Shaun Cassidy - A Great Lunch Reheated & Refreshed With A Tasty New Interview! - Naked Lunch

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Phil for our very first naked Lunch reheated and refreshed.
Were welcoming back the Great Shaun casting.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Does he need reheating?

Speaker 1 (00:12):
We'll see. Let's find out. All right, let's check back
in with Sean.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
I do prefer him warm, exactly.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
We'll see how long this episode do you want runs?

Speaker 3 (00:21):
Oh, that's terrible.

Speaker 4 (00:32):
Let's build the beans to the fat, food for thought,
jokes on tap, talking with our mouthsful, having fun, Peace
of Cake and humble Pie, serving.

Speaker 5 (00:46):
Up Slaze Live.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
Leave the dressing on the side.

Speaker 4 (00:50):
It's naked lunch.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
Clothing optional.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
Oh my god, Sean, Oh hello, hello Jeds, don't see
you again.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
We're so excited to see you. Thank you for joining us.

Speaker 6 (01:05):
Happy to be here.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
You are our carre with you exactly. Well, we have
to say that this is a new thing. This is
going to be called Seawan Cassidy Naked Lunch, reheated and refreshed.
This is a new thing where we're taking our favorite
episodes of all time. You're first in this effort and
we're refreshing with updated news. So this is also new

(01:27):
because last time we were literally can you tell the
story of how you did a long distance naked lunch.

Speaker 7 (01:34):
Yes, as soon as I get out of the microwave,
reheated and refreshed. I had an adventure talking to you
gentlemen the last time because I.

Speaker 6 (01:45):
Live far away.

Speaker 7 (01:46):
I live in Santa Barbara, and I was driving down
to spend the time with you in the living room there.
Phil and I got caught in traffic and the traffic
was really bad, so called in it's only gonna be late.
I said, just we'll do it from the car, so
he did.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
And it turned out well.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
But then you made it.

Speaker 6 (02:04):
I made it in person.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
And by the way, when you hear the episode, you'll
hear Phil was saying, don't bother, and I, a Sean
Cassidy fan since middle school, was like, oh no, I
need Sean and film together. We need to and so
we appreciated that. I think that was like you did
a Springsteen concert, long drive to get here, and I

(02:26):
presumably eventually drove back.

Speaker 7 (02:29):
In the theory, yes, I did. May have taken a while,
but it was it was worth the trip. And here
we are again. Very very kind of you to ask
me to join you. I'm going to miss having lunch
with you, but it's cheap.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
You're always welcome for lunch. I want to talk about
your tour. This is your biggest tour yet coming up.

Speaker 7 (02:50):
It is weirdly because I never back in the day
when I was a kid touring, I was working on
the Hardy Boys, so I couldn't go out for any
real long stretch.

Speaker 6 (03:00):
I would do weekends and then in the summer.

Speaker 7 (03:03):
I might go out for a couple of weeks when
I was often recording during the summer, so I didn't
really get the chance to do a real traditional tour tour.
And in the last few years, much like you, Phil,
I dipped my toe in the water again and went
out and started seeing if anybody would show up, and
lo and behold they did. And I was doing that sporadically,

(03:23):
and finally my agent said, look, do you really want
to do this, commit to it and give me like
a year's advance notice and I'll put together a real
like North American fifty city tour. WHOA, you can do
it your leisure. And so I'm going out for like
two weeks a month for six months, and I'm really
looking forward to it, and yes, I'm in training to

(03:46):
do it.

Speaker 2 (03:46):
Are you and are you going to every state?

Speaker 7 (03:48):
Fifty cities, pretty close to every state, and we haven't
announced it yet, but I think we're going to Canada
as well.

Speaker 1 (03:55):
They might send a whole different country, Sean. I don't
know if you've heard.

Speaker 2 (03:58):
No, we're going to buy it.

Speaker 1 (04:00):
They said, you've got a receipt.

Speaker 6 (04:02):
We'll see how long that lasts. Yeah, No, I'm really
look forward to going there.

Speaker 7 (04:06):
I played Toronto and Vancouver back in the day, and
I love Canada, so he too.

Speaker 1 (04:12):
Well, let me tell people just the tour starts September
thirteenth at the Grand All Doppry. That is a grand
place to start, and I know I'm imagining I will
be there a few days before. I don't know if
I can hang in. I'm doing something with John Fogerty
on the ninth, but I don't know if you're there.
You're not rehearsing there, are you.

Speaker 7 (04:33):
No, we're just flying in the day before, but we're
gonna be there for a few days after. And if
you're around, I think Carrie Underwood's on the bill with
us that night, So it's going to be a big
beause it's not bad.

Speaker 1 (04:45):
So let me just tell you that Sean will be
hitting right after that at in Waterville, Maine, Beverly, Massachusetts, Glenside, Pennsylvania, Seneca,
New York, Niagara Falls, Verona, New York, and then going
on to everywhere really for the rest of the year.
So I will be there and I'm going to try

(05:06):
to drag Fill with me. I can't. I cannot wait.

Speaker 7 (05:08):
Well, we're going to be around La certainly southern California.
There are some dates, probably like fifteen more dates that
are going to be added. Wow, I'm doing something that's
kind of interesting before any of this. I'm doing a
Q and A at the Grammy Museum on September fourth, ah,
which I think is invited to Grammy members, but then
I think it's open to the public. It's a small theater,

(05:29):
the Clyde Davis Theater, doing a Q and A and
playing a couple of new songs at the piano, just
like a little sort of breaking in evening.

Speaker 6 (05:36):
But I'm looking forward to that too.

Speaker 1 (05:38):
Nice and the show will be like more, it's not
just a concert now, it is you telling stories of
your Is it fair to say it's a very family
oriented literally in terms of the storytelling of it.

Speaker 6 (05:53):
Yes, it's what the big penny dropping for me.

Speaker 7 (05:58):
That actually helped me to commit to doing this again,
because I had a lot of trepidation. I didn't do
it for forty years. I mean, I stopped in nineteen
eighty at the Astrodome and I said, called the Astrodome,
it's a little place in Houston used to be in business.

Speaker 6 (06:16):
And I didn't know I'd be done with it then.

Speaker 7 (06:17):
But I started writing and my television career kind of
took off, and I liked staying home.

Speaker 6 (06:22):
I preferred the life it offered me.

Speaker 7 (06:23):
It was something closer to whatever a normal life is,
which is not a life I came from, nor a
life I was trained for.

Speaker 6 (06:30):
But I was grateful for it, and I was grateful
I was able to do.

Speaker 7 (06:33):
It, and I didn't think I'd ever get on a
stage and sing again, with the exception of a Broadway
show I did with David for over a year and
a half and that was great. But again even that
was sort of like a sidebar thing because I've had
a television show on almost every year since like nineteen
ninety four, and I'm working on three new ones right

(06:53):
now and that still is my day job.

Speaker 6 (06:56):
But something happened with me. I figured, oh, I can.

Speaker 7 (07:01):
Actually tell stories that feels authentic to the job I
have now. It's not somebody trying to replicate a success
they had when they were a kid. And I found
a way to organically blend the songs, the hit songs
and new songs and old songs and family songs into
a narrative that felt like something new and something I

(07:23):
could be excited about now. And that worked, So I
wrote a new one. This is a new show, news stories,
new stuff. Yes about my family, Yes about me, Yes
about the life I had, about the life I've had,
about the life we all collectively are having now. And
the show's called The Road to Us for a reason,
because I actually think if there's any purpose behind this,

(07:43):
it's about getting people out from behind a computer or
a telephone, or out out of their living room and
into a room of other people, greater communion of people
to share an experience, getting them into the movie theater,
getting them into the theater theater, getting them into or
a synagogue, anywhere people might gather. And if you can
be a conduit for that as an artist, I think

(08:07):
it's our responsibility to do it.

Speaker 1 (08:08):
By the way, I believe Sean Cassidy being there might
be the only way to get filled to a synagogue.

Speaker 2 (08:13):
He but you know you, that's exactly why I tour
as well, very different show. You won't see any talent
in my show.

Speaker 6 (08:23):
Oh that's not true.

Speaker 2 (08:24):
But to go and connect with living, breathing people in
today's world is so important, I find, and it's so
nice for everyone, not just us the people on stage,
but for the people in the theater just enjoying a

(08:45):
laugh or a song in your case, or a story.
It's so essential right now to connect with the everyone's humanity.

Speaker 6 (08:54):
I so agree, Phil, And that literally is the secret
sauce as to why I'm doing that.

Speaker 7 (09:00):
Yes, great, And I felt stupid frankly because that part
of it was eluding me before I had done it again.
It was like I'm just going to go out and
sing songs and like, wait a second, these people are
having an experience independent of.

Speaker 2 (09:13):
Me, right, That is just the fact that they're together.

Speaker 7 (09:17):
Right, And those opportunities seem to be fewer and further
between now.

Speaker 6 (09:22):
So I totally feel that way, that's one job AI
is not going to.

Speaker 2 (09:27):
Take, yes, you know, yes, until it does.

Speaker 7 (09:31):
By the un well, if I can send an animatronic
version of me out on the road, right?

Speaker 1 (09:38):
Do you how much are you aware of some of
the people who show up for you every time you're there.
I fell into your fan base. We fell into your
fan base a little with there's at least one representative
of the Sean Squad whatever. Are you aware of the
podcast just.

Speaker 6 (09:53):
About you and heard about it?

Speaker 1 (09:56):
Yes?

Speaker 7 (09:56):
I can't imagine they have more information than one podcast
to deal with, but yes, I've heard, and I'm flattered
that they do that.

Speaker 6 (10:02):
It's really sweet.

Speaker 1 (10:03):
Yeah, these so do you have a you know again,
these people who've kept this flame burning when you let
the flame sort of, you know, be on the verge
of dying out, are you impressed with that? They're still there?
And obviously there's new fans, but there are some of
those original fans.

Speaker 7 (10:22):
I would say half the audience are people that were
at my concerts when.

Speaker 6 (10:25):
They were young.

Speaker 3 (10:26):
Wow.

Speaker 7 (10:26):
The other half are mostly husbands who've been dragged along
often reluctantly. My favorite audience member because I really secret
as I do the show for them, because you know,
if I can make them laugh and make them leave going, hey, guys,
not so bad.

Speaker 6 (10:42):
I don't think I want to beat him up. Anymore.
That's that's a big win.

Speaker 2 (10:47):
I'm still waiting for that breakthrough in my life.

Speaker 6 (10:52):
And a lot of you know, the kids who aren't
kids come now.

Speaker 7 (10:55):
There's a lot of people in the twenties and thirties
and and it's you.

Speaker 6 (11:00):
I don't know why.

Speaker 7 (11:00):
It's like a novelty or they've heard about me, or
I'm from a different magical time. They want to connect
with the seventies or whatever it is. But I really
do think they because they tell me it's come for
the dedur on run and leave for the stories.

Speaker 6 (11:16):
And they laugh a lot too.

Speaker 7 (11:19):
There's some funny in there and not feel funny, but
close you know, nothing's fil funny.

Speaker 1 (11:26):
We can I your mom, I believe turned ninety one
earlier this year. Can I ask what do you find
most inspiring about her? Because when I think about like,
you look ridiculously young, handsome, you're still you're still youthful.
But when I think about like the lifers in show

(11:46):
business and with the like, I am not inspired by
rock stars who die at twenty seven. I am now
at this point more inspired by like great great stars
like your mother, who ninety one still going. How does
she inspire you?

Speaker 6 (12:05):
She has.

Speaker 7 (12:08):
A ton of humanity and she's always had it. She
treats people well. You know, she was a great model
because I grew up around a lot of people in
show business, and not all of them were people you
wanted to model character wise, but she certainly was. She
is kind of who you think she is, and there's
a reason people love her so much. You know, It's

(12:29):
funny like when I'll be promoting something in social media,
I'll put a picture of me or my brothers or
kids or whatever. When I put a picture of my mother,
it's like I've posted the statue of Liberty.

Speaker 6 (12:41):
They are literal, like yeah, they just adore her.

Speaker 7 (12:45):
And so many people feel like she was their mother
because of the Partridge family or many many Broadway performers
first like aungree knew they watched in Oklahoma or carousela
The Music Man or whatever inspiration to get into musical theater.
And you know, my mother won an Academy Award when
she was twenty six, and she has been the same person,

(13:07):
small town girl from western Pennsylvania through that and beyond.
And it's her speech tells it all. If you could
go on YouTube and watch her acceptance speech, for the Oscar.

Speaker 6 (13:19):
She says, this has been the proudest moment of my career.

Speaker 8 (13:23):
Pointedly says career, because it's not the proudest moment of
her life by any measure.

Speaker 6 (13:29):
That's every perspective tells you all about who she is.

Speaker 1 (13:32):
You know, It's funny we have a this will not
air for a little bit after you, but we're about
to have a Oscar winner who probably wanted the same
age coming in for our next lunch. Bree Lars and
I just think, like, to be able to reach that
level in your twenties, what a remarkable thing. If you

(13:53):
can handle it. I couldn't handle it now, and I
am no angenou Well.

Speaker 7 (13:57):
I know a lot of people who've won Academy Awards,
and the healthy ones sort of just put it on
the list of that's nice. The less healthy ones often
go into a depression because they've been so focused on
that being sort of the healing medicine for whatever thing
they had with a whole and their daddy didn't love me, heart,
and they did the thing, and it's oh, I'm still

(14:17):
the same person with the same stuff the next day,
and now what you.

Speaker 2 (14:21):
Know, the next day that's it's a day after right,
you win an award, and to me, it's like a
memory of a nice evening.

Speaker 6 (14:30):
Good. That's it as it should be, and.

Speaker 9 (14:33):
A commemorative you know, take away from a.

Speaker 7 (14:36):
Nice experience hopefully whatever the show, the movie, or the thing,
but it's really not the thing.

Speaker 6 (14:42):
It's the work is the.

Speaker 2 (14:43):
Thing, absolutely, and the next thing that you want and
the next thing, yes.

Speaker 1 (14:48):
And to prove that, I was like, I think I
told you this, Sean that last night I was so
excited We're going to have to catch up with you,
and I was really excited to hear you have new songs.
Apparently you've written twenty new songs. I don't. I don't
think you have any recorded that we can put in
this episode, but I.

Speaker 6 (15:03):
Yeah, but I'm working on it, all right. I cannot wait.

Speaker 1 (15:06):
But I was just going to say that as opposed
to awards and I write, I've spent a lot on
my life writing award shows, the songs, the music, the
work is forever and is important because like here I was,
all these years later, I put on Room Service, your
Room Service album on headphones. My wife is sleeping and
I woke her up singing along to time for a change,

(15:27):
which I think you wrote, like how many years ago
would that have been? So it's like the work is
the work does matter years many years later.

Speaker 6 (15:37):
I hope.

Speaker 8 (15:37):
So.

Speaker 7 (15:38):
I mean, I you know, I I love to write.
I love to make things. I just like to get
up and make something. And it may be a song,
it may be a script, it may be.

Speaker 6 (15:49):
You know, the garden or a house building or whatever.

Speaker 9 (15:52):
It is.

Speaker 7 (15:53):
Just creating stuff just makes me feel the most alive
and productive. And I'm finding surprisingly, maybe at the stage
and maybe it's a level of fearlessness that comes with
age or experience, but I just want to do everything
now because I don't think there's any downside, and I
do find work breeds work no matter what you're doing.

(16:14):
I mean again, I have like three pilots I'm involved
with right now. And when I started touring three four
years ago, I was full time on a show called
New Amsterdam, and I was concerned, how.

Speaker 6 (16:25):
Am I going to do that and do this?

Speaker 7 (16:26):
Well, I'm writing in a hotel room all day and
then going to a sound check and doing a show,
and it was great. I didn't feel overburdened or overly
stressed about it. I actually felt that one was feeding
the other, you know, and if I stopped doing it,
it's like stopping.

Speaker 8 (16:42):
Working out or something. You have to sort of relearn
how to do it again. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (16:46):
I want to stay active. That's that's my thing too.
I just feel like, what am I going to do?
Sit around the house. It's nice house, but let's go,
let's do stuff.

Speaker 7 (16:57):
When I got married for my third and final time
over twenty years ago, happily, I'm very fortunate, and my
wife said, would you have any more children?

Speaker 6 (17:08):
And I already had three? And I said, well, I
might have one. We have four more.

Speaker 7 (17:11):
By the way, I for the first time in my life,
I went to a therapist and I said, am I
crazy getting married again with the woman who wants more kids?
I mean I could be like in my sixties and
have teenagers at home.

Speaker 6 (17:27):
And he said, what are you going to do? Play golf?

Speaker 7 (17:30):
Yeah, that's literally what he said. If I loved golf,
maybe I'd say, yeah, why not?

Speaker 2 (17:36):
You know what, A lot of guys that's the path
they choose, that's what they want to do.

Speaker 6 (17:39):
But that's fine, everyone's totally fine. But it was what
better thing could you be doing?

Speaker 2 (17:46):
Exactly?

Speaker 8 (17:46):
And raising good human beings when you actually have some
experience and hopefully wisdom to share with them, you know.

Speaker 1 (17:53):
And I have to say your way of touring and
doing all things at once. I did read something I
think it might have been Billboard article about your tour
that was really wonderful little piece about what you're doing,
and I recommend people read that. We will link to
it maybe in the show notes. But the thing you
said something about made me think, I think Phil is
rubbing off on you because you talk about building a

(18:15):
little time in for in this touring style to have sight,
see a little eat well, you know, go to get
some good meals. Is that now as you look towards
touring this you know, these at least fifty days and more,
do you have a little thought about, ooh, maybe I
have time to see this or have a nice meal there.

Speaker 7 (18:35):
Absolutely, because it all has to be life enhancing, that's it.
You can't just be about the work on the day,
the ninety minutes or whatever it is. It needs to
be about the whole experience. For example, and this is
not a bass players who I love and I know
some extraordinary bass players, but I couldn't find a bass
player lived in my zip code, who was available to

(18:58):
rehearse on a dime, who I wanted to spend hours
of the day in a car with. So I'm playing
the bass on this and I had never played the
bass before. But I played guitar, and I certainly played
a piano, and I had like four or five months
and my songs it's not like I'm playing jazz. I
can play in the pocket with the drummer, and I

(19:21):
tend to play very rhythmically anyway. I break a lot
of guitar strings because I play percussively on a guitar.

Speaker 8 (19:27):
So I discovered the bass. It's like, well, this is
the instrument I should have been playing all along. But
I did it again, like oh, here's a new thing
I can learn, and I have a good reason to
learn it. And it's one of those things like you
opened this door, and it's like, oh, you can open
other doors. And sadly, most young people are afraid of
that because they feel like they have to pick one

(19:48):
lane and commit it to it. But if you're a
creative person, you're a creative person. You can do a
lot of stuff. But the business or the society.

Speaker 7 (19:58):
Or whatever says you have to declare I'm a this,
which is so limiting all the time. I mean, fill,
you're a great example. Look what you're doing all of
your stuff with food, I'm sure is not a road
you thought you'd go down when you started.

Speaker 1 (20:10):
Out, of course not.

Speaker 2 (20:13):
Yeah, no, But to me, it's just the way in
to get to people, to travel and to meet other
people from other cultures. That's the main thing. But I
love that you're going to take time on your tour
and it's not just you know, plane car venue hotel,
playing car venue hotel. It can't be that or that's
how people really.

Speaker 6 (20:33):
Burn out and we'll never want to do it again. Yeah,
it's miserable. I won't do it again.

Speaker 7 (20:38):
Yeah, I think because I haven't done it for so
long A I can still sing. I never because I
didn't have forty years of blowing my voice out.

Speaker 6 (20:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (20:46):
Now the songs I'm singing I don't hate because I'm
not sick of them after singing them for forty years. Yes,
And the tour is designed to go out two weeks
a month, so I'm home right the other two weeks
with family, and the two weeks I am out. It's
like we'll do three or four show that have three
or four days off to hike the Appalachian Trail or
whatever we do.

Speaker 2 (21:05):
That is so great and do three or more. Yeah, yeah,
it's it's so important too because it also recharges you
for every show for sure, So it's all essential. And
we're not doing it just for the money. It can't
be for the money.

Speaker 6 (21:21):
It has to be for Are they not reading you
two million of shows?

Speaker 2 (21:26):
They're really not?

Speaker 6 (21:27):
Oh me either, don't worry.

Speaker 8 (21:31):
No, it's I can't, no, not remotely. I can make
more money staying home writing scripts.

Speaker 2 (21:36):
It's it's for the experience. For the travel itself is
its own.

Speaker 6 (21:40):
Reward, and the connection with the people where we started.

Speaker 7 (21:42):
It's just it's like it's magic, and it's hard to
describe really, but it's really important.

Speaker 2 (21:51):
Are you going to any places you've never been?

Speaker 6 (21:55):
I think there are towns I've never been to that
I'm looking to.

Speaker 1 (22:00):
H he is going to some great towns, Houston, where
my nephew is from. Who's sitting listening, Dallas, Austin. But
also yeah, some places Clearwater, Florida, Orlando, mun Hall, Pennsylvania.

Speaker 7 (22:14):
Mun Hall is Pittsburgh adjacent and I have one there.
My mother's from that area.

Speaker 2 (22:19):
I think it's, you know, because a fun city. I
really think that the food's really good too. You're gonna
be yeah, right, here's.

Speaker 1 (22:27):
The one I've never heard of. Ship she wanted to Indiana.

Speaker 7 (22:31):
Oh that's my son, our youngest son is going to
uh India Indiana University.

Speaker 6 (22:38):
Is gonna be a Hoosier.

Speaker 1 (22:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (22:39):
My brother went, oh really, yeah, Oh I can't wait. Well,
I did a show many many turned out really stupid. Though, Oh, well.

Speaker 2 (22:47):
He'll be careful.

Speaker 6 (22:48):
I'll try and up that game with Rowan.

Speaker 7 (22:52):
When I was a kid, I did a show based
on the movie Breaking Away, a short lived serial.

Speaker 6 (22:55):
Yeah, and I played that kid.

Speaker 7 (22:57):
On the bicycle and Italian and that was all blooming
And yes, that town and Shipshawana is sort of Bloomington adjacent.

Speaker 6 (23:04):
And I think we're playing. I think we're staying in Bloomington.

Speaker 1 (23:08):
And when you were filming Breaking Away, you threw a
guitar to a young child and it was John Mellencamp
who picked it up and took I don't know if
that it's not true. It's a lot of bullshit. But
here's what's not bullshit. Sean Cassidy, The Road to us tour.
Everyone should We'll put in the link to the website
so you can get all the dates. But also like
it's very appropriate because you took the road to us

(23:29):
on the podcast people, and now are about to hear
the full podcast. You were literally on the road to
us and then you got to us through the guard
at the gate. Yes, well, Sean, thank you. We are
going to now talk to an Oscar winner who is
not your mother, but we are so happy and appreciative
of you doing the show with the first time and
now and now this time, yes, now, this time.

Speaker 2 (23:51):
Have a great time, Sean. We'll see on the other
side of your tour.

Speaker 1 (23:54):
I hope.

Speaker 7 (23:54):
Thank you, Phil, and tell your next guest I'm a
big fan.

Speaker 6 (23:57):
Of her work.

Speaker 1 (23:59):
Great, we will thank you, Thank you soon.

Speaker 9 (24:01):
Bye, guys.

Speaker 2 (24:19):
Well six six I know what who wanted to do?
How about a guitar?

Speaker 3 (24:28):
I got to be there, that's talking.

Speaker 10 (24:33):
Our lead part is Nadia BOMs spend money guitar.

Speaker 2 (24:42):
Everybody. Welcome to a very special La Traffic edition of
Naked Lunch with our special guest Seawan Cassidy. Who's stuck?
What did you say? There was an accident on the
on which highway.

Speaker 8 (24:55):
The one F four, which is the highway from I
mean as Valley to Santa Barbara. Yeah, and they this
happens often. They have a combo of either accident or construction.
So it's tough to gauge. But grateful to talk to
you guys now, and I look forward to seeing you

(25:16):
in person soon. I am at the mercy of the
venture of freeway.

Speaker 9 (25:20):
Now though by the.

Speaker 2 (25:21):
Way you're gonna come, and you're gonna be here for
like ten minutes, you may as well.

Speaker 1 (25:26):
No, no, no, I need to I need to get
the promo of you guys standing together.

Speaker 2 (25:31):
But poor Sean has like an hour and I and
I still want my lunch.

Speaker 1 (25:35):
Yes exactly, he needs his lunch.

Speaker 2 (25:37):
This is the longest anybody's driven, No for a Brad.

Speaker 1 (25:41):
Garrett said it with two and a half hours from
Malibu to get his lunch had and you can imagine
Sean how happy he was.

Speaker 2 (25:49):
What about that? What an ad for Los Angeles?

Speaker 1 (25:51):
This show is.

Speaker 8 (25:55):
Well under normal circumstances. I kind of like the drive
because I actually get to do that. I get to
talk to people on oone and drive by the ocean
and actually can be quite nice. And when I used
to live in Los Angeles. You know, I have an
office at Universal, which I guess one day i'll go
back to when we're not striking. But I used to

(26:17):
go to Sony when I was doing post on a show,
and it would take me more than two and a
half hours to get from Universal to Sony, sometimes at
traffic hours.

Speaker 9 (26:25):
So this tribe is actually pleasant by comparison.

Speaker 1 (26:29):
Nice, Well, let me do Let's do a special intro here, Sean,
because I realized this morning I am talking to and
I am so excited that you're joining us, because on
one level, I am an original Seawan Cassidy fanboy, always
have been. We've never met, But you're also on another level,

(26:50):
you and Phil are two showrunners who I wrote about
and loved in the mid to late nineties. Because this
morning I said because Phil Well. I met Phil when
I reviewed Everybody Loves Raymond and said it was the
best show of the year that year. But I also
realized today when I googled Shawn cast named David Wilde
that my review of American Gothic, the show I think

(27:13):
your first show that you created, I found it, I
found and so I realized you're just two showrunners who've
become showstopping entertainers. Because I don't know if you know this, Sean,
since somebody feed Phil phil show, He's now hit the
road playing some of the same theaters that you are,
and you both are, you know, packing theaters and pleasing fans,

(27:35):
although the difference is I don't think Phil ever played
the Houston Astrodome.

Speaker 8 (27:41):
There's still time, actually, Phil, Yes, I think the Astrodom
is gone, but I'm sure they have another stadium in
its place that would love.

Speaker 6 (27:48):
To have you.

Speaker 2 (27:50):
Oh man that I tell you what, I'll open for you.

Speaker 1 (27:55):
That's a hell of a double bill and I'll open
for you.

Speaker 9 (27:58):
I love that. Everybody left, right, So we'll see. We'll
arm wrestle for that.

Speaker 2 (28:04):
You're very kind.

Speaker 1 (28:07):
You're very kind. But Phil is still not waiting to
start a salad.

Speaker 2 (28:10):
No, I'm hungry.

Speaker 8 (28:13):
Start your salad. Yeah, and that's that's why why were
you writing about television, David? Because music has been your
main thing.

Speaker 2 (28:20):
That's a good question.

Speaker 1 (28:21):
Yes, what was he going? I will tell you you
know why. I did it because Joan Winner said, do
you like that weekly paycheck? And I went, yes, he goes,
I want you to write a TV column and it
probably is. It changed my life because uh, I love
music and music so much. I can remember the moment
I became your fan. For instance, I remember my father,

(28:45):
the late great Stanley Wilde, told me at a bookstore
in tenifon New Jersey goes, you can charge any book
and any record you want, because that's your passion. So
I remember. I remember literally the day I charged a
copy of Born Late, your second record, and the song
Hey Deany came on and I absolutely became a fan

(29:07):
for life. And I realized, I don't know if you
know this, Phil. Yes, like early on Sean covered a
song by Eric Carmon called That's rock and Roll. Yes,
did it at the open the Grammys, because Sean a
couple of years ago, not a couple of years like
twelve years ago. I wrote the fiftieth anniversary Grammy book,
and so I was given all the tapes to every show,

(29:30):
which are very closely hidden, and I tune on the
I think it was a seventy eight Grammys and it
starts with a monologue not full of jokes, I should say,
by John Denver, who was the host in those years,
and then he leads to the opening of the Grammys
you know that position that usually goes to Beyonce and Prince,
it goes to Bruce Springsteen, and it goes to Sean

(29:54):
Cassidy doing That's Rock and Roll by Eric Carmon.

Speaker 8 (29:58):
And I had to look right into the the eyes
of Barbara Streisan in the front row, Oh my god,
all night, who was sitting.

Speaker 9 (30:05):
Not far from my date, Carrie Fisher.

Speaker 5 (30:08):
Wow.

Speaker 8 (30:08):
Carry and Carrie had just opened in a little film
called Star Wars. So we were a hot couple that night.
That was fun and it was scary, and it's uh yeah,
kind of amazing.

Speaker 9 (30:21):
I have a weird resume.

Speaker 2 (30:23):
It's an amazing resume.

Speaker 1 (30:24):
I mean, you were.

Speaker 2 (30:26):
Already uh I'm going to say a teen idol when
you were in high school?

Speaker 9 (30:32):
What is that like?

Speaker 2 (30:34):
Because I'm just now discovering this level.

Speaker 9 (30:39):
Three?

Speaker 1 (30:39):
But but what here?

Speaker 9 (30:42):
Here?

Speaker 2 (30:42):
I have a more basic question.

Speaker 1 (30:44):
What was it like to have girls like you in
high school?

Speaker 8 (30:50):
Well, they didn't like me in high school, Phil, which
is which is why if I'm funny at all, that
could be the reason.

Speaker 9 (30:58):
Too popular. In high school, I wasn't that attractive.

Speaker 8 (31:05):
I you know, I was a kid who weighed about
eight pounds and I had braces and long stringy hair
and pimples. And I was in a punk band fourteen fifteen,
sixteen years old.

Speaker 9 (31:16):
And then.

Speaker 8 (31:20):
My manager who had been like my aunt. She her
name was Ruth Aarons. She'd been the Ladies table tennis
champion of the world in the forties. She so tells
you something about her.

Speaker 1 (31:31):
I wish you wouldn't bring her up. I was third place.
It's very insensitive.

Speaker 9 (31:37):
She had been.

Speaker 8 (31:38):
She had been like our family's managers. She'd have my
father and my mother and David, and you know, I
kind of inherited her. She inherited me, and I was
writing songs, and she introduced me to a guy named
Mike Curb who had a deal Warner Brothers and Curb her.

Speaker 9 (31:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (31:55):
Can can we stop there for one second, Sean, because
I don't know, I don't know with Phil, do you
know who Mike Curb is in his whole American history?

Speaker 2 (32:04):
But before we say that, I think for our listeners
who might not be as old as us, they should
know who his mom and dad were. Shirley Jones and
Jack Cassidy, both incredible, incredible talents, you, Sean, are what
they call that one, that bo baby.

Speaker 8 (32:24):
I am indeed, although you know, it's a funny thing
I was thinking about that term. Isn't every kid like
if dad owns a hardware store and you take over
the hardware store, you and Neo baby too.

Speaker 2 (32:36):
It's not of course, of course, I think you should
all unionize.

Speaker 1 (32:43):
Well, actually, Sean, again, I don't know you, but we
have I should say we have mutual friends. And I
want to thank particularly Kim Williams Paisley, but mainly Kim, who,
by the way, sent a question which will play for
you at the point in this. But I have to

(33:04):
say you are one of our guests who I think
there is a The opposite of the NEPO Baby story
is all these amazing stars. We had Jeff Bridges on
the show not long ago, another right, and we were
and Bonnie Rait. I just did a thing with her
at the Gammy Museum and I realized a lot of
the best people I know are these second generation stars

(33:27):
who have really learned the lessons of the generation before them,
and in many cases like have led. You know, Sean,
I'm not claming your life is perfect. You know, you've
been married more than Phil and I, but hasn't been easy.
But you have somehow come out of it, by every accountant,
by everything I've ever heard from people who do know

(33:49):
you as this just wonderful guy. We'll talk about his
charity work. He has a a A. My first crush
I believe is your Your Bill will like it because
it's we can act like we're talking about a charity
and maybe potentially get a free glass of wine at
some point. But you're this wonderful guy who's learned the

(34:10):
lessons of like. I have not met you yet until
you get here out of the traffic. I met your mom,
I think at a TV Land Awards, and one of
the most amazing, talented, beautiful, like amazing women I've ever met.
I have like everyone I don't know. Did you watch

(34:32):
a Partridge Family? I had a crush on her, and
then it was mandatory, Yes, it was mandatory. And I
have to say my late great mother Carawan had short
blonde hair, maybe mimicking her on the Partridge Family. And
unfortunately my dad wasn't handsome like your dad, Jack Cassidy,

(34:52):
but so I don't look like you, but she always
reminded me of her mother. And when I met her,
I said, what an amazing I got to assume an amazing.
She is crucial to you being in as good a
place as.

Speaker 8 (35:06):
You are in this world.

Speaker 9 (35:09):
All kind words, David. Thanks.

Speaker 8 (35:12):
My mom is a very grounded person, for sure. My
dad wasn't at all. My brother David wasn't too much either.
Wonderful guys and had great qualities, and I'd like to
think I got some of them from them. But my
mom was always the ground in our family and she remains.

(35:33):
You know, she's a small town girl from Pennsylvania, Western Pennsylvania,
grew up in a town of six hundred people and
kind of never changed. But she was exposed to a
lot and certainly experienced a lot. But I'm grateful we
had her because if we didn't have her around, I
don't know where any of us would be.

Speaker 2 (35:50):
Well, it's interesting Showiz Royalty.

Speaker 1 (35:53):
Just an oscar?

Speaker 9 (35:54):
Right?

Speaker 1 (35:54):
You grew up with an oscar on the mantle, right?

Speaker 2 (35:56):
Amazing?

Speaker 9 (35:58):
Yeah, you know, it's interesting. I've been reading a lot about.

Speaker 8 (36:02):
I might actually write a book, which is something I've
been trying to dodge do it.

Speaker 9 (36:06):
But I ended up.

Speaker 8 (36:07):
Writing my show, and my show ended up being more
of a storytelling show than even a music show, and
that kind of opened the door to me thinking about it.

Speaker 1 (36:15):
Yes, the show is called The Magic of the Midnight Sky,
a lyric taken from a lyric from one of my
favorite songs. But yeah, tell us about the show, because
I will tell you. I tried to get to every
show I couldn't get a ticket for LA. I tried
to see you at the Franklin Theater once, but I
am determined to I am going to get to the

(36:36):
next show no matter what. Tell us about it.

Speaker 9 (36:38):
Well, David, I know a guy that can help you there. Ye,
let me know.

Speaker 8 (36:44):
In a nutshell the show. I hadn't done a concert
in forty years. My last concert was at the Astrodome,
as you said, in nineteen eighty fifty five thousand people,
thank you good night, and then wow, fifty.

Speaker 1 (36:56):
Five thousand people and over one thousand men I believe.

Speaker 8 (37:01):
Yeah, maybe a thousand men, certainly a thousand farm animals.
They'd had the rodeo before then. But I was already
sort of off into working in the theater, which I love,
and writing, and then I sold American Gothic in the
early nineties and kind of never looked back. But in
twenty nineteen I had the impactable timing to think, hey,

(37:24):
maybe the next few years would be a good time
to tour, not seeing the pandemic on the horizon. And
I wrote this show that was had no music, It
was just storytelling. And people said, no, people are gonna
get pissed off if you don't sing the do run Run.
So I found a way to hopefully artfully weave these songs,
mostly pop songs, but some songs from my mom and

(37:46):
dad and David, and songs that are sort of told
the story of our family, and I wove them into
a narrative and the show kind of caught fire. It
really has been quite successful. I ended up doing five
nights in New York fifty four below, and now there's
a bunch of people talking about my doing it on Broadway,
So who knows, but that sounds fantastic.

Speaker 1 (38:07):
We Phil and I both traveled to see Springsteen on Broadway,
and I will make him travel with me to go see.

Speaker 2 (38:13):
I want to see it sounds great. It sounds great
because you're you really personify the diversification that you need
in this business. Now. You know, people talk about the
gig economy, but you were already diversifying before there was
a gig economy. You were singing, writing, acting, and then

(38:36):
producing shows. I mean, you're you're a multi hyphen it
and you've proven that being a NEPO baby can only
get you in the room, it can't keep you in there.

Speaker 8 (38:53):
That's absolutely true. And something David said earlier. And I
went to high school with Jamie Curtis, and as I said,
Carrie was a good friend. And I know a lot
of these second third generation. Bridge's first movie was with
my Mom television movie. They're all they were all really
good people. And I do think having the luxury the

(39:17):
upside of the NEPO beyond. Yeah, there's a door or
two that might be open for you. But more than that,
you actually get to study the highs and lows of
this Shovin's experience through the eyes of your parents and
in my case, my brother as well. And I'd like
to think that I kind of took the good and
left the bad and and I'm kind of in it,

(39:38):
but not of it, you know what I mean. I
love the work, I love the process, I love creative,
I love collaboration. I don't love a lot of parts
of the business and I don't really live them.

Speaker 2 (39:50):
Yeah, I always say I love I love every part
of show business except the business.

Speaker 8 (39:57):
I get it, but it's really fun and you a
lot of cool people like you guys, and uh, I'm
so grateful that I've been able to kind of make
a go.

Speaker 9 (40:06):
Of it.

Speaker 6 (40:22):
The behead.

Speaker 1 (40:40):
Sean, I want to ask about a little bit more
about your mom because the thing I you mentioned Carrie Fisher,
I think the most impressive force of nature figures I've
met in my entire life in shows around it were
these women who overcame everything. I once wrote an award
show I think it was called Mose Rock and I

(41:01):
was brought over to someone. Debbie Reynolds was there and
she said to the Don Mischer, the executive du she went, writer,
give me a writer, and I was brought over. It
was like we were at MGM. It was like I
was a studio writer and I'm like yes, and she goes,
give me a joke, give me a snappy joke, and
I wrote I fortunately gave her a joke. She liked
because that's a good joke. Now let's call my daughter,

(41:22):
Carrie Fisher for to help us with a second joke.

Speaker 9 (41:25):
Wow. Uh.

Speaker 1 (41:27):
But she was like this force of nature your mom.
When I met her, it was with her second husband.
I guess Marty Ingles, that's right, and who was the angles?
Who was I've always thought of your mom like again,
because I hope it's not. I think you're well aware
of this. Your mom is one of the most beautiful
in addition to being one of the greatest singers and actresses.

(41:49):
Incredible beauty, like you watch Elmer Gantry. She's just awe inspiring.
But I do remember she may have, like like me
of Pharaoh marrying Woody Allen and Frank Sinatra. I remember
thinking your father, who was dashing and handsome much like
you are, sir, then going to the crazy Jewish comedian type.

(42:10):
It's sort of like like she may have overcompensated in
her detours and the same way Debbie Reynolds seemed to
have married all sorts of characters.

Speaker 9 (42:20):
A character is a nice way of putting it.

Speaker 2 (42:24):
Are you ready for this connections?

Speaker 8 (42:26):
Ingles fun was funny, and my father was funny, and
my mom likes the funny. She appreciates the funny, and
she it's funny with my mother. It's kind of a mystery.
She my dad was nuts, Ingles was nuts different ways
also wildly unpredictable and not people you could really rely

(42:51):
on to be a steady and in any situation. So
there was a lot of drama in my childhood and
later with Ingles, even though I was out of the house.

Speaker 9 (43:03):
You know, I got.

Speaker 8 (43:06):
I got involved in the swim as it related to
my younger brothers and so forth. And I've come to
believe my mother is not a terrorist, but she supports terrorists.

Speaker 1 (43:16):
Oh my god, that's so good, so good.

Speaker 8 (43:19):
She lacks the insanity that other people create because it's
exciting to her.

Speaker 9 (43:25):
But my mother is too good a girl to actually
incite that stuff herself.

Speaker 2 (43:30):
Right, I have a connection, Sean.

Speaker 9 (43:35):
I'm sorry, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (43:37):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (43:38):
If you remember Marty's brother, he was a dentist.

Speaker 9 (43:44):
Oh my god, how do you know this?

Speaker 2 (43:46):
This is fantastic because he was my childhood dentist John.
So we're related. We're related through teeth. Here's the thing.
Here's the thing about Marty Ingalls brother, doctor Ingerman. I
believe was his name, right, Yes, but yes.

Speaker 8 (44:08):
He he had Ingerman. Marty Ingerman is Marty's name, and
yes his brother was Ingerman. But Irving Crown was the
was the uncle who was also a dentist. That was
was the mentor of Marty's brother, and he worked for
I Crown what was on his door for years and

(44:32):
years and years, and then one day your dentist. And
he may have said it to you, I don't know.
One of the funnier stories Ingalls told was one day
his brother in his fifties saying, you know, I've done
enough filling and drilling and billing. I want to do
comedy now.

Speaker 1 (44:49):
Oh my god, I think it's time.

Speaker 8 (44:51):
I think it's time you and I team up. And
he called Ingles and he said, you and I should
go on the road together like you and I Phil
and and did they gently turned him down?

Speaker 9 (45:03):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (45:03):
Okay, well they did not. Here's how unfunny Marty's brother was.
He did not believe. He did not believe in Nova Kane.
Oh no, for what he called minor things like drilling
into a child's tooth.

Speaker 9 (45:21):
Buddy, So you were a kid when you went to
him like a little boy.

Speaker 2 (45:25):
Yes, he his practice was in the town I grew
up in, Rotham County, New York.

Speaker 6 (45:33):
Amazing, amazing.

Speaker 2 (45:35):
Isn't it a small.

Speaker 1 (45:36):
Less painful than having him as your stepfather, I imagine,
But again I do think of these women, DeBie Reynolds,
your mom, Rita Morena, who's been in this house, that
where at Phill's house, you know, for a movie night.
These incredible women who just managed to survive all of
the crazy men in their life and keep going for
so long. My wife is one of them. Yes, you're

(45:58):
by the way. When you get Phil has a relative
who is going to have to call in who.

Speaker 2 (46:04):
Likes you a lot, maybe too much.

Speaker 9 (46:07):
Would this be someone you're married to, Phil.

Speaker 2 (46:09):
It would be this person I'm married to's sister.

Speaker 9 (46:13):
All right, I look forward.

Speaker 2 (46:15):
Listen.

Speaker 1 (46:16):
My wife loves you too.

Speaker 9 (46:19):
We met.

Speaker 8 (46:20):
We met at I think charity event that involved good food,
oh about maybe ten or fifteen years ago, and your
wife was not shy.

Speaker 1 (46:34):
In fact, Phil's daughter, Lily is is her birthday today,
and I believe Sean might be the father. Oh god,
well she is very beautiful.

Speaker 8 (46:46):
Well, congratulations, and I will be there now. My arrival
has moved up to twelve fifty.

Speaker 1 (46:52):
Oh good, it's so closer.

Speaker 2 (46:53):
So we'll keep you company for the next twenty minute.

Speaker 1 (46:56):
Let me ask you one question you mentioned when we
talked about Marty Engles and I I'm gonna guess he
might have Jewish heritage? Is that true?

Speaker 9 (47:06):
Although I didn't know any Jews that would claim him?

Speaker 1 (47:12):
And I think about that because I am a And
we're gonna weave in some of my favorite Showing Cassidy
songs into this episode. Nice and one of my favorite
albums I'm obsessed with is an album you did called Wasp,
which I always now I believe technically, I don't know
if you grew up with any Protestant I don't know

(47:34):
if you're technically a wasp. But was that part of
the joke of the Wasp title that it was at
least two is a Jewish kid in college playing that
record over and over again and particularly yes and wanting,
trying and failing to be a Wasp? Was that part
of the joke that here were you know?

Speaker 9 (47:55):
I have two answers to that question. The first one is.

Speaker 8 (48:00):
Wasp is more literal than that. It literally was named
after the thousands and thousands of wasps in Todd Rudgren's
barn that would attack us on a daily level, a
daily basis as we were trying to make this record.

Speaker 2 (48:16):
Now that's a wait. We got to stop there for
a second. Todd Rudgren produced your record. Yes, yeah, incredible.

Speaker 9 (48:23):
It was.

Speaker 1 (48:24):
It was the last of the sort of studio big
run of Sean. It was after sort of the commercial peak.
And I think, Sean, you tell me if I'm right.
It was sort of like the Hail Mary. And you
were a big Todd Runggren fan, just like I am,
and you said, let's try something, and it is. It's
a record we're gonna hear right now. We'll put us

(48:46):
into a post. Let's hear my favorite. Well, there's one
Sean wrote with Todd and the Utopia that I love,
but I want to play. I'm obsessed with the song
that Pete Townsend wrote. It wasn't necessarily a hit for
the Who, but it is one of my favorite songs.
Let's hear so Sad about Us.

Speaker 8 (49:25):
Goodly.

Speaker 9 (49:27):
We recorded at todd house.

Speaker 8 (49:28):
I moved to Woodstock, New York, where he lived at
the time, and I was there for a couple of
months and we recorded in his barn. We Utopia is
the band of all Utopia and it was great, great experience,
and I don't know if we looked at it as
a Hail Mary at the time, but as it turned out,
it was my swan song in terms of making records,

(49:48):
which was fine. But the other point I wanted to
make is you're talking to I'm not a Wah, I'm Irish,
so Irish, Italians and Jews are pretty much you know,
we all uh kind of come from the same dinner table.

Speaker 1 (50:03):
Well, if you Fill's whole career, I mean, is built
on the fact that this the massive success, the one
that's you're you're Sergeant Pepper. Everybody loves Raymond is proof
that Jews and Italians it's the same stew Well.

Speaker 2 (50:17):
Yeah, and of course now that I travel so much,
I'm finding that everybody's the same. Uh, you know, we're
all We get letters from Sri Lanka to this day
about Raymond. That's my mother and I say it couldn't
be your mother because it was my mother, right, But

(50:37):
it's all the same. We're all the same, like pick a,
pick a. Any ethnicity where the mother is not a
little too overly involved with their kids, yeah right, or
rivalry is in the house, or or they overfeed you
when you come. I can't tell you how many people

(51:00):
claim that they eat the most of any ethnic group
in the world.

Speaker 9 (51:05):
And obviously, you know pain is a necessary component for
the funny. Yes.

Speaker 1 (51:12):
So there's one thing we haven't mentioned yet. That is
I have gone down one rabbit hole. I had never
gone down until this. Like, I just got back from
out of the country and I have gone into the
I discovered New Amsterdam because of you and knowing you
would be on the show, and I love that show.

(51:34):
Is it fair to say that was a very meaningful
and joyful experience for those those years.

Speaker 8 (51:41):
Yeah, it was an incredible experience. It was the first
show I'd been on that I wasn't running, which was
what a gift that is, man. I mean, you get
to have all the creative fun without all the politic
and you know, the fear management you have to deal
with with networks and studios. So hats off to David Shulner,
who created the show and ran it and did a

(52:06):
lot of that, along with Peter Horton, who directed a
lot of the episodes and handled a lot of our posts.
But to your question, I'd never worked on a medical show.

Speaker 9 (52:15):
I didn't. I wasn't really drawn to that.

Speaker 8 (52:18):
But David is a good pal and he and I
both had deals still have deals at Universal, and he
kind of made a deal of his pilot went, I'd
help him, and mine went, He'd help me and his went.
So I went on and I started as a consulting producer,
which was like a three day a week job. Fell
in love with the show, fell in love with the
writing staff, which were as interesting and different than any

(52:41):
group any orchestra you could put together. They all played
one instrument beautifully and we all got to learn from them.
And then suddenly you're working on a medical show and
there's a pandemic going on. And our show is based
on Bellevue Hospital in New York, which the largest public
hospital in the country, and many of the people who
worked there where our consultants. Former head of the hospital

(53:03):
wrote a book that inspired the show.

Speaker 9 (53:05):
He was involved.

Speaker 8 (53:06):
And suddenly you're hearing these horror stories of what COVID
is doing and they don't know what's hit them, and
people are dying left and right, and and it became
more of a documentary, frankly, and it became a means
of which all of these writers we could get to
give now on Zoom because of the pandemic, and you know,

(53:27):
talk about our fears and our neurosis and our all
the stuff everyone was feeling in the country. We actually
could work it out through the characters and through the writing,
so it was very cathartic and ultimately healing.

Speaker 9 (53:41):
That a good thing in a hospital, you.

Speaker 2 (53:43):
Know, I I'm amazed by what you said here about
you don't know anything about medicine and you don't even
really watch medical shows. I can't watch them because I
don't understand. Like, the last place I ever want to
be as a hospital. So I can't even enjoy a

(54:04):
hospital show. But talk to me about how you have
the courage to take a job in a field you
know nothing about.

Speaker 9 (54:18):
Well, you could say that about any job I've had,
but but I.

Speaker 2 (54:24):
Only like, I subscribe to write what you know, and
I'm afraid to write what I don't know. I mean,
I mean, all people like you who can do that,
they have, they have.

Speaker 8 (54:35):
They have, That's what you got the doctors around for.
And I wouldn't write the details of the heart transplant scene.
I just write the drama of the heart transcot scene.
And and you know, Phil will know this quote if
you don't. David Norman Lear said, every show is about.

Speaker 2 (54:51):
Family, absolutely, even a news show, and it's all about
a family.

Speaker 8 (54:57):
I come from a very big, complicated yeah family, and
I've written about my family disguised in every single show
I've written, from American Gothic.

Speaker 9 (55:07):
Through New Amsterdam.

Speaker 6 (55:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 8 (55:09):
And you know, if if you like storytelling and you've
got an ear for dialogue, you know, a musical ear,
perhaps you can you can do it too.

Speaker 2 (55:20):
And then you learned on the job.

Speaker 1 (55:21):
Well, Sean's because Sean started out I think he was
doing like Blood Brothers and selling American Gothic, and then
google you know of some.

Speaker 2 (55:30):
Of these shows that he's produced, because it's an amazing first.

Speaker 1 (55:33):
Is American Gothic, which I found this quote from me
from reviewing it in Rolling Stone. So I want credit
for this with Sean or maybe he'll hate it. Well
said The New York Times called gothic small town America
and an eerie place somewhere between Mayberry RFD and Twin Peaks.
That's their quote. And by the way, I believe you worked,
you were on a matlock with that would have been

(55:55):
with Andy Griffith.

Speaker 9 (55:55):
Right, The last acting I did on television was.

Speaker 1 (56:00):
With Andy Griffith.

Speaker 9 (56:02):
Yep. That guy killed my career, killed me, killed me.

Speaker 2 (56:07):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (56:09):
And then the review this article with quotes about American Gothic,
says writing and Rolling Stone Quick David Wilde noted that
American Gothic benefits from a fine, frightening cast, particularly Gary Cole,
who plays Lucas uh Buck. Indeed, the players throw themselves
into the self consciously bizarre proceeding, as if the show
were the inspired work of collaboration between Tennessee Williams and

(56:33):
Stephen King?

Speaker 9 (56:34):
Was that?

Speaker 3 (56:34):
Was that?

Speaker 1 (56:34):
Was that pretty good for you? Did you like? Are
you okay that comparison?

Speaker 9 (56:38):
Yeah? I didn't realize that I should have had that
framed and hung over.

Speaker 2 (56:42):
My bet.

Speaker 1 (56:44):
Uh and thend. Then next you did a show called
I Believe Roar with check this cast out Heath Ledger.
Was it like the first big thing he did in America?

Speaker 6 (56:56):
We bought him his plane ticket to America he'd never been.

Speaker 1 (57:00):
And was Carrie Russell, who I love? Yeah, she was
also in that way.

Speaker 9 (57:06):
Harry Russell and Vera Farmiga.

Speaker 2 (57:09):
What a cast.

Speaker 1 (57:11):
And if you haven't watched film New Amsterdam, the cast,
I have the same inclination. When I had kids. I
think my wife and I watched er before we had kids.
When I had kids, I was like I can't watch
medical shows because there's always the kid in danger element,
and I didn't you have enough of that in life.
I didn't want that. But because of Sean, as a
show of my respect and love for him, I turned

(57:33):
on the show and I've gone through the first season
in like two days. They're incredible cast in that.

Speaker 8 (57:40):
It's the beautiful cast of all cast out of New York,
most of them theater actors.

Speaker 9 (57:45):
And yeah, it was just a joy to work on.

Speaker 8 (57:50):
And you know the David said Earle on he wanted
to do West Wing in a hospital that was obviously
a high bar, but you know, I think we got
there more often than not. And and what was interesting
and what kind of defined the show a different than
any medical show I'd seen, is that the antagonist was
the healthcare system. Basically, they were, you know, fighting big

(58:13):
pharma and fighting insurance companies and fighting a system in
the United States that does not take care of its own.
And uh, it wasn't hard to get passionate about that,
and and and write to that.

Speaker 10 (58:52):
Thank you and le flouses down you believe in the
magic of a mint.

Speaker 1 (59:05):
Now before I have to look you in the face
and ask you this question, I want you to tell
Phil a story that I picked up online that I
think might be part of your amazing traveling show, or
maybe it was. At least the time, I thought, can
you tell Phil your great Andy Warhol story?

Speaker 8 (59:23):
Let's say why I can artfully and quickly tell you
this story, Okay, if it's the same story I think
you're referring to. In nineteen eighty nine, the Andy Warhol
Diaries were published, and I was in a doctor's office
and I saw excerpts in People magazine and I started

(59:44):
reading them.

Speaker 9 (59:45):
And Andy had nothing good to say about anybody.

Speaker 8 (59:47):
He'd spent any time with, nothing, And I thought, shit,
I spent a whole weekend with a guy in nineteen
seventy nine when I was playing Madison Square Garden and
he interviewed me, and now I was on the cover
of Interview magazine and we ended up ragging him out
on the stage, and he was, you know, he seemed

(01:00:08):
to have a good time.

Speaker 9 (01:00:10):
But I thought, oh, he's probably going to have written
about me.

Speaker 8 (01:00:14):
If he's sang anything about me that's anything like what
he's saying about anybody else, this is not going to
be good.

Speaker 9 (01:00:19):
So I go to the.

Speaker 8 (01:00:20):
Bookstore I find the book. Thankfully there's an index. I
find my name during up three pages about his weekend
with me, and I start to read. I'm like at
Barnes and Noble and I'm reading and Sean was this.
Oh no, sorry, now I'm screwing up the story. Went
to the Plaza Hotel to interview Sean Cassidy. The interview

(01:00:41):
was terrible. He has to keep it clean because his kids,
his audience is so young. Soon you won't tell me anything,
basically was his point. Boring, boring, boring.

Speaker 9 (01:00:53):
Then I go with them.

Speaker 8 (01:00:55):
I go with them to the Madison Square Garden. I'm
in his dressing room and as he's getting into his
satin pants, I see.

Speaker 9 (01:01:01):
His big what.

Speaker 2 (01:01:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 8 (01:01:05):
And I read this in print and I almost I
probably shouted out in the store with glee, and I thought, shit,
suddenly I'm liking this book. After that, you know, I'm
gonna I'm gonna give this out as a.

Speaker 9 (01:01:23):
Christmas gift books fantastic.

Speaker 8 (01:01:26):
I love this book, So I actually buy a copy
or two, and I go home and then I start
reading it from page one and page one the intro
is by the editor, a person who worked with them
at the factory. Andy was this, and Andy was that.
He was always getting his proportions wrong. He was always

(01:01:47):
He's always saying things that were massive, we're tiny, and
things that were minuscule, We're gigantic.

Speaker 9 (01:01:54):
Suddenly I'm not liking this.

Speaker 1 (01:01:57):
Only one instance of him being accurate would be the
page on you.

Speaker 9 (01:02:03):
Anyway, I don't know if that was the story, that's
the story.

Speaker 11 (01:02:06):
Oh no, by the way, how many Andy Warhol stories
are exactly that's He was my first interview as a
professional journalist, and it was my first day at Esquire
Magazine out of college.

Speaker 1 (01:02:20):
And some editors said, oh, this show Nurses by Aaron
Spelling just got canceled. Get someone famous to give you
a quote. And I thought, like, who cares about this
nothing show by you know that's already been canceled. Yeah,
And I thought, I wonder Andy Warhol thing. So I
literally looked in the phone book when there were phone

(01:02:40):
books right and looked up the factory. Called and I said, Hi,
my name is David Wilde. I'm at Esquire Magazine. Can
I speak to Andy? I want to ask him about
the show Nurses by Aaron Spelling being canceled. He got
on in ten seconds, and I said, Andy, how do
you feel? He goes, oh, no, my life is over
And I just thought that way, you know, Yeah, that's that.

(01:03:02):
So that was my first journalistic quote ever was from
Andy Warhol.

Speaker 9 (01:03:07):
That's a pretty good one.

Speaker 1 (01:03:08):
But he didn't say anything about my personal uh uh size,
So it was it's not quite well, you didn't.

Speaker 2 (01:03:13):
You didn't.

Speaker 9 (01:03:14):
You didn't spend enough time with him.

Speaker 1 (01:03:15):
Yeah, well that's between him and me.

Speaker 2 (01:03:17):
I think there, Sean, while we have you, there's a
quote that I just read.

Speaker 12 (01:03:25):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:03:26):
You said that having kids at an early age uh
prevented you from making bad choices. And I think some
people might think that having three or four five kids
at an early age might be one of those choices.

Speaker 8 (01:03:47):
I yes, and both things could be true. I I
did have a lot of kids. I'm pulling into uh
a neighborhood that is yours. Yes, I'm just gonna smile
and nod and hope that they'll let me in.

Speaker 2 (01:04:06):
Let's pause here, let's let's pause here, get you to
the front door, and get you into the the incredible
studio you're about to see exactly.

Speaker 9 (01:04:15):
I'm Sean Cassidy. I'm here to see Phil Rosen We're gonna.

Speaker 1 (01:04:18):
Put on our satin pants while you get up the stairs.

Speaker 9 (01:04:21):
Okay, thank you. He just said, he said that's a
nice jacket. Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:04:25):
It's high praise from the front gate.

Speaker 2 (01:04:27):
And his name is Andy Warhol.

Speaker 9 (01:04:31):
All right, I'm pulling down your street.

Speaker 2 (01:04:34):
See you soon.

Speaker 1 (01:04:45):
Let's let love something Well, Monica, can you explain who
we need to call to right now and and why
why we couldn't go through our Shawn episode without that?

Speaker 13 (01:04:57):
Yes, my sister Jennifer, who is ten years younger than me,
when she was five years.

Speaker 2 (01:05:06):
Old, she was not a mistake.

Speaker 5 (01:05:10):
So I was fifteen, my brother she was eighteen. She
wanted one thing for her birthday and it was your
album and we sang to do run around like NonStop.
We played the whole album. Not well, she'll tell you.
I'll let her tell you on the phone and not
Jennifer Jennifer.

Speaker 2 (01:05:29):
Hello, Hello, Hi, is this my sister in law, Jennifer.
I'm sitting with your sister.

Speaker 9 (01:05:38):
Hi can.

Speaker 5 (01:05:43):
Excited and you know why, But go ahead.

Speaker 2 (01:05:46):
I'm sitting here with a guy you like. Say hi
to Sean Cassidy.

Speaker 12 (01:05:54):
Jen.

Speaker 8 (01:05:54):
Hi, Jen's been.

Speaker 2 (01:06:00):
For fifty years.

Speaker 1 (01:06:04):
Sorry to be late. You were born late. I was,
that's true.

Speaker 12 (01:06:09):
Where are you, Jennifer, I am in like twenty five
minutes or twenty five miles outside of Philadelphia.

Speaker 8 (01:06:21):
Well, if you catch a flight, you'd be here in
twenty minute, here in twenty minutes.

Speaker 1 (01:06:27):
Wow, I love Philadelphia.

Speaker 8 (01:06:30):
I have a good friend who grew up in Chestnut Hill.

Speaker 13 (01:06:33):
Okay, yeah, I know Chestnut Hill. Well well, actually my
daughter is planning to move.

Speaker 1 (01:06:43):
Yeah, put that in the podcast.

Speaker 5 (01:06:47):
We'll give her.

Speaker 1 (01:06:48):
Can I ask a question?

Speaker 9 (01:06:49):
What I know?

Speaker 1 (01:06:51):
Why I love Sean growing up? Why did you love
Sean growing up? And now.

Speaker 9 (01:06:58):
You run?

Speaker 8 (01:06:59):
Run?

Speaker 9 (01:07:02):
I mean you?

Speaker 13 (01:07:03):
I mean I was five years old and it was
the first album that I ever wanted.

Speaker 6 (01:07:12):
I mean I had a sister that was, you know, fifteen,
and I.

Speaker 13 (01:07:18):
Had a brother that was eighteen, So of course at
five years old, I wanted an album. Unlike I don't
think many five year olds were asking for albums for
their first for their birthday. But I specifically remember that
was such a huge deal that I wanted that album.

Speaker 9 (01:07:38):
And I can.

Speaker 13 (01:07:39):
Remember that the cover with the orange writing saying Sean Cassidy,
and I remember going into when I was in I
think I was probably in kindergarten then, and when I
went into first grade, anybody that had spelled their name
any other way besides h au inn, I thought there

(01:08:02):
was something wrong.

Speaker 8 (01:08:06):
Well, I was named s e a N when I
was born, and the nurse brought it was my father's idea,
Sean Irish, and the nurse brought me to my mother
and said here's a little scene, and mom said, Jack,
we're gonna spell it the Welsh way on Jones s
h a u N.

Speaker 1 (01:08:27):
So there you go.

Speaker 8 (01:08:29):
Thank you for buying that album when you were five.
Warner Brothers, thanks you. They they I think they used
me as like a training thing to get kissing record stores.

Speaker 2 (01:08:40):
Jen, did you have a question for Sean?

Speaker 13 (01:08:44):
I just I you never But then I don't think
then you really did much music after that then, right?

Speaker 9 (01:08:52):
Am I? Right?

Speaker 6 (01:08:52):
I remember the Hardy Boys, the.

Speaker 8 (01:08:55):
Hardy Boys I had signed. I'd signed a contract through
Holland with Warner Brothers weirdly, and I was putting records
out in Holland and Australia and Germany and then.

Speaker 1 (01:09:05):
The Hardy Boy.

Speaker 8 (01:09:05):
I got that job on the Hardy Boys, which was
like my second audition. Then after the shootest oh yes,
Ron Howard John remember that movie, Yes, Wayne's last movie.
First audition came down to me and Ron Ron got
the parts.

Speaker 1 (01:09:21):
I think it was because you didn't get the role
that John was Heartbrook And that's one of them a
lot of conspiracy theories these days.

Speaker 9 (01:09:30):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:09:30):
The second job is hardy boys, and I got it.

Speaker 8 (01:09:32):
And there was some hesitation on my part, thinking maybe
it will screw up the record career. That may or
may not happen. Then, as it turns out, they kind
of blew up at the same time. And somebody told
me one of the record people you would probably know
that my first album was the biggest selling solo data
in history until Whitney.

Speaker 1 (01:09:52):
Yeah, which may be true.

Speaker 8 (01:09:54):
I don't know, but don't tell Elvis no.

Speaker 1 (01:09:58):
And and to correct Monica, your sister, there are and
this is a good news for you. There are. I
think five studio records, is it? And if I can,
I will tell you. I am a male of a
certain age, a man of a certain age, and I've
gone back and sort of rediscovered. I started with the

(01:10:18):
second record, Born Late, fell back in love with some
of the key tracks. But I think the best records
are your like second, third, fourth, those are the uh
and I love in a very different way? Wasps or
is it? Wasp of the fourth?

Speaker 8 (01:10:33):
Is the sixth whose I had a live album too,
but it was a fifth studio album.

Speaker 1 (01:10:36):
And by the way, so I'm going to encourage everyone.
You can still stream all these records and.

Speaker 8 (01:10:43):
They are and nobody needs to pay me anything.

Speaker 5 (01:10:46):
Exactly I'm getting. We can get yo, can't we? I
know what I'm getting you for your birthday this year.
I owe you a big presence.

Speaker 12 (01:10:52):
You're all very sweet and yeuy, you did get me
in autograph from Sean A.

Speaker 5 (01:11:00):
Oh, there you go, but I didn't have.

Speaker 9 (01:11:06):
The one time it was true.

Speaker 5 (01:11:08):
Oh my gosh, because the first thing he said, because
I was so on the program and that funny that
I didn't remember. And Sean actually said, yes, I did
meet your wife Phil. She wasn't shy.

Speaker 8 (01:11:25):
What was the event because she has it?

Speaker 5 (01:11:28):
Must Oh yeah, do you have it?

Speaker 10 (01:11:30):
Jen?

Speaker 9 (01:11:30):
You can?

Speaker 5 (01:11:31):
We find it in the basement in front of me.

Speaker 9 (01:11:33):
But I do have it in my Yeah, I have
it still.

Speaker 5 (01:11:36):
Okay, when you find it, take a picture of it
and send it episodes yeah, episode notes.

Speaker 1 (01:11:43):
All right, thank you so much.

Speaker 8 (01:11:46):
Nice to meet you.

Speaker 2 (01:11:46):
Jennifer hold on, Sean wants to say goodbye.

Speaker 14 (01:11:52):
Er all right, calm down, Jen, Jen, I'll call you
a bit it all right, we'll recap.

Speaker 1 (01:12:05):
Bye, dear bye, okay. And while we're talking to other people,
this is the person who really actually made this happen.
Brad Paisley's a mutual friend of all of ours. But
Kim Williams Paisley is a mutual friend of ours and
is really the one who made this happen. Reached out
to you. We're very grateful and she sent a question.

(01:12:25):
So if it's okay with you, can we play please
the question that we just received.

Speaker 8 (01:12:29):
Love the theme song by the way, Oh well, just.

Speaker 1 (01:12:32):
Brad has told me I can't do this ever again.
But I will say anyone who wants to cover the
theme song, we are welcome to it. We will if
you get inspired, we'll put it in the episode. But
here is the question from Kim Williams.

Speaker 5 (01:12:46):
Bay It's Kim.

Speaker 6 (01:12:49):
My question for you is you're such an amazing writer.

Speaker 5 (01:12:53):
What are you writing right now? Or rather because of
the strike.

Speaker 9 (01:12:57):
Why are you not writing?

Speaker 1 (01:13:00):
II?

Speaker 2 (01:13:02):
We love Kim.

Speaker 8 (01:13:02):
Hi Kim, thank you for that question. I am not
writing many things I'm thinking about I'm putting lots of
notes down. I had a project on the runway, literally
ready to go, with some very fancy people involved, and
I just think it's in suspended animation right now, and
as soon as the strike is over, will take it

(01:13:26):
to market, as they say. But I have some things
I'm really excited about, and I actually may be writing
a memoir of and thinking about that too, which is scary.

Speaker 9 (01:13:35):
You should.

Speaker 2 (01:13:35):
You have so many amazing stories and so many lives
that you've lived.

Speaker 8 (01:13:39):
Already painful though, you know, and not more painful than
anybody's life. It's just when you go that if you're
going to tell the truth, you know, do.

Speaker 2 (01:13:51):
You go deep in your show?

Speaker 8 (01:13:53):
I actually do, yeah, and that hard. It got deeper
as I went on. I was scared to at first,
but somebody told me that the more specific you are
about your family, the more it lands on the people.
If you talk generally, that's it doesn't.

Speaker 2 (01:14:07):
The number one rule of writing, right, I think the
more specific you get, well you did it, the more
universal it becomes.

Speaker 8 (01:14:14):
And but yeah, it can be painful. It's also very funny.
I mean, my show is quite funny, but it is.
You laugh, you cry, and people are surprised by that
because they think I could just go out and sing
those songs.

Speaker 1 (01:14:27):
And you know, I love that you. I saw some
of the sections that I could see online, just a
little bit taste of it, and I love you singing
the song for your brother. I've met you fourteen minutes
ago approximately. I did meet David once when he came
into Rolling Stone, where I don't know if people know this,
he famously, I think, posed sort of nude. It was

(01:14:49):
a famous sort of him sort of trying to break
the teen dream.

Speaker 8 (01:14:54):
Saw everything. She took the nude picture. I think Jahan
cut it sort of really.

Speaker 1 (01:15:00):
But that was a big deal at the time. And
then he this is much later when he was doing
a sort of comeback record and he came into the
office and Yan was busy with something and sent me
out to hang out with David until he I could
bring him into Yan's office. But I want to say
I loved his talent. It's it's one of those unique

(01:15:22):
stories where he famously seemed it was painful for him
that he's, you know, couldn't do what he thought he
wanted to do. The irony being he was so great
at what he did do I don't know if he
gave him enough joy. He's a great You and he
are both great singers, and I don't want to give
your mom too much credit, but I will say.

Speaker 2 (01:15:40):
And your dad, you both had Jack's fault though, but.

Speaker 1 (01:15:43):
Like great actors and like great sort of Broadway performers,
I both I believe both of you. You commit to
a song and you have great voices. But he was
a My sense of him in my five to ten
minute discussion was that he was had a sort of
discomfort with the business, a neediness about fame, and like

(01:16:07):
he was so I just got to watch him with Yan,
and I thought you were having We grew up watching
him with your mom, but she was your mom, and
that's probably why you had a slightly better balanced view
of life.

Speaker 9 (01:16:21):
I don't know.

Speaker 8 (01:16:22):
I mean, David, we had very similar careers, certainly on
the surface, but his.

Speaker 1 (01:16:29):
The way he dealt with it.

Speaker 8 (01:16:30):
He couldn't find a way I joke about Barbie. But
the thing that film does is it honors that part
of all of us, that innocent.

Speaker 1 (01:16:41):
Part that allowed ourselves to have a crush.

Speaker 8 (01:16:43):
Or buy an album when you're five years old or whatever.
It honors it and respects it now and actually values
it and looks at it in a way that it's
not something just pop and disposable. And I always looked
at it that way. I didn't want to do it.
I mean I really by the time I played the
Astrodome already I want to go home and stay in
my room. I'm not really a performer by name.

Speaker 1 (01:17:03):
By the way, very few. I don't think anyone in
history ever quit after playing the Astrodome before they had
three or four years going on.

Speaker 8 (01:17:10):
I don't think I was quitting. I just thought I
want to go do something else, and I didn't come back.
You know, I was doing other stuff I love and
creative is creative, is creative and if I can stay home,
and the life of a writer is kind of what
I chose. Writers were like magicians to me, and I
was a magician as a kid. I did Jennifer Aniston's

(01:17:30):
fourth birthday party.

Speaker 9 (01:17:32):
I did, And.

Speaker 1 (01:17:35):
Does she write a thank you note?

Speaker 8 (01:17:37):
Yeah, I tell a little story of my show. Did
he used to poster of me on Friends to put
in her like high school flashback bedroom? And after what
she signed it for me? Dear Sean, thanks for the
awesome magic show.

Speaker 1 (01:17:48):
Loved joke, so sweet, but.

Speaker 8 (01:17:50):
I really I mean it that writers to me more
than actors, more than directors, more than any They were like,
I want to do that. Guy, you just make stuff
out of the air, and then months after you have
an idea, three hundred people have a job. It just
felt like incredible to me. And then I found out
I could do it, no turning back, singing, fine, performing,

(01:18:10):
fine writing. I can stay home, I can be with
my twenty seven children. I can have a life and
be in it but not of it, which has always
been really important to me. But now that I feel
confident enough and it really is about probably my own insecurity,
It's like if I go out singing in Vegas again,
I think, and I think, I'm just kidding. As a

(01:18:31):
writer thirty years of making TV shows, I think I
can do it now.

Speaker 2 (01:18:34):
So was there something about singing or the life of
being on the road, or these venues or the kind
of mobs of people. What was it that turned you
off about it? Or you just didn't feel it in
your gut as this is not who I am, deep down, it's.

Speaker 8 (01:18:52):
Not who I am. Yeah, it felt like I was
pretending acting, but I could I mean, I can do it.
I watched you know, my teenage version of Iggy Pop
and David Bowie and David Cassidy and Mick Jagger whatever.
You know, if you look at me, I'm sort of
doing some of all of that and it worked. I mean,

(01:19:12):
I've seen that performance on the Grammy, so thought that
was pretty good.

Speaker 1 (01:19:15):
I watched it this morning. It's great, and you you
were literally and there's a moment where you go full
Elvis and sort of shake your ass for Barbara Streissan
in that front row.

Speaker 9 (01:19:25):
Right.

Speaker 8 (01:19:25):
Rolls came up to me after.

Speaker 1 (01:19:26):
It was a good performance, GiB. But never turn your
back on the audience.

Speaker 8 (01:19:29):
Help, never turn your back on the audience.

Speaker 1 (01:19:32):
Okay, Well, you gotta listen to Lou Rawls. Yeah no,
and not only that, the live record. If you go
back and listen to that live record, it rocks, it
really is, and like it's cool stuff. Your sister loved
the do run Ron never my favorite, never even one
of my favorite of your singles. It's not mine either,
But weirdly on the live record you had some version

(01:19:55):
of the original group backing you up, which is cool.

Speaker 8 (01:19:59):
You band was great. The live band was incredible. Carlos
Vega was our drummer. Great played with Jim James Taylor
for years.

Speaker 1 (01:20:05):
And everybody in the world.

Speaker 8 (01:20:08):
Rosca was keyboard and vocals.

Speaker 1 (01:20:10):
I will tell you that I went on the Oakwood
camping trip. Did you ever go to that beach camping trips? Okay? Once,
I'll never forget. I'm at the This is the things
you do for your kids, you know. Jews camping not
a good you know, not a good idea, not a
good combo plotter.

Speaker 2 (01:20:27):
But the problem with the tenth the tent was an idea.

Speaker 1 (01:20:31):
Yeah, Yet the highlight of the camping trip this is
this is Jewish camping. I'm sitting at around the fire
and a guy named Jay Grushka comes up. He's a
dad at the school, and we and he starts telling
me about his amazing career in music. He's a he
wrote some great songs and all that. But the half
an hour discussion, the big discussion was like touring with

(01:20:51):
you and what a great guy you are and what
a talent you were. And I go back and listen
to that record. It rocks. I would say to your
sister Monica, go listen to that record. You feel well.

Speaker 8 (01:21:03):
It sounds more like the show I'm doing now. And also,
you know, my voice was always very deep, to the
point that I think they sped it up a little
on the records to make me sound more like so
I looked because my you know, I had a baritone voice,
and Gordon McCrae was my godfather, so I grew up.
Oh my boy Bill all that stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:21:24):
Oh but you've done a lot of theater too. You've
played the West End in London. Would you like to
do more plays?

Speaker 8 (01:21:32):
Yeah, it's the only acting I want to do. I
want to write a musical, which I may be doing.
I would love to perform in one. Again. I don't
know about a play. I've done plays. It is show
called mass Appeal for about a year and a half.

Speaker 1 (01:21:46):
That was a broad Renard Slade.

Speaker 8 (01:21:48):
Who, No, that's a tribute and same time next year
and oh the parties your family, Yes exactly, but uh
this was a two hander with Milo o'sha where played
a couple.

Speaker 1 (01:22:00):
Of priests and Jack Lemon did the movie of that movie. Yeah,
who also distribute?

Speaker 8 (01:22:07):
Who also did tributed?

Speaker 2 (01:22:08):
So this could be in your near future.

Speaker 8 (01:22:11):
Maybe we'll see. I'm grateful that you were saying you know,
all the lanes creatively and financially too. It's you know, strike,
It's like, oh, maybe those little things.

Speaker 2 (01:22:25):
But even without the strike, everyone needs to diversify. There's
no such thing as one thing now that runs forever.
It's a very rare thing to have a show that runs.

Speaker 8 (01:22:35):
I call it you a stand up when you started.

Speaker 1 (01:22:38):
I tried it once.

Speaker 8 (01:22:39):
But you're doing kind of sort of or is it
just storytelling of Josh story. It's probably funny storytelling though, right.

Speaker 1 (01:22:44):
Try it's really funny storytelling, and it's it is surprisingly
rock star ish the audience. When I when Phil went
on tour for this book tour, I thought it was
going to be like a crowd, like an old Vegas crowd.
It is a young a lot of young people, a
lot of women, every one of them ones is selfie,
a lot of bachelorette parties.

Speaker 2 (01:23:06):
It's sort of I feel like Sean Cassidy, Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 8 (01:23:09):
Your demo sounds younger than mine.

Speaker 2 (01:23:12):
It's a crazy demos. It's all over the place, and
that I love. I love it so much. And you know,
we were talking about how you had it when you
were very young. I'm just now getting a tiny tiny
taste At this age, it's so much better. Like if
you went back to singing and just did that, you

(01:23:35):
would I think you'd have a better time than you did.

Speaker 8 (01:23:38):
Then I am having a way better time. Well again,
then I was an observer of this thing going on
around me. Yes, I either hurricane kind of, but not really.
If you're in a room where twenty five thousand people
are screaming the whole time, you can't really connect with them.
You feel their heart, you feel the energy of that.

Speaker 2 (01:23:55):
Is it like playing to the ocean?

Speaker 9 (01:23:57):
Yeah?

Speaker 8 (01:23:58):
Yeah, yeah. And they were kids. I mean you said
it wasn't like having all those girls like you, you're
having all those.

Speaker 1 (01:24:04):
Eight year olds like you.

Speaker 2 (01:24:05):
Yes, it was sweet jenn Iran at five.

Speaker 8 (01:24:08):
Yeah yeah, But now it's like adults and a lot
of guys. They bring their husbands, and some of them
were hardy boy fans anyway, so they're.

Speaker 1 (01:24:19):
And the stories are good stories.

Speaker 2 (01:24:21):
And you know what's funny is Springsteen talks about you
know he was He would do these shows and he
was a rock god. They were all teenage boys right
who identified and wanted to be him. So he didn't
have all the fun you think he might have had right.

Speaker 1 (01:24:40):
That's why he got depressed later.

Speaker 8 (01:24:42):
The band is who's having fun. Person in the middle
is not.

Speaker 1 (01:24:46):
You're lucking around, you're doing the interviews. You're hiding and
you can't go out.

Speaker 8 (01:24:50):
I mean I couldn't go out for I stayed home
for the eighties.

Speaker 9 (01:24:54):
Wow.

Speaker 8 (01:24:55):
Yeah, Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:24:57):
Well I'm thrilled to hear the you're doing this one
man show. I want people to find you. Where can
we find you? What cities are do you have?

Speaker 8 (01:25:06):
Well, I don't have any dates yet, but I'm going
to go out in October, November, and December, and part
of that might be Broadway. They're talking about that. It's
that's fantastic. Yeah, we'll see.

Speaker 2 (01:25:16):
Well, we'll be there.

Speaker 1 (01:25:17):
What's exciting.

Speaker 5 (01:25:17):
Bring my sister, Bring your sister.

Speaker 2 (01:25:19):
He doesn't need that kind of trouble.

Speaker 8 (01:25:22):
You'll be the first to know.

Speaker 5 (01:25:24):
Yeah, going to give you a lot of attention.

Speaker 14 (01:25:27):
Nice, very nice.

Speaker 1 (01:25:28):
And what's it like? I don't know how much in
the venues you're in do you do you get to
talk afterwards to some of these people?

Speaker 8 (01:25:35):
Do you get to a little bits of war or
I mean, I again, this is all new. It's old,
but it's new for me.

Speaker 7 (01:25:43):
And they Initially the agents were like, they put me
in Vegas right away and it was like big room,
twenty five hundred people and it's sold.

Speaker 8 (01:25:51):
Out, which was nice. But my show feels more like
a theater piece, uh huh.

Speaker 1 (01:25:55):
And it has evolved into more.

Speaker 8 (01:25:56):
Of that as I've done it and changed it, and
so like I've theater of five hundred one thousand seats
is perfect, and I played a lot of these old
like Buddy Holly, Elvis theater theaters, rock theaters and theater theaters.
I talked to them so much during the show though. Yeah,
you know, they all want the meet and greet. This
is a new thing that didn't exist the last time

(01:26:17):
I was doing this, right, and the meet and greet's fine.

Speaker 1 (01:26:20):
But I think the meet and greet in the seventies
and most rock shows had a different reason.

Speaker 8 (01:26:23):
I understand.

Speaker 1 (01:26:23):
Yes, it was a higher price.

Speaker 8 (01:26:25):
Yes, you know what this is though, right there are
people that will pay a premium to have a little
shake hands and take a picture but doing it it's fine,
But I ultimately think my whole show is a.

Speaker 1 (01:26:37):
Meet and greet.

Speaker 2 (01:26:38):
Yes, you know, you do a Q and A with them,
you talk to them.

Speaker 1 (01:26:40):
I don't because it's.

Speaker 8 (01:26:41):
Kind of scripted, and I'm afraid I'll go to Mars
if I do that. But I'm in the next one.
I'm going to By the way, you have favorite part
you have?

Speaker 1 (01:26:50):
Yeah, the world has Oprah in part to thank right
for you even beginning to engage with this idea.

Speaker 8 (01:26:55):
My wife first and the Oprah second.

Speaker 1 (01:26:57):
Yeah, Well, let's tell how did your wife help? This happen?

Speaker 8 (01:26:59):
Very briefly, about ten eleven years ago. I'm at Disney.
I'm in Walt Disney's office, where I had an office
for four years in Walt's office and couldn't do anything
because I was so intimidated being in his office. But
I got a call about coming on Oprah for her
final season. And they'd asked me over the years to
do it before and it never worked out time wise,
or I didn't have anything to promote, and I didn't

(01:27:20):
want to do like just Memory Lane interview. I'd go,
if I have a new show out and then I'll
talk about playing, you know, concerts or whatever. But Oprah's
final season, my wife said, of Oprah calls, you're going.
I want to meet Oprah. So I reluctantly agreed.

Speaker 1 (01:27:36):
To go do this.

Speaker 8 (01:27:37):
And then they said, well, you sing on the show,
and oh dude, I haven't. I do it at Christmas
time around the piano. But I haven't. I don't have
a band, and we'll just sit at the piano. So
I came and I went and I did sing around
the piano. But more to the point, I walked out
on the stage and they were all the sea of
forty ish mostly women with some men, and the look

(01:28:01):
in their eyes was the same look I'd seen when
they were ten, and it was so pure and so
beautiful that I actually was emotionally kind of affected by it.
And I felt like an idiot because I thought, all
these years, I'm thinking I'm the only one who's changed.
I'm the only one who's grown up my idea of

(01:28:22):
the audience with those little kids, and here's all these
people that have lived lives and gotten married and had
kids and gotten divorced or whatever.

Speaker 1 (01:28:30):
I felt that our.

Speaker 8 (01:28:31):
Story was unfinished and I wanted to complete it. And
that's what lit the fuse for me to do this.

Speaker 1 (01:28:38):
So and did your wife when she saw the all
the forty year women staring and lovingly was she okay
with it? Did she love it?

Speaker 9 (01:28:46):
Or was.

Speaker 8 (01:28:46):
She hysterical, thought it was crazy, embarrassing, funny. Fine. You know,
she didn't know who I was when I met her.
She just thought I was a producer because she was
working on one of my shows. I hadn't hired her.
She was a post super advisor. She just thought I
was a writer. And then she'd been a little googling.

Speaker 1 (01:29:04):
Oh yeah, and you've been married how long the two
of you?

Speaker 8 (01:29:09):
Almost twenty years ready? Based on my resume, I'm not
surprised to say that, but I think this is I
think we're in it for.

Speaker 3 (01:29:19):
The long run.

Speaker 1 (01:29:19):
We're doing good.

Speaker 6 (01:29:21):
You get today to eat.

Speaker 8 (01:29:23):
Well, whatever that was is gone already, so apparently it
was good. Those are chicken sausage that was good.

Speaker 2 (01:29:28):
This is a soup, that's This is all from Sycamore Kitchen. Everybody,
great place, place we love.

Speaker 8 (01:29:33):
Nearby, A little lentil, something soup nice And this is
like a cauliflower, a spicy cauliflower.

Speaker 2 (01:29:39):
Good for you.

Speaker 1 (01:29:40):
And Sean was the first person to suggest something light
and healthy or at least not loud for our meal,
and thank god for that. It probably was much better.

Speaker 2 (01:29:49):
For the listeners. People just want the heaviest most.

Speaker 1 (01:29:53):
So are we better in person or did you enjoy
us more when we were just when you were in
the carphone?

Speaker 8 (01:29:58):
Yeah, I enjoying better here because I like the food
and I feel like I'm not shouting. We're going to
be shouting for the first two thirds. You guys are
adorable the speakerphone or in person.

Speaker 9 (01:30:09):
Both.

Speaker 1 (01:30:09):
God, we've been waiting a long time for Sean adorable.

Speaker 2 (01:30:12):
Who doesn't love Seawan cast I mean, you are wonderful.
I'm so glad you're here. Come and be my friend.

Speaker 1 (01:30:19):
Sean. One of the first songs I ever loved was
a song called a teen Dream, which I think was
inspired by the Basic Rollers, who I did see on
Howard Cosell's Saturday Night Show?

Speaker 9 (01:30:31):
Is that right?

Speaker 1 (01:30:32):
Was it inspired in part by Basity Rollers?

Speaker 8 (01:30:34):
I'd seen their special and I was just watching the audience.
It's about the kids.

Speaker 1 (01:30:37):
But yeah, and I wrote it was.

Speaker 8 (01:30:39):
Like seventeen, and it was on my second album.

Speaker 1 (01:30:42):
I think, yep. And I want to say, Phil, let's
thank Sean for making our teen dream come true.

Speaker 8 (01:30:48):
Thank you, Jean, I made my teen dream come true. Gentlemen,
see as soon.

Speaker 15 (01:30:54):
Sean Naked Lunch is a podcast by Phil Rosenthal and
David Wilde, theme song and music by Brad Paye. 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,

(01:31:15):
take Phil's and.

Speaker 2 (01:31:16):
Don't forget to leave a good rating and review. We
like five stars.

Speaker 15 (01:31:20):
You know, thanks for listening to Naked Lunch, a Lucky
Bastard's production.

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Shaun Cassidy - A Great Lunch Reheated & Refreshed With A Tasty New Interview!

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