
(34:43):
a modern record. You could play it at Studio fifty four.
You could play it. Sounds great in Paradise garage and
rock and roll fans like that.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
So that's a great example. Was Keith not as excited
about a record.
Speaker 3 (34:58):
Like that he was? He was into He wanted to collaborate.
He understands that it's a conversation, right, and that they're
at their best when they collaborate.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
Because I was going to say, he's got to recognize
what a great groove that is.
Speaker 6 (35:14):
That that's all.
Speaker 3 (35:15):
I never heard him say anything bad about that record.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Yeah, but you also when you say collaboration with Keith,
I wrote liner notes for them. I got to a
little window into the two of them, which I can
talk about if you want. But the thing is what
I do. What you've said that Keith said is because
you've been in the in the studio with him, and
you said he always said incoming, like when he had
an idea, he knew he was the channel of something
(35:41):
and he you know, so there's a collaboration with Mick
and then there's a collaboration.
Speaker 3 (35:45):
Yeah, well you find that with even higher power than Keith.
They find all the great people. And I'm sure it's
not just I know, it's not just limited to music.
I'm sure you both experienced it. Yeah, right, cooking, yeah whatever,
you know, Yeah that, But well here what one time
I asked Bob Dylan, I said, how come you can
(36:06):
write Gates of Eden and I can't? And he said, well,
if it makes you feel any better. I remember moving
the pencil over the paper, but I didn't write it.
It came from somewhere out there. Yeah, I heard him
say stuff like this. Yeah, so I thought at the time,
I thought he would be a nice you know, and
he didn't want to make me feel bad, you know,
like because I'm a better song right. But then I
(36:29):
started noting. Right around a period of time, who's nineteen
eighty nine, ninety, I was getting to work with all
my heroes and they all said the same thing. Brian
Wilson said the same thing. You know. Mc keith will
tell you the same thing. Willie Nelson, Chris Christophers, and
they tell you the same thing. The great songs came through.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
So I mean, it's another way to describe the gift.
If I say something funny spotutaneously, did I think of it? Yeah?
Who put the thought in my head? That's the That's
what they're saying.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
Yeah, well we never know, and that's kind of the
It's both the beauty of being involved in an artistic
pursuit and curse. It's like surfers, man, That's why I
like it too. You can learn how to stay up
on the board and ride and get really good, be
a champion, be the best rider there ever was. But
(37:22):
you don't control the fucking waves. You know you've got
you got to surf the waves that get sent to you.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
But that intuition of knowing how to ride them and
what they're going to do from your experience, that's the art.
Start to feel it. You want to get to the
point I'm guessing as a musician where you're not thinking
about your lessons, you are the music.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
That's that's exactly, that's that's the goal. It takes a
long time to get there.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
When you say the waves just to well finish up
now with Brian Wilson, yeah, my question to you surfs
up for this episode. I got to when he was
making his last record he did with the Beach Boys.
Got they asked me to go into the studio, which
was East West or Cello or whatever it was called
at that point. I'll never forget it because I've been
(38:09):
asked to do a lot of interviewing Brian and it
was always like the highest leverage risk gig in interviewing
in public to interview him. This was not in public,
This was like just the two of us. But at
one point when he pointed to the room where pet
Sounds was made, you know where the tracks were cut
or whatever, and he pointed to a hole in the
(38:32):
wall like indentation, He goes, that's where my dad pushed
my head in. He just like and he started. It
wasn't like crying. He had that matter of fact way
of just saying amazing stuff. Another time, we were doing
a pet soundstock and his British documentary maker guy who
had interviewed everyone for forty years, said I want to
interview you, but I also want to have you there
(38:53):
in case I have to tap out if anything goes crazy,
and of what happened he talked to Brian shut down,
which could happen is I'm sure you might have observed,
so I tapped him. But I guess my question for
you is, did Brian know he was so hard to
read at certain times? The one thing I couldn't tell
was I think he did, maybe at the end, know
(39:15):
how great he was. But do you think he understood
his own genius.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
I think he knew that he made great records that
had an impact. But I found that even the greatest artists,
because of this phenomenon where the spark comes from somewhere else,
the lightning comes from without there's a tremendous amount of
(39:47):
insecurity that comes with it, you know, because people are
expecting you to deliver that all the time. It's like,
it's just like lightning. Man.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
Yeah, I was to deliver lightning. I think that I
was waiting, but the delivery never showed up.
Speaker 3 (40:03):
Yeah, So that's it. You're at the mercy of this
proces delivery, you know. So it's it's it's just the
greatest gift that that you're tuned into these impulses and
that they can travel, so that you can become a
vessel for these things. But it's also a curse because
people think you can do it forever and when you
don't turn on you.
Speaker 2 (40:23):
Well, love and mercy. Let's end this little Brian section
with let's hear a little love and mercy, because what
I the reason you there's a version that was, like,
you know, put out on a solo record, Brian Wilson.
It's very nice, it's produced and all that, but the
version I Love is on I just wasn't made for
these times. It's almost more it's I think it's more
of the sort of like prayer for and I remember
(40:45):
when people would pass away, Brian, at least on social media,
it was always love and mercy and whoever it was
who was passing. So we say love and mercy to
Brian Wilson, and let's hear that version from I just
wasn't made for these times, directed by Don was so.
Speaker 5 (41:02):
You and your friends. I was lying in my room
in the news a lot of people.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
And now we get it to the rest of your
whole life. That's okay, do you mind doing that? I
just thought it was topical.
Speaker 1 (41:28):
I didn't get to Barbara Ann.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
I was trying to say you. Brian didn't write Barbara.
But but he sang it with Dean Torrance. Do you
want to get to it?
Speaker 1 (41:37):
No, there's something funny about it though.
Speaker 3 (41:40):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (41:41):
I married a girl named Monica Haran. Her father was Bob,
and so for years she thought that was the name
of assault.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
And by the way, Phil also chose maybe the one
that everyone would think everyone would choose, which is should
be chosen His Good Vibrations a pretty amazing piece of recording.
Speaker 3 (42:07):
Yeah, I remember, I think, I mean, that.
Speaker 1 (42:10):
Seems innovative, that song, excitation.
Speaker 3 (42:36):
Just everything about it is, including the way he made
it in these little pieces.
Speaker 1 (42:41):
Oh what what's that like?
Speaker 3 (42:43):
He'd go and record forty five seconds of music and
then that would be the session. But he knew it
was going to be the middle part.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
Of it is the genius part, the the low part.
Speaker 3 (42:56):
That seems to me that if you ask Mike Love, yes, yes,
but I like my love. But I got to hang
out with him, that's it. And I always felt bad
for him because he was the front man to this band,
that's his life's work. And then every time he opened
a magazine, it's the genius and the and the four schmucks,
(43:17):
you know, and that's that's that's unfair. And that's a
that's a rough thing to have to live with day
after day after day.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
That people listen to the podcast and they love David
and they think I'm this idiot.
Speaker 7 (43:30):
David.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
Actually, you know, God bless him because I wouldn't meet
you without him. He's one of like musical savant in
that and his knowledge of music is incredible.
Speaker 3 (43:41):
His memory is incredible. I can't remember you.
Speaker 1 (43:44):
I can believe it is amazing. I'm good with the sandwiches. Well,
your kids too, yea, how old do they know?
Speaker 3 (44:03):
Well, moldus forty seven. Wow, on's thirty one.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
And they're in the music business, all.
Speaker 3 (44:10):
Three of them.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
Isn't that great?
Speaker 3 (44:11):
Yeah? Yeah, real great.
Speaker 1 (44:14):
You didn't try to dissuade them.
Speaker 3 (44:16):
No, but I didn't make them do anything, right, I
just kept instruments around. You never made him practice, which
is something I recommend to every parent. Don't make your
kids practice. It's supposed to be the thing that you
escape to to get away.
Speaker 1 (44:30):
I've heard both theories. I've heard musicians tennis players say
they forced me. I hated it, but I guess I'm grateful.
Speaker 2 (44:40):
And then the opposite, Well, you've got.
Speaker 3 (44:42):
To practice eventually, Yes, you gotta get the hook.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
You gotta want to cheek.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
Gotta want to do it. Yeah, but we all want
to when we see our favorite stars on TV play instruments,
we all want to do it. I want to do,
but it's sticking with it.
Speaker 3 (44:57):
To do the work. Yes, this kid, Tony was forty seven.
He was in a drum He was in Eve six.
He's still got Bam with his wife called Dead Posey,
the Still Tour and stuff like that. He when he
was thirteen, he came to me and said, I want
to take drum lessons so that I can program a
drum machine the way a drummer would which was you
(45:20):
had to be that age. Anyone younger would never have Yes,
when they had the machines that work right. Well, I
never heard that before. All right, let's do it. So
he took drum lessons. Never made him practice. He didn't
practice once for about four years. Yes, and then Guns
and Roses put out use your Illusion, and I brought
it the CD hold for him, and that just it
(45:42):
spoke to sixteen year old tone and he started putting
headphones on and sitting there for four hours a night.
You know, you couldn't get him off the drums. He
just kept playing to the record over the careat and
then that's that's when you start taking serious lessons if
you want to if you want to get good at it.
The the people on our label, Blue Note Records, Yeah,
(46:03):
I ask all the artists about this. How much practice
do you do? They practiced between three and six hours
every day.
Speaker 2 (46:10):
Don was Not only are you one of the greatest
producers and musicians of all time, a great documentary director,
you are the only person I can think of who
became a president of a record label, not only a
record label, the greatest jazz label of all time, which
is why we are honoring you by having Jersey Mikes.
Because I grew up. I don't think I've ever told
(46:31):
you this. I grew up. I was bar Mitzfood about
a mile from Rudy Van Gelder's studio Cliffs. Yes, I
was in the corner of the corner of Tenafly and
Englewood and Anglewood Cliffs.
Speaker 3 (46:45):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (46:46):
And so I could walk to Rudy Van gelders And
can you explain how this guy, Rudy Van Gelder made
help make Blue Note the greatest label of all time?
Speaker 3 (46:57):
He was an a pometrist, but Trade and the Blue
Note records that were recorded before somewhere around nineteen sixty
one were recorded at his parents' house in the living
room and they cleared the furniture. They still lived there,
and he made he set up a little control room
(47:17):
in the kitchen and there's a piano in the living room.
Speaker 1 (47:19):
And just because he was a fan.
Speaker 3 (47:21):
Yeah, and I think he charged less than the studios
in New York, but he captured the sound. It's a
really unique sound. Is it's not classic high fi, you know,
it's not like it's not like kind of Blue or
the things that were cut at CBS Day. It's more
(47:43):
like I put it in a league with Chess Records, motown,
you know, like regional people's music, you know, folk in
the sense that it's not industrial, right. And he recorded
the between Blue Note ninety percent of our records that
(48:09):
were recorded in the fifties and the sixties.
Speaker 2 (48:13):
And into the seventies, so between Hack and Sack and
Englewood Cliffs like Coltrane, and.
Speaker 3 (48:19):
Then he did all the Impulse records do so he
did love superb. I went to meet him when I
(48:46):
got the gig at Blue Note. That was I went
over his studio to meet him, and he wasn't well,
and he was notoriously private about his techniques, so he
used to like put tape over or the logo of
the microphone, so no one could tell what microphones he
was using. And he couldn't touch the board. There was
(49:06):
a yellow line that no one could cross in front
of the console. So he and so he was notoriously
a little crabby. And uh so he came down to
meet me. He said, all right, what do you want
to know? And I said, I want to know where
John Coltrane stood when you cut Love Supreme. He said,
(49:26):
he said, right there, same place I put all the
saxophone players. I said, so you're saying like Wayne Short
stood there to do speak note He said, all the
saxophone players were there, the trumpet players were here, the
piano was and he had a methodology he had after
he moved out of his parents' place, he built a
pretty cool room. A student of Frank Lloyd Wright built
(49:48):
this thing where the ceiling was high and the sound
didn't bounce back, so he could get a really cool sound.
Everyone bled into everybody's microphones, so it sounds you can
hear the room. But you hear you hear just the
really harmonic frequencies. Now you don't hear the dissonant reflections.
It's just a great sound of interesting. That's the difference
(50:11):
between a great recording studio. And it's not about what
kind of board they have, because everyone's got the same gear. Basically,
it's the reflection properties at the wall. Yeah, vibe, but
also there's a sonic thing. Yeah, like clap your hand
in here. You hear the reflection, Yes, that paint, that
shape of wall, the shape of room is going to
(50:32):
reflect certain frequencies, right. What you want are the harmonic,
beautiful frequencies to come back, because they're going to get
in the microphone whether you want it or not. So
some rooms just are just creamy and beautiful and others
don't give you ugly harmonics that create a blurry.
Speaker 1 (50:49):
So you're not necessarily looking for a perfectly dead room
when you record, No.
Speaker 3 (50:54):
No one is. You know, you'd have an whatever it's
called an anacoid chamber. You know, no reflection, right, you
got it. Everything's got reflections, so you want the reflection
to be good. My favorite records are records that are
cut where you can hear the room in the room
sounds great.
Speaker 1 (51:12):
Do you have a favorite room?
Speaker 3 (51:14):
I got a few of them. Yeah, Yeah, I just
had a great experience last week. For the first time ever,
I recorded with an orchestra. Patricia Yearwood recorded with a
full like sixty five piece orchestra on the Eastwood stage
at the Corner lot. Yeah. They're just going there. There's
still a throat, man, you know, like the history of
that place, right and the energy of it, because all
(51:37):
the sound stages are jumping, man, and you're pulling you
go in there. It sounds like a movie soundtrack just
by putting by virtue, putting the strings, and there's so
many soundtracks have been cut in this big room that
you recognized the sound of the walls.
Speaker 1 (51:52):
Does it make the orchestra sound bigger?
Speaker 3 (51:54):
It's a rich sound, it's beautiful. The walls are just
and they've tuned the walls.
Speaker 7 (51:59):
You know.
Speaker 3 (51:59):
You you put different materials up and you mess with
it until until you get.
Speaker 2 (52:05):
So someday people will ask where did Phil stand or
sit during this podcast lunch? Yeah, by the way, we
did have We were in Nashville once doing something and
we recorded quickly asked t Bone to uh, you know,
be on the podcast and he produced it so because
he asked us to come to his studio and then
(52:25):
he set the mics and all that and mic Wow,
it had more vibe than anything we've.
Speaker 1 (52:30):
Ever Well he did pick up the guitar a little bit.
Speaker 3 (52:33):
Yes, that also love him. Yeah, he's great. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (52:38):
So I want to run through some of these records
that have changed my life in different ways or your life. Uh,
and then just if we love stories, so if there's
any story behind it. The first thing is really interesting
because I was trying to figure out how we met,
which I'm sure you don't wouldn't remember either, But we've
known each other for I think thirty at least thirty
(52:59):
something years, and it might have been when you were
doing Ringo. Working with Ringo on the Time Takes Time album.
That was one where we had great producers like you,
jeff Lynn, Phil Ramone, Peter Peter Asher. You did one
of my favorite songs of all time, which I love
so much. We did a whole podcast. I don't know
(53:21):
I dragged you into a podcast about this song.
Speaker 3 (53:25):
So tell this.
Speaker 2 (53:26):
We're gonna hear a little of a song called Way
to the World. Uh, and then you tell me what
you remember of working with Ringo, and I believe you
found this song which I love.
Speaker 1 (53:35):
So Here's Way to the World.
Speaker 5 (53:48):
Yeah, I know you, but you got.
Speaker 3 (54:01):
What do you remember? Well? It was written by Dylan
O'Brien Brian Adaherty, who I think is just a wonderful
song writer. We're still good friends. And he got that
song to me. Rango dug it. We went in and
cut it. Kind of remember everybody who played on the session.
(54:23):
I think Mark Goldenberg, Mark Goldenberg played, Ben Mount was
on it. Maybe did Hutch play bass. I'd have to
look at it. But the what I remember is I
asked Ringo if he wanted a chart, you know, do
you want to look at music? While he said no.
Put the lyrics in front of me though, and I
(54:44):
was like, wow, that's that's something you hear drummers say
every day. And then listen to his drumming on like
some Beatles stuff like something. Yes, he's he's playing like
a guitar player. He's put phills in that a guitar.
He's very musical. He's playing the song, he's playing to
(55:05):
the lyric, not counting barers or anything. And that's why
he's such a great drummer, one of the most maybe
the most underrated drummer.
Speaker 1 (55:14):
That's what I would say.
Speaker 3 (55:15):
He's got such a field. When on that very first session,
which was that song, I thought, oh, I get it, man,
you couldn't have the Beatles without his playing, without his feel.
Speaker 2 (55:27):
You actually don't. The funny thing is, I remember Tom Petty,
who you know, you knew when you still deal with
a lot of hardborker. I was around the Heartbreakers when
I moved here, right before I right when I met you,
and he had just like you, got all the Beach
Boys tapes. Later he got all the Beatles tapes from
George I think it was, and he said to me,
he goes listen to them. He goes until Ringo joins.
Speaker 1 (55:49):
It's not the Beatles, right, It just great, so distinct.
It's so distinct his drumming, even for a novice like
me can recognize it.
Speaker 3 (55:58):
But he was.
Speaker 1 (55:59):
He's so dissed in history. So I love that you're
saying that. I think it's great.
Speaker 3 (56:05):
Great. Also, he swings like crazy, it's just and.
Speaker 1 (56:09):
He makes it look effortless.
Speaker 3 (56:11):
That's the other thing.
Speaker 1 (56:12):
He looks tired when he's playing.
Speaker 3 (56:14):
But it's so in a weird way, and so you
think he doesn't know how to play drums. But he's
a great drummer. I've gotten to play with him a lot.
We had we started a band at one point.
Speaker 1 (56:25):
Did you talk to him about like his upbringing and
how is that just a natural ability?
Speaker 3 (56:31):
Is it just people? Are you kind of play like
who you are?
Speaker 1 (56:38):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (56:39):
So if you have a big personality, you play with
a big personality. You can't hide in music like we could.
We could have invited like Charles Manson to this lunch
we have.
Speaker 1 (56:51):
He's always busy.
Speaker 3 (56:57):
Well, for the first ten minutes, you'd go, this is
an interesting cat man. I got a I'm going to
the rollodex in my head. I never met anybody quite
like him, And it might take you ten minutes before
you said, wait, now, there's something seriously off with this cat.
Speaker 1 (57:14):
I always say I was gonna name my book. Everyone's
nice in the meeting.
Speaker 2 (57:20):
Well, by the way, Jolie Manson was a guy pitched
as an artist by the Beach Boys.
Speaker 1 (57:25):
Yeah, you know that, that's right.
Speaker 3 (57:27):
You know it was like it was those those murders
were and are killing. Basically, it's because it's Terry Melcher's
house had to do with him not getting Scientific Club.
Is that true?
Speaker 1 (57:37):
I had no idea.
Speaker 3 (57:38):
Yeah, the Beach Boys, yeah, you see.
Speaker 1 (57:40):
That, And of Hitler had sold one painting.
Speaker 2 (57:44):
Right moving on from Hitler.
Speaker 3 (57:47):
But the point is you can fool people in conversation
for a little while anyway, you can prolong the truth
coming out, but you can't do it at all in music.
If you play music with someone for a minute and
a half, basically know who they are, so we.
Speaker 1 (58:06):
Can have disagreements. Let's say the Rolling Stones. They but musically, yeah,
like when they put when they put that ship away
and they play, they know exactly.
Speaker 3 (58:21):
Any ephemeral animosity or disagreement disappears.
Speaker 1 (58:25):
It's like jazz, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (58:27):
It was very much like jazz. Yeah, I always liken
them to like that Miles Davis group in the sixties
with Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter and Tony Williams and
Ron Carter that the it's about a conversation.
Speaker 1 (58:41):
They know where each other is going and then they
pick up on each other like an improvisation.
Speaker 3 (58:47):
And go and just like a conversation is you know, Yeshurst,
this conversation what you say I have respond.
Speaker 1 (58:53):
To and look how great it's going.
Speaker 5 (58:55):
But this is the kind of.
Speaker 1 (58:58):
It's kind of jew What what is mixed genius?
Speaker 3 (59:05):
Well, there are a number of things. First of all,
he's a great phrasing genius. So he lays the thing that, yeah,
he's got some gift that we've discussed together, but that
we don't we don't understand exactly what it is. But
he's all right. Claudia Schiffer, you say she's photogenic, right,
(59:26):
because you're looking at it the magazine. Yes, she jumps
out and gets right in your face, and you notice
the watch she's wearing, and that's why she's a successful model. Right,
But she's got that quality. She jumps off the page.
Mick Jagger jumps out of the speakers at you. I
think that the speakers is like when they're they're along
(59:48):
the console. I think of that as being the fifty
yard line. Yeah, okay, who can get into my territory?
If you can't, If you're not getting into my territory,
the record sucks, you know.
Speaker 1 (59:58):
So he's the greatest front man of all time. Also physically, yeah,
nobody moves like him. So that's a Jesus special genius.
Speaker 3 (01:00:05):
And he's got a way of making you. You can
be sitting in the Rose Bowl with one hundred thousand
other people. You can be in the back and you
think Mick Jagger's talking right to you. That's that's kind
of true. Yeah, a few people have Bruce Springsteen's got
He's got Peter Gabriel, He's got that. It's a weird quality.
(01:00:26):
And Nick knows he's got it, he doesn't know what
it is, and he's not doing anything in particular to
make that happen, right, And I know some other singers
that have leap out. Garth Brooks when I recorded him, man,
I couldn't believe it. Man, he he jumped out.
Speaker 2 (01:00:43):
I thought you just worked with Chris Gaines, but you
also worked with Garth Brooks.
Speaker 3 (01:00:49):
Yeah, and he jumped out so far it was like
he was behind me. Just so much personality and charisma.
Chrisma's part of it too. So mix got this incredible gift.
If you listen to Tumbling Dice, no one in their
right mind mixes the vocal that low. But it's in
(01:01:11):
the right place because even though he's almost buried, he's
so powerful.
Speaker 2 (01:01:16):
He leaps up right and you lean into him.
Speaker 1 (01:01:18):
Mate jagger Don.
Speaker 2 (01:01:20):
That may have also, if it wasn't Ringo, it might
have been around the time you were producing Voodoo Lounge.
That was the beginning right of the first Stones. And
this track that I want to feature is I again
like I had grown up you met with with some
girls we talked about earlier, and like that was really
where I came into the Stones. But I felt like
(01:01:43):
they found their way back. When the song Love is
Strong on Voodoo Lounge, I just love it and I
always think I believe the video was David Fincher, and
to me it was like if I wasn't already a
Stones fan, it would have I would have fallen in
love with them.
Speaker 1 (01:02:00):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (01:02:00):
So let's hear Love is Strong.
Speaker 1 (01:02:04):
And he was so swe We got to me just
appear a.
Speaker 7 (01:02:14):
Dock the doc.
Speaker 5 (01:02:22):
To swim damn doctre.
Speaker 2 (01:02:28):
So Mick, Uh, he's good. What about this Keith guy?
Because I, I will say, like watching their dynamic. When
I wrote these liner notes for forty licks, it was
hysterical because I don't know to tell me if this
is true to your experience. A Mick called me. Mick
told me what he wanted me to do. Mick negotiated
the fee, uh and not that big a fee, and
(01:02:49):
I had to ask for okay, I want to sign
free tickets and I want to sign it.
Speaker 7 (01:02:53):
You know.
Speaker 2 (01:02:54):
He did all that. Then I wrote the notes, and
then Mick sent them to Keith, who said, there's one
more line on Mick, then there's on me. Give me
another line. And mixed note was take out the one
bit of Yiddish you put in, and also take out
the take out the sentence about me being knighted, because
(01:03:14):
that will break up the band all over again. Is
this all true to your experience of their dynamic.
Speaker 3 (01:03:22):
I don't know him to be an anti Semite outside
of that.
Speaker 2 (01:03:27):
Oh no, he didn't say it. That know, I cast
no aspersion.
Speaker 8 (01:03:33):
He just didn't want attributed to him this. I'll probably
have to cut this whole thing out. But what he
did say was, David, could you cut the place where
you called me call yourself the stone schlepperd because this
is going to over twenty three Arab nations.
Speaker 2 (01:03:47):
That's what I said.
Speaker 3 (01:03:51):
He's he's in ascute marketeer. Yes, I don't know the
Keith was counting the lions. I don't I don't really
believe that. But he it might be metaphorical that he
didn't feel fully represented, and that that's possible, and is he.
Speaker 2 (01:04:07):
I think of him as one of the most pure
musical forces ever of all time, you know, as as
great as the heroes he had. You know, I know
how much he loved Chuck Berry enough to put up
with hail rock and roll all that.
Speaker 3 (01:04:22):
I think if he is, he is all that to us,
everything that people love about him and assigned to him
as a hero. It's true, that's not true. But the
surprising thing is how he's also incredibly well read and
very very fucking smart man.
Speaker 1 (01:04:41):
And still alive, alive and sharp man.
Speaker 3 (01:04:45):
You know that's he's got the quickest He's got a
quick mind. Man, He's he's glib, He's there was a retort,
and and also a really interesting observation.
Speaker 1 (01:05:04):
I just love listening to him talk.
Speaker 2 (01:05:07):
The best interview in music history, because he does not
give a fuck.
Speaker 1 (01:05:11):
He will tell you, like in that the Chuck Burry Doc.
He's so phenomenal in that because he tells you, this
guy's a pain in the ass, but I love him.
Then he tells you warts and all stories. He's just
great and I've loved all his solo stuff too, without
the band.
Speaker 3 (01:05:29):
He's fantastic. He's a heroic, soulful artist.
Speaker 1 (01:05:34):
Have you seen the this old French documentary about making
Sympathy for the Devil? The whole doc is about. It's
on the Criterion channel right now.
Speaker 3 (01:05:46):
Yeah, no, I think I saw it when it was new. Yeah,
it's it's a very.
Speaker 2 (01:05:51):
Activity for the Devil.
Speaker 1 (01:05:53):
You got to see it.
Speaker 2 (01:05:55):
In college. Is a midnight movie, and that is a
it's a weird movie. It is a yeah godard right, yeah,
but you.
Speaker 1 (01:06:03):
Also get an insight into how they build a song. Yeah,
and adding all these layers. It was very different when
they started working on it, and is that how most
of their songs come to be? Just piling on Let's
try this sound, let's try that sound. Let's add these drums,
let's have violins now, let's.
Speaker 3 (01:06:23):
Yes, And they take the time that for Voody Lounge,
we rehearsed in Ireland for almost a month before putting
anything on tape. Tried a number of different ways with it.
And they don't like to beat a song to death.
They know it's about feel more than anything else. So
if we do four or five takes one day and
(01:06:45):
we don't have it. We just put it aside and
go back to it another day. This has done over
a period of time. They're not quick albums to make
their lifestyle albums. You lived that album for a year.
Speaker 2 (01:06:58):
But there's an exception, right, you're some blue.
Speaker 3 (01:07:00):
Didn't you do that?
Speaker 2 (01:07:01):
I remember you were so happy. I think we were
doing some Grammy PBS show or something and you were
in the middle of that, or you had just done that.
You said like it was the best thing ever?
Speaker 3 (01:07:11):
Was three was? Well, it was really cool. It was
It wasn't meant it was an unintentional album. We were
making a regular studio album with original songs and had
hit some kind of brick wall I can't remember what
it was, and Keith just wanted to cleanse the musical palette,
so he said, let's let's play Blue and Lonesome, which
is this great old Little Walter song that they used
(01:07:34):
to play and when they were just starting and thankfully
the engineer Chris Sharma hit record and it was like, whoa, man,
that's the rolling wow. Wow, you know what a Because
it's not a it's not a karaoke version of the
blues that they do. They reinterpreted the blues and added
(01:07:55):
a British thing to it, so they play it differently
than than anyone else does. But they that's how you know.
I heard Spider and the Fly. That's the first blues
I remember hearing in my life, and I thought they
invented the blues. Although they were, they were actually very
generous about giving.
Speaker 2 (01:08:15):
Credit, unlike another big British band of that era. I
could name what I want, but they did give credit.
Speaker 1 (01:08:22):
No, yeah, a lot of people don't give Well, it's
the famous diss that they were just a blues cover
band and that's not fair.
Speaker 3 (01:08:28):
No, it's not.
Speaker 1 (01:08:29):
But it is a fact that it's in them.
Speaker 3 (01:08:33):
Yeah, it's in them, and they and they brought something
new to it. They interpret it their way and it's
a really cool way.
Speaker 2 (01:08:39):
But didn't they meet on a train like uh yeah,
looking at each other's albums or I guess whatever, I
guess who had someone had a Muddy Waters record or something,
and it's like, I think, of there's still th that's
why they're still together. There's still those two guys who
have that common ground whatever else.
Speaker 3 (01:08:57):
Yeah, that's there's a lot of common ground there, you know,
not to mention the history. You know, you don't get
to there's not enough time to do that twice in
your life, to put a band together like that, and
and to evolve and to know intuitively where the other
person's going to go before they go there, and be
(01:09:19):
there to meet them like that.
Speaker 2 (01:09:21):
And I came in in the eighties. You I think
saw them a little earlier, maybe in Detroit. I saw
them in the I don't know when you first saw them.
Speaker 3 (01:09:27):
I saw them.
Speaker 1 (01:09:28):
I saw them in the eighties.
Speaker 2 (01:09:29):
Yeah, eighties. And they were a better band when I
saw them at so far, you know, a few months
ago than they were.
Speaker 3 (01:09:36):
In the eighties.
Speaker 1 (01:09:36):
It is incredible. Do you think there's more in them?
You think they're going to keep recording.
Speaker 3 (01:09:41):
I think yeah, they're making a new record now. I'm
sure they'll played till they drop. And it's and it's
just simply because that's what they do, you know, That's
who they are. That's what they do. It's got nothing
when people say don't they have enough money? Yet? They
got to come back for the money. You think Bob
(01:10:01):
Weirr was playing in San Francisco last week for the
money with you? No, But.
Speaker 2 (01:10:09):
If he's played with me.
Speaker 1 (01:10:10):
He's definitely not being called dinosaurs for forty years already.
Speaker 3 (01:10:14):
Yeah. No musicians play, that's that's what you do.
Speaker 2 (01:10:18):
Yeah, Ringo says, I'm a drummer. If I don't drum,
that's when I get in trouble.
Speaker 3 (01:10:23):
Exactly right. Yeah, that's absolutely true, even just on a tour. Man.
We're booking a tour now and Larry Shenkins, my manager,
saying you sure you want five shows in a row,
I said, give me seven. You book them every day,
the bad days of the days when you don't play,
you know, that's yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:10:43):
One thing you recorded one. We'll move on from the
Stones in transition to Bob Dylan with you did a
record which I love called Strip the live sort of
intimate Stones records, the best live record. That's my favorite
of all you got. Was it your idea of having
to do like a Rolling Stone by Bob Dylan.
Speaker 3 (01:11:01):
Or no, I don't remember. Probably not.
Speaker 1 (01:11:03):
I don't think about that like I do.
Speaker 3 (01:11:05):
I lost. It was great and it was just it
was just like one take. It was kind of screwing around,
you know, and uh, and well it was a live album,
but I mean just I remember in the rehearsal where
it came up, because that's another one we rehearsed for
a month to get to the point where we could
play them. It was meant to be an Unplugged, but
for whatever reason, Unplugged was like a brand name that
(01:11:27):
was owned by MTV and they didn't want to so
they called it a strip. But that was that was
their version of it, and there was a TV show
that went with it, and uh yeah, I just remember
it's just kind of for fun. They started playing it
in the rehearsal and it's like, well, this is really cool.
Speaker 2 (01:11:49):
There's something very meta about it, like it's a okay
(01:12:20):
now Dylan, having been around him again, my hero named
a son after him. All that the most interesting, maybe
the most interesting mind I've ever been around, But that
producing him. I want to hear my one of my
favorite songs he ever did is on the record you
produced Born in Time. So let's hear a little Born in.
Speaker 5 (01:12:41):
Time arising with a wave of reach just never.
Speaker 7 (01:12:50):
You get in the.
Speaker 5 (01:12:55):
Well Born Time.
Speaker 2 (01:13:00):
Under the red sky? What was that experience? Like? I
think it was like in that reaction action thing that
happens in music and science and life. It's like I
got the feeling that Bob had just sort of had
a very sort of well reviewed record, and I think
he had the desire to fuck with it a little
(01:13:23):
bit and do something else.
Speaker 3 (01:13:27):
I just I think he might have just been a
little overextended at that period of time because he was
making the Wilbury's album at the same time, so he
was going up to Jeff Lynn's house or whatever and
then coming back, and so his attention was divided a
little bit. But I don't think he went into it
(01:13:50):
haphazardly or with a desire to sabotage it. It's just
I also think that I wasn't ready for I could
have used a few more years of producing under my belt,
because I feel like I made a mistake in there.
(01:14:16):
He was trying to If you listen to it, you
can kind of hear it as it foreshadows his next
musical stage. You can hear the change in his voice
and just how he's approaching certain things. And he was
he was hearing something in his head, and instead of
nurturing chasing the vision of what he was going for,
(01:14:39):
I was trying to throw him back into what he'd
already done. I want, I want to make a retro
ish Stylon record, which is the dumbest fucking thing you
can do. And I just chart that up to my
own inexperience. There's a there's a moment that I'll never forget. Man,
on the very first session, did the assistant engineer shouldn't
(01:15:02):
have done this, but he did. He ran that's of everything,
so all the conversation in between, and he gave it
to me. So I was driving home from the first
session and I got to a point where Bob was
sitting at a piano telling me something that he wanted
to do, and I told him why it wasn't going
(01:15:22):
to work before we did it. And I pulled the
car where I want I want to throw up. I thought, Man,
all your life, you just want to make music with
this guy. This is your hero. He's telling you he's
got an idea, and you told him, you overruled him
before he even tried it. Well, I've tried never to
(01:15:47):
make that mistake again, and I'll go down a manhole
for two weeks with somebody.
Speaker 1 (01:15:51):
If you know a lot of people, they don't realize
that they made the mistake. To the fact that you
owned it and you learn from it. Oh yeah, that's
what makes us grow.
Speaker 2 (01:16:03):
And I love stuff on that record. Born in the
Time is one of my favorites.
Speaker 3 (01:16:08):
It was a great song. I didn't fully get it
when we were doing it, Born in Time, in time
for what that was? Like? What is a wordplay? But
we cut it. I didn't fully get it though, And
then about I don't know, maybe ten years later, eight
years later, I don't know. I did some mushrooms and
(01:16:28):
put it out. Oh, I get it. Born into a
world of time, the world where there's time, because there's
only time here. Time doesn't really apply across the universe
in the same way. Right, we're the one. I get it. Man,
(01:16:48):
he's talking about being born into this life.
Speaker 7 (01:16:51):
And I.
Speaker 3 (01:16:55):
Guess I must have sent him a note. It was
probably still mailed. I don't think I emailed him that,
you know, I sent it through somebody. It got to him,
and the day he got and called me at seven
in the morning and we talked for a couple hours
about it, and he recommended some other books to read
along those lines and everything. And but that's that's just
(01:17:20):
how it is with great artists like that. Sometimes it
takes a minute for you to catch up to him.
Speaker 2 (01:17:24):
I had the experience which I won't go into have
told I've talked about it, but I had. He wanted
me to write a treatment for something, and I had
the experience of I did not understand what he said
till so much later, because that's his mind does not take.
He takes leaps that mere humans cannot.
Speaker 1 (01:17:42):
That's how I feel about Kubrick movies. Sometimes you see
him the first time, you're like, I'm not sure. I
know there's something there, but I'm not getting it. And
then second time you see it, third time you see it,
you're like, oh, best movie ever made exactly.
Speaker 9 (01:17:59):
That's just part one of our amazing conversation with the
Great Don was. Look forward to part two, with Don
discussing his soulful collaborations with the Great Bonnie Rait, building
a love shack with the B fifty twos, his band
Was Not Was, and something.
Speaker 1 (01:18:12):
New and amazing.
Speaker 9 (01:18:14):
Naked Lunch is a podcast by Phil Rosenthal and David Wilde.
Theme song and music by Brad Paisley, produced by Will
Sterling and Ryan Tillotson, with video editing by Daniel Ferrara
and motion graphics by Ali Ahmed. Executive produced by Phil Rosenthal,
David Wilde, and our consulting journalist is Pamela Chella. If
you enjoyed the show, share it with a friend. But
if you can't take my word for it, take Phil's and.
Speaker 1 (01:18:36):
Don't forget to leave a good rating and review. We
like five stars.
Speaker 9 (01:18:39):
You know, thanks for listening to Naked Lunch, a Lucky
Bastard's production.
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