Masters of Nashville Series: Paul Leim: 5 Decades of a Studio Icon :: Ep 242 The Rich Redmond Show

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Join Rich Redmond as he sits down with legendary studio drummer Paul Leim, who shares incredible stories from his 50-year music career. Highlights include:

[0:02:51] - How a Tyler, Texas DJ discovered Paul's talent at age 15

[0:10:00] - Driving to Los Angeles in a woody station wagon to pursue his dream

[0:11:04] - Performing at the 2017 Trump Inaugural Ball

[0:18:54] - Turning down a tour with James Taylor to stay with his young family

[0:22:35] - Working with Linda Carter for 13 years after her Wonder Woman days

[0:26:25] - His philosophy of continuing to play drums as long as he loves it

From recording Star Wars soundtracks to working with Neil Diamond and Tom Jones, Paul Leim offers a fascinating glimpse into the life of a top-tier session musician. A must-listen for music lovers and aspiring drummers!

The Rich Redmond Show is about all things music, motivation and success. Candid conversations with musicians, actors, comedians, authors and thought leaders about their lives and the stories that shaped them. Rich Redmond is the longtime drummer with Jason Aldean and many other veteran musicians and artists. Rich is also an actor, speaker, author, producer and educator. Rich has been heard on thousands of songs, over 30 of which have been #1 hits!

We have MERCH! www.therichredmondshow.com

Follow Rich:

@richredmond

www.richredmond.com

Jim McCarthy is the quintessential Blue Collar Voice Guy. Honing his craft since 1996 with radio stations in Illinois, South Carolina, Connecticut, New York, Las Vegas and Nashville, Jim has voiced well over 10,000 pieces since and garnered an ear for audio production which he now uses for various podcasts, commercials and promos. Jim is also an accomplished video producer, content creator, writer and overall entrepreneur.

Follow Jim:  

@jimmccarthy

www.jmvos.com

 

The Rich Redmond Show is produced by It's Your Show dot Co

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Episode Transcript

Unknown (00:02):
Mike coming to you from crash studios in Music City,
USA, Nashville. This is the richRedmond show. Today's guest,
legendary studio drummer,
and now rich Redmond. What's

(00:28):
up, rock and rollers, richRedman here. This is another
episode of the rich Redmond Showcoming to you from Music City,
USA. Jim McCarthy, my co host,my co producer, how you doing?
Buddy? Doing? Well, hey, hey,you play drums. I do every we've
established that you do a littlebit of voiceover, just a tiny
bit. Now, when you were learningdrums and you were playing along
the records, you for sure,played along the tracks from our

(00:50):
next guest, most likely, yes,and you know what he is. He is
one of the most recordeddrummers in history, responsible
for sales over 250
million units. Mr. Paul line,
yeah, right. All right.

(01:11):
Now, Paul, look at some of theseartists. Now, this is straight
from your wiki. These are somefolks you've played with. John
Williams, Doc severance in theLondon Symphony, the Boston
Symphony, Tanya Tucker, TomJones, Randy Travis, Peter said,
Neil Diamond, Faith Hill, TimMcGraw, Lionel, Richie shine
Twain. List goes on and on. Isthat all? And if you guys look

(01:32):
for you drummers out there,you're interested, you look up
on YouTube. Paul lime, Nashvillerecording session you did for
Vic Firth. Very informative,where you break down the
national number system and youtalk about demo recordings and
all that. And another one that'sgreat is the interview you
recently did with our buddy DOMFAMU laro and look up Paul lime
la Nashville studio on thesessions panel. That's a nice

(01:54):
conversation. Yeah, what a greatthing that that they started
back some time ago. Jules followup and yeah, that's it's pretty
incredible.
And you and I have been able toaccomplish we don't get to break
a lot of bread, but every timethat you and I get together, we
are breaking bread at like thepalm with Jules and her entire
team, the tough life. And I knowit's so past the bread, past the

(02:18):
wine, so fun. So you have abackground. We have a similar
background, in the sense thatI'm originally from Connecticut,
but then I moved to Texas in1981 I went to El Paso Texas,
and then eventually I ended upin Dallas, Texas, in Dallas,
yeah, now you're did a lot ofwork in Tyler, Texas, right?
Well, did a lot of work in Tylergrowing up, I started working in

(02:39):
Robin Hood, Brian studio, when Iwas 15 years
old. He said you were a humanmetronome. Yeah. Well, yeah. We
were playing with our rock androll band at this this Tyler DJ
would have all the local bands,and we were on stage at Bergfeld
Park, and Robin Hood, as that'shis real name, Robin Hood,
Brian's Robin Hood caught meafter we came off stage, and he

(03:03):
said, I was 15. He said, kid,you got a metronome in your
head. How would you like to playon records? And I went, I want
to play anywhere I can. And hesaid, Can you be at my studio
Tuesday at 430 and I said, I'llhave to ask my mom to take me.
Yeah, that's great. So that'swhere that started. And then
that was in, let's see. That wasin 66 so then, of course,

(03:26):
graduated from high school in 69Jeannie and I got married in 68
so Gratz, we're at 51 years.
Hey, that's the same as myparents. They sell her 51 years
together. And I That's great.You know what? I got him, but
I'm the first born son, so I hadto really go big. I got him, two
nights, three days at the super,super, like the what's a super

(03:49):
high end hotel chain, thehighest like Marriott. It's like
a four seasons
Motel Six
Milo Deering.
So I got them, I got I got mydad a beautiful round of golf,
and my mom the spa package andwhatever, one, whatever food
they want to eat for two days.And where was it at? And this is

(04:09):
going to be in Florida. Theylive in Fort Myers. So there
it's in Naples. Naples.
Have you ever been to burn inNaples when you're on tour? Now,
Rocky Patel has a great club. Gothere, and it's called Burn.
It's called Burn. Smoke is allhis Rocky Patel cigars? Oh,
yeah. Great cocktails. Greatfood. Are you a cigar? Great

(04:32):
cigars. Yeah,
no. Now, how? Now? How often istoo much? How do you space it
out? Oh,
I only have a cigar, maybe once,two or three times a month.
Okay, that's not bad, yeah? Fora while there I was like, I like
this. It was like two or three anight, not a couple days in a
row. And you're like, I probablyshouldn't do this,
yeah? Well, at this point of ourlives, you know, having a little

(04:54):
cocktail and cigar and makes youfeel like somebody What's your
cocktail of choice? An oldfashioned
Okay, no. Goes out of style.Yeah,
you steak guy too.
Yeah, yeah. I'm more of a, moreof a pork long guy. Oh, nice.
Okay, yeah, I think that's whatwe had at the comes from the
German background, I guess thepalm that time.

(05:15):
Okay, so, so you're working forRobin Hood, you're in Tyler,
Texas. You're getting all thisexperience, that's right. And
then eventually, life takes you,at 19 years old, to Los Angeles,
in Dallas, into Dallas, yeah.
So I started, of course, RobinHood. We did all the American
Airlines jangles and Exxon andeverything down in Tyler. And

(05:35):
then they knew of me from downthere. And Ron tut and who
you're, of course, very familiarwith, he was in Dallas, and
Larry hobarrack, who was anarranger in Dallas and moved on
to LA and Larry was doing a lotof things for ABC TV. He was for
the 68 comeback special. He wasmusical director for Elvis and
and L and Ronnie, and had workedwith Larry mahobarak A lot,

(05:58):
yeah, and in Dallas, so Larry.Larry called Ronnie, said,
You've got to come out for thisaudition. And Ronnie, so I'm
working. But anyway, he wentout. Of course, he got the Elvis
gig that was in 68 and so 686970 they were kind of hurting
in Dallas for a you know, a lotof the guys there, out of out of

(06:18):
North Texas, jazzers, butjazzers, you know, you know the
you know the drill. And I wantto move to New York and starve
type thing. So I don't want tostarve. I don't want to starve
So, but anyway, the so there waskind of a hole in, in the in the
in the lineup in Dallas, andwhen they found out I was

(06:38):
musical, I was band leader for achick singer there, Vicki
Britton, and we had our ownclub, and it was doing going
really well. And so anyway, Istarted working in the studios
in Dallas, then starting inabout 70. At 70, I moved to
Dallas and right out of highschool and and started working

(06:58):
the studios in 70 and then by 73I was I was doing 450 sessions a
year in Dallas and and the guys,Doc Severinsen had used the
Dallas rhythm rhythm section,rhythm Dallas rhythm section to
to do Boston Pops and CincinnatiSymphony and stuff like that. So

(07:19):
I went with, started with Docseverance. And when I was 23
fantastic nice. It was, it'sbeen the angels in my life have
been unbelievable. Yeah, yeah.
Happened at the right time, andI heard you mentioned your
angels. Those are some lifedefining moments for you.
Yeah, yeah. Those those peoplethat come into your life and
believe in you more than evenyou
do. Sure. I think Jim is one ofthose guys. For me, he's been
like a spirit whisperer for thelast decade. Thank you. Yeah,

(07:41):
man, you know you've got to getoutside of your shell sometimes
and get that third partyperspective. Because you know
what? Sometimes we look in themirror, we don't always see what
the rest of the world sees. Sonow again, you were in Los
Angeles during the heyday whereyou were doing tons of session
for episodic television, yourBattlestar galacticas, and even
played on Star Wars The Returnof the Jedi. I mean, that would

(08:01):
be way up there for me. Guys, Iplayed on
Star Wars. Yeah, the music saidRevenge Of The Jedi. And why I
didn't grab it? I have no idea.Just, it was just another
session, right? But now that Ilook back, I had completely
forgotten I did it. And we were,we were somewhere out with, I
think, without, with MikeNesmith from the monkeys and and

(08:22):
this kid came wanderedbackstage, and he wanted to meet
me backstage. So of course, wehad him come backstage and we
talked, man, I learned how toplay hi hat from you on Star
Wars. And I'm going, did I dothat? Yeah, I remember that with
John. It was kind of a throwtogether thing. And Jerry hay,
course, and did the hornarrangement on it that he did

(08:44):
all the horn arrangements forMichael Jackson, right? And on.
And I went
to school with Henry hay, hisson. Oh, no kidding, yeah. Oh,
great. And then he went to NewYork to play jazz, and I think
he ended up going on to playwith some big folks, like the
stings of the world.
Oh, good. Yeah, that'swonderful, crazy, right? Yeah,
you know, we've really got apretty small business. We all
know each other. We all loveeach other, especially the

(09:04):
drumming community. It's, it'sreally, we all support each
other
more than any other instrumentcommunity. I think
probably so, yeah, I don't, Idon't know why that is, maybe
because we like beating onthings I don't
we do. So now, so you're out inLos Angeles. What? What years
was that I moved to Los Angeles,January the 15th, 1977
I love you have the date,because I don't have the date of

(09:26):
when I moved to Nashville. Ijust know it was March of 1997
Yeah, I, actually, I prayed alot about that at the time. I
prayed about, you know, and Igot this, I got this kind of
word, you know, you gotta, yougotta be there by January the
15th. And so we drove, I drove,actually. I drove all night long
to get I drove 24 hours to be inthe city limits by the 15th.

(09:47):
So Dallas, Los Angeles, Dallasto Los Angeles, and you have
pickup truck
for your drive. I had a 72 Chevystation wagon with the woody,
with the stuff the woody, the.Video, the wood paneling, wood
paneling, yeah, and the rolldown back window
and all that stuff. It's likeChevy Chase in Christmas.

(10:08):
Now, were you married at thistime? Were you a married man at
this time? Or, yes, okay, yeah.And you've been able to provide
for a family playing the drums.This is the American dream.
Yeah, it's
you and I. Both are one of the,some of the fortunate ones. Yes,
it's like, I say it's one thingis just rolled into another.
Within two weeks, when I gotthere, the guitar player from
one of our high school rock androll bands, Doug Rohn, was with

(10:30):
Neil, and when I moved out, Iwent out first myself, so I
lived with he and another highschool buddy. And where
are you crashing? Over there inthe Southland, what we're part
of El Malibu and Malibu, it's atough life. That's not bad.
No, they had a great pad Malibu,yeah? And Frank is, can you
anyway? So, yeah, trencis, yeah.So we saw, I was out there with

(10:54):
them, and within two weeks, Iwas with Neil Diamond,
beautiful. That just, you know,it's that stuff. You can't make
it up, yeah? Cuz
I'm kind of looking at your justkind of the background here. I
even saw that you play with, Iworked with a gentleman named
Tim rush low, and we had a popcountry band called rush low,
yeah. And I saw, if you guyswant to look up on the YouTube

(11:14):
and attraction, just look up2017 Trump inaugural, the ball,
Freedom ball. And you're playingsome great big band music with
Tim rush. Load, love Big Bandalways rush, yeah, he's such a
nice guy. He's does it reallywell. So here's some of the
films you worked on, Star Wars,Return of the Jedi you did for
television, the fall guy,Spencer for hire, growing pains.

(11:38):
You were the staff drummer on alot of award shows. Did
the American Music Awards for 10years and the CMAS for off and
on for 25 years. ACMA is for,yeah, 12
years, and you were the eighttime ACM drummer of the year.
And also sitting in that chairthere, we had two other winners.
We had Mr. Eddie bears and Mr.Lonnie Wilson. Stop all of the

(12:02):
contemporaries. So when I movedhere in 97 I was doing my
research, and, you know,researching everybody, so I
listened to a lot of yourtracks. Greg Morrow, Eddie
bears, Lonnie Wilson, ChadCromwell, Kenny had a kit here.
Was working a lot back in thedays, and I took a lesson from
him in nine. When did I take alesson 98 or something like
that? And then he said, You knowwhat? I'm just gonna move,

(12:23):
finally move out of his Indianahouse. And he says, I just
grabbed all my drums on the way,and I just went to LA and now he
uses that as his base. Yeah,does a lot of recording just
from a little spot in NorthHollywood. I'm just, is Kenny
out there? Now he's out there agood 10 years or so. Is he
really?
Yeah, gosh, I didn't realizehe'd he'd moved out there that
long ago, because we do stay intouch. I just didn't ask about

(12:44):
where he was living. There's agreat story that I have about
Kenny Aaron off, who's who we'retalking about. Now, my son, 20
years ago, was trying to decidehe was a senior at UT, and he'd
always wanted to fly jets andbut he played drums in his rock
and roll band, and they were thehot band on campus up at

(13:06):
University of Tennessee, so theywere having a lot of fun, and he
was trying to decide whether tofollow in my footsteps. He was a
big fan of Kenny and and RonnieTut. He our families, our family
and Ronnie's family grew uptogether, and Jacob and Nathan
tut were best of friends, and,and looks like extended family.

(13:29):
And so, so, so, so Kenny calledme. Was in town. He said, Hey,
Paul, you want to go get lunch?So, yeah, man, Sure, that'd be
great. I got some time thisafternoon. So I said, You mind
if I bring my son? So we metdown at the old Houston's,
right? And, and so we're sittingthere, and we, you know, kibitz
bit and so he finally says toJake. He says, So Jacob, so

(13:50):
Jake, what's going on with you?He says, man. He says, I'm a
senior at UT, and I either haveto sign for my commission this
week, I have to sign for mycommission in the Air Force.
I've been doing ROTC, and I'vegot a sign for my commission the
Air Force, or turn that down andfollow in Ron's and dad's
footsteps and and start my, youknow, be get serious about a

(14:12):
music career. And I just, I'mhaving such a hard time whether
to fly jets or play drums. AndKenny reached over, slapped him
on the arm, said, Oh, man, gofly jets. You can play drums
anytime, just like that. Made uphis mind. Yep, Kenny made up his
mind. And now in August, thiscoming August, in eight months,
he retires. After 20 years, he'sretired with full pension, full

(14:36):
good for him, full medical iswhen and he's gonna wants to
come back to start playing. Ifyou can talk about it, I
actually talked to him about it.I said, Are you going to want to
come back to play? He said, I'mgetting so many great offers
with companies coming out ofthem. Yeah, what he's an expert
at?
Yeah, I got an uncle that drove,flew the planes for air,

(14:56):
American Airlines for years, andwhen you know they have to
retire. Think at 6065, at 60 andso he and he's just like, I'm
I'm good man, this is gonna befantastic. We're talking to our
friend Russ Miller one time, andhe's like, Rich. Do you realize
that the level of success you'veachieved, if it was in any other
industry, you would own a topfloor penthouse in Manhattan?

(15:19):
That's right, but it doesn'twork like that. No one doesn't,
not in the creative
arts. No, yeah, we do. Well, Imean, we do. We're very
comfortable. And I can retire ifI want to, but I still love it,
you know, I still enjoy it, andwe stay busy, yeah,
speaking of staying busy andhaving a great skill set, the
School of Rock, School of Rock,right here in Nashville,

(15:40):
Tennessee. I remember when Iwas, you know, learning the
drums. It was 1976 1977 I hadsuper supportive parents, and
Too bad we didn't have somethinglike the School of Rock. The
School of Rock is a great thing.There's 250 locations in the
world, and right here inNashville and Franklin, we have
two of the best locations, Kellyand Angie McCarthy. You know
him. You love him. You met him.We interviewed him. They run the

(16:02):
best school of rocks. And so ifyou got a kid out there that
wants to learn the drums, bassguitar, keyboards, they want to
sing, they can take lessons atthe School of Rock. And even if
your kids never become a fulltime musician, they're going to
learn about persistence,determination, time management,
working well with others, takingdirection. And those are great
skills to have in life. So I gottwo emails addresses for you,

(16:24):
Nashville at School of Rockcalm, or Franklin at School of
Rock calm, tell him I sent you.And thank you so much School of
Rock for sponsoring the richRedmond show. Yes. Thank you
very much. We're so good atthat. Oh, dude, thanks. I got a
future in radio. I better get onit. You know,
that's another industry that ifyou really do well in it's
seemingly you should own apenthouse, but exactly doesn't

(16:46):
happen.
Should become like, you know,Howard Stern, or Don Imus or
something like that. Yeah, it'slightning in a bottle. I love
listening. I listened to thatinterview you did with Dom
family Laura last night, and youwere talking about your first
drum hero, Louis Bellson Louiebells, you know, mine was, it
was a gateway drug. I reallyenjoyed Carmine apathy. And we,

(17:06):
you know, we kind of becomefriends over the years, and then
looking back, you find out, Oh,Carmine was really into Gene
Krupa and everyone's like,buddy, rich man all the way, no
Krupa all the way. It's like,you got your chocolate and my
peanut butter. You got my peanutbutter and your chocolate,
that's right. I thought thatthat gene had such a great
showmanship. And he was thepeople's

(17:27):
drummer, yeah, he was thepeople's drummer. And he was,
yeah, right, that's it, yes.That's the best way I can think
of to put him Yeah, people'sdrummer. Technically, Buddy.
Buddy had him. Oh yeah, yeah.But he had everybody. But you
know, his talking to Ron onetime. You know the opener for,

(17:47):
for the opener that
Ron used, Elvis wanted the drumsto start the whole show, sure.
And so the opener that Ron usedon CC Ryder, it's a straightened
out version of Sing, sing, sing,sing. And Ron is right, yeah,

(18:11):
there's even there triple it inthe whole thing. And he actually
doesn't use the, he actuallydoesn't use the two bass drums
on the open when I do the show II do. I had him in the second
two bars, just make it thunder alittle more. Oh,
so you're on the toms, and thenon bar three and four, you had
the feet. Add the feet, yeah,
yeah. It's fun showing we do it.But yeah, Ron, when Ron was had

(18:32):
conflict, because Ron, after,after the 80s, I wanted to stay
in the studios with Neil. I wantto stay in the studios in LA and
kind of work with everybody.Now, when
you move to Lawson, and when youmoved to Nashville in 19 in 1988
was that, let's go to asomething like a little bit more
of a slower, a softer pace toraise children? Was that the
thing?
Well, Lee had called me to to goout with James Taylor, nice. And

(18:56):
I'd always wanted to play withJames and and one night, I told
my two little boys, Jacob andJosh, one that's now retiring
from the Air Force, that'scrazy. I said, you know, Daddy's
gonna take a, you know, I reallywant to play with this artist.
And I'd already, I'd alreadyturned down Neil full time and

(19:18):
and we were, I was in the middleof doing a Lionel Richie there
should have been around 81 andwe 81 and we were still, we
started doing all the LionelRichie records and and Lee Sklar
called to do, to do James. And,man, I'd love to do that. That'd
be awesome. So I told the kidsone night, and they were, let's
see 81 Jacob would have beenabout four. They boys are about

(19:38):
three and four. And I said, youknow, I'm, I want to, I'm gonna
go on tour. I'm gonna do alittle traveling. You know, I've
been home, just in the studio,and being home every night.
Well, Daddy, how long you gonnabe gone? I said, Well, it's a
year. Well, Daddy, how long is ayear? Well, it's Christmas to
Christmas. You know, how longChristmas to Christmas is to a
four year old? Long time.Forever. Yeah, yeah. And they

(20:01):
start crying, and I'll go, Well,I'm not leaving tomorrow. It's
okay. So, you know, you go backand put Jeannie. Should I do? I
really want to, but I don't wantto leave the kids. And so first
day of rehearsal, I was walkingout the door, and they started
crying, and Jeannie startedcrying, then I started crying,
and I called Lee, and I said,Lee, I can't do this. I can't go

(20:24):
and he said, and I thought hewas gonna lie. Said, I
understand. I thought he wasgonna light into you. He said,
he said, Paul, man, thank Thanksfor telling me now. He said,
Thanks for he said, because,man, you know, sometimes guys
can't take the road and havefamilies. They get out for a
month and they and they say, Igotta go home. Yeah. And I've
had, I've had guys do that to mebefore as a band leader. But
here's, here's the end of thatstory that happened 30 years

(20:47):
later at the White House. We'rein the we're in the East Wing of
the White House, and we're doingthe the country at the White
House TV special for Obama, andJames is on stage, and we're
we'd already rehearsed andeverything I gave him the very
last I gave James Taylor verylast of my last serial number of

(21:11):
my signature snares. Yeah, butanyway, because he came back
said, was that snare drum? And Isaid, That's my signature snare
what's, what's different aboutthis drum? Anyway, I'm getting
off
track. That's one of the bestselling signature snare drums.
Yeah, they're
going up on the on the eBay, oneBay.
But anyway, so we're in the EastWing of the White House, and

(21:31):
James is standing there. We havea little bit of a break. And so
I told him the story that, ofcourse, he didn't even know
about. He don't you know, Leewas the band leader, putting the
band together and, and I don'tthink James knew about it. And I
told him the story, and he wentreally and then 15 minutes
later, he came back and he said,I didn't get all that. He said,

(21:52):
Paul, tell me that. Tell me thatstory again. And I told him what
had happened. He said, You madethe right choice.
Ah, it seems like a super, kindsoul. Oh, James,
a great deal. Diamonds, greatguy. Some of them are not.
Who were some of the other folksthat you had a touring
relationship with over theyears, Linda, Linda Hamilton,
no. Linda Carter. Most recently,she thinking of Terminator. My

(22:15):
very first, my very firstepisodic TV series was Wonder
Woman, nice and and we had, youcan go online and see that Linda
Carter CBS specials, you can seeall that stuff and some great
shots on that. But that was wehad. We did five CBS specials,
and she actually started as asinger, and so we hooked back.

(22:36):
We hadn't talked for, like, 28years, and back in oh eight, she
called and said she wanted tocome back. She'd raised her kids
want to come back to working. SoI've been MD for Linda now for
this will be our going on our13th year. Great. So, yeah, so
it's a lot of but we only doabout 1515, 20 dates a year, and
just just enough to get out andhave some good food. And that's

(22:57):
nice. You hear the crowd? Yeah?That kind of stuff. It's fun
stuff. Yeah. I remember
in 9097, when I moved to town,it was very it was very there
was very much a line in the sandwhere you were an artist or a
songwriter, or you were asession drummer, or you were a
live drummer, and there wasn't alot of commingling. And then
that's right. And then now thatthings have changed, you're
really smart to I know all ofour colleagues are jumping in a

(23:18):
bunk on the weekends and ridingon a bus doing sessions Monday
through Thursday, and like,Yeah, I'll go play with Amy
Grant, yeah, I'll go play withBob Seger, yeah, go play with,
you know, that's it's become thenorm now, yeah, as as the, as
our, the business as we know it.And, you know, yeah, has turned
into what it's turned into with,with so much the business model

(23:40):
having pretty much beendestroyed. Yeah, you know,
thanks a lot for the mp threeguys, yeah, really destroyed it.
And they have the thing. Theycould
have stopped it, and theydidn't, but, but, yeah, touring
relationships Tom Jones was justan absolute ball. I did that in
77 when I first after workingwith Neil, and before the kids
came, I went out with Tom Jonesand nice. So much fun. Yeah,

(24:06):
yeah, it's that's about as muchfun as you can have, right? With
that, with
your clothes on,
he's just, he's such a rocker,you know, we do his show, and
then he'd get on the on theplane, he'd have private chat.
We he and hopefully hitting theback of the seats as he walked
to the back of the jet gun comealong a baby. Whole lot of shake

(24:26):
and go. He's still ready to go.Yeah, yeah. So all fired up. All
Fired up, yeah, we would, buteach both of us would lose five
pounds. Have you ever weighedyourself before you go on? Weigh
yourself when you
come off. Now, I had a girl Ican probably get you connected
with. She weighed, you know, sheput these elect she put some
electrodes on me. She's actuallydoing a scientific study over
five years. That's a good onetoo. And so I burn 1000 calories

(24:48):
a show. Oh, yeah, 90 minuteshow. So 1000 calories and my
heart's up there. Yeah?
Now, so it's good. We're gettingpaid to work out. Oh, that's
right, yeah, that's easy to keepwe lose
that water weight for sure,though, because I. When I come
off, it's like, my shirts, like,wring it out, yeah, I should
turn it into, like, a perfume ora cologne. Yep, I
have a question. You talkedabout the every man's drummer

(25:10):
being Gene Krupa. I've alwaystaught. I always thought of Neil
Peart like that. Yeah, you know,kind of like everybody knew who
he was. Thought he was one ofthe best drummers. But of
course, technical prowess,you've got guys that could, you
know, drum circles around him,but to the every man, he was an
amazing drum household, amazing.
You know, Rush. Rush was like areligion. It's, it's like,
you're either a huge rush fan,right? Or you're not. But

(25:34):
certainly, anybody who was ahuge rush fan, obviously, you
know, Neil. So there was
a documentary recently that Iwatched, and I want to say it's
on one of the streaming channelsthat you can you can download,
and it's about them leading upto their very last show, and
they documented. It was verywell done. That's great. And the

(25:56):
attitudes within the band,because Getty and Alex, they
weren't ready to hang it up. ButNeil was like, Guys, I'm gonna
be 64 years old. I'm gettingtired. He's like, I can't play.
That was, that was big of him
to admit that, you know, yeah,he wanted
to go out on top. You know, itwas, it was one of those things
that I kind of appreciated abouthim, that it's just that he's

(26:18):
like, it's a workout.
Do you feel like you're gonnadie with the sticks in your
hand. Is that a goal? One, two?
You know what I mean? That'sprobably what
I'll do. I want to play as longas I still love it. Yeah, I want
to play as long as I still loveit and and I still love it. So
I'm only taking what I reallywant to do if it's really fun. I

(26:43):
we got a call today, thismorning that Tanya, Tanya Tucker
and I great buds, and she wantsto, we're going to do a remake
of Delta dawn, and they'retrying to find as many originals
as possible. And so we're acouple weeks we're going to
recut Delta Dawn and and MissBrenda is going to come in.
Brenda Lee is going to come inand be part of it, so that'll be
a lot of fun. And, you know,talking about everyday drummer

(27:06):
and every man's drummer, Louisfit to me, Louis was technically
beyond. He was, he was kind ofin the middle between buddy and
Gene, yeah, and so. But he washe, he did the double bass drums

(27:27):
for the first time and and whenI heard that, it just at 12
years old. I was just because Iwas beating, like every other
drummer that I was beating oneverything in the house. I knew
how sharp to sharpen thepencils, but where the tips
wouldn't break, but they'd stillbounce well in school, right?
Yeah. And so it just, I mean,I've always heard rhythms in

(27:49):
everything and and I thinkthat's, I think that's
exceptionally important to youngplayers, to know the lineage.
Know, who did Louis Bellsonlisten to? Well, he gene was
older than he was, so he hadlistened to Gene, you know, and
and, and then, and then I toldyou the story about Ronnie. He

(28:12):
was a gene fan, right? So Ronniekind of he. Ronnie had his own
style, but Ronnie was one of thefirst ones to meld rock and roll
and orchestra. And that's,that's my favorite thing to do,
is play with a a rock and rollrhythm section, with a full
orchestra, kicking a fullorchestra, a big band is that's,
that's my favorite thing to do,although, in Nashville, you

(28:34):
know, when we moved here in 88there, there was not that much
of that to do until when westarted to do the CMA Christmas
specials. All of that's bigband. Well, most of it's big
band. And we've been doing, wejust had our 10th, finished our
10th year of the CMA Christmasspecials. I'm at 10 years with
that now.
So it's like, we have thiscalendar every year the things

(28:57):
we can look forward to, there'slike, CRS, CMA Music Fest, and
then there's the CMAS and theACMs, and then you get into all
your Christmas specials, andthen all the sessions in
between, it's like, we got theNAM show, we got pas we get this
whole thing that kind of we canlook forward to.
Yeah, I'm pretty much booked forthe rest of year as much as I
want to be as four trips toEurope. And it's, it's gonna be

(29:17):
a lot. Who's the
gentleman you're playing? Is hean Elvis impersonator? He's not
an
impersonator. Those are the guyswho wear the the jumpsuits.
Yeah? And we won't work withthem. The TCB guys won't work
with them. It just that. It'sjust awkward, didn't Yeah, but,
but guys that do a great job andreally honor Elvis and the fan
clubs in Europe are stillravenous for his music, right?

(29:38):
And because he was such atremendous artist, such a great
singer. He did a lot of covers.I mean, he covered a lot of
stuff, especially later on inlife, when he wasn't getting the
top shelf stuff anymore becauseof the way the colonel handled
his business. But, but
who played on all thesoundtracks for the Elvis
movies? It was
buddy Harmon and DJ Fontana.Wow. We lost the. J That's

(30:01):
almost a year ago now. I stay intouch with pre Hal Blaine. Halb
played pretty on the on thestuff in LA and he played on the
on the TV specials. DJ was onall the movies and but when they
would do the movies, they wouldalso Elvis would fly buddy out
buddy Harmon. So it'd be buddyand DJ, and sometimes be three

(30:25):
drummers on a lot of them, likethe Beach Boys records, there's,
there's, there's two drummersand two percussionists. And, I
mean, it's just yeah, as amatter of fact, if, if you were
able, if you were able, to see acredits sheet on Viva Las Vegas.
It's, it's buddy Harmon, DJFontana, Louie Bellson, wow, and

(30:51):
gosh, who was the other drummerthat was on it? And it might
been hell as well. Yeah, yeah.Four full on drummers. Yeah. So
when you listen to it, like,see,
yeah, to our coffee, to our nondrummers out there. Buddy Harmon
was a national session drummerthat played on, I believe,
18,000 recording sessions. Andwhen I was starting to play the

(31:13):
Grand Ole Opry in the in the9798 99 he'd be hanging out. He
was always at the opry hangingout. Like just that was his
life, yeah. And Hal Blaine wasprobably the first and perhaps
last session drummer to ownRolls Royce's mansions and
yachts. But he liked the ladies
when they were still cheating.He was married six times,

(31:35):
but the yachts and the RollsRoyce, he
was married six times. God, resthis soul.
Take a piece of paper. Cut it inhalf, yeah, cut it in half
again. Cut it in half again,right?
Yeah, in half. And he ended uphaving to sell half again
records. He had to sell his goldrecords
to a limb. Yeah, it's, it was,it was terrible. I stayed in
touch with him at the at theend, yeah?

(31:56):
Hal Blaine, yes. He was alwaysquick with a joke. So friendly.
That's, that's really part ofthe equation is, yeah. Your
reading shops together, and yougot to know your electronics,
and you got to be able to playwith a click and tune your drum
and take direction, but at thesame time, really, it's like
that those your personality andyour people skills in in the
room, and how you can deal withpeople and and how was probably

(32:17):
the first one to show up and hadhis coffee and a cigarette, and
he had the new joke of the day,and people loved being around
the guy and
represent Have you seen themovie Love and Mercy? No. Would
you see that movie? It's aboutJim's always good for tuning us
on the good movies. Well, Imean, it's a movie all about
man. What's his name? BrianWilson, yeah. And Hal Blaine,

(32:38):
there's a, you know, actor inthat movie that plays Hal blame.
Yeah, we're
friends on Facebook, that me andthat actor, and we've been
trying to get together for fouryears for coffee. Yeah, but
there's a lot of urban sprawl,sprawl in Los Angeles, so I
split my time. I live with mygirlfriend in West Hollywood,
and when I'm not here, and it isso fun. Did you find that when
you moved from Los Angeles, youmissed the Thai Lebanese and

(32:59):
Greek food on every streetcorner, sushi, you're here.
Like, wow, where's barbecue?
We miss shondara, yeah, Shonda,the Thai food there at kawanga
in the sunset. Yes, I loveshandar. We used to eat there
almost everything. I think it'sa, it's a, it was right beside
group four
things like a Katsuya. Now, no,Chandra still, still there.
Okay, I'm gonna go

(33:20):
when we go out, we, when we goout with Linda, we play the
Catalina club out there to gether ready for Kennedy Center and
Lincoln Center. And did heCatalina close Catalina club on
Sunset? Yeah, still there.Catalina Bar and Grill still
there. Okay, yeah, but that's ait's a fun little venue
to play so many jazz clubsclosed, man, but the baked

(33:40):
potato is still rocking. Thepotatoes
still going. There's a place outin West Lake where our kids were
born, bogeys.
Is it bogeys? Bogeys, bar Ithink it's bogeys, bogeys,
bogeys, yeah. And then there'sthe write off room that our
buddy. Do you know, Tonybronickle, I don't know the
session drummer. He played withKen Moe for years. He played
with Bonnie. Great. He'sactually the guy that recorded,

(34:02):
I can't make you love me withthe brushes on the Bonnie Raitt
song. They could, they couldn'tget a take for whatever reason
he heard the song. He came inone passer like, that's it.
Boom. That's great. Yeah. I lovethose stories. So what are you
most excited about? What haveyou learned along the way?
What's your next five years looklike?
Oh gosh,

(34:23):
because, you know, there's goingto be musicians that, not even
drummers, but otherinstrumentalists, people that
want to get record deals. Youknow, you've survived and
thrived in four decades of themusic business, five decades of
the music business. What are thecommonalities? What are some
things that, some advice thatyou could give to these

(34:44):
dreamers? Drum roll,
I had to do that was good. Itwas effective.
The comedy is, tell. Timing,anticipate,

(35:05):
yeah, once again, if you want tobe a if you when, when
technology started coming intodrum, drum world in in the 80s,
late 70s and early 80s. A lot ofthe guys, Hal and Ronnie, did
not embrace it. They did notwant to really take the trouble

(35:27):
to learn that. And what we hadto do is we had to figure out
how to use a lindron. We had tofigure out how to trigger an SDS
five and an SDS seven. And whydidn't the SDS seven sound like
the SDS five? And when the SDSfive was so popular at the time,
but we all knew that was goingto move on to something else.
That's one thing I learned whenwe did the Amy Grant Christmas

(35:49):
record with Tennessee, TennesseeChristmas and all those things
on it that we cut it caribouactually in July, as most of the
Christmas records you've got,I'm sure, yes, as with me, you
do them in July, bells in July,sleigh bells in July. So, so.
But I used the Simmons drums onthat. And I'll never use

(36:12):
electronics on a Christmasrecord. What year was that? 82
so, because they go onChristmas, records play for
everything. And you, yeah, youhear that, you go, so you have,
like, 1982 I sound so freaking
old. So you had the you had theLynn, you had the octopad, you
had the the Simmons. And thenthere's, we're

(36:34):
doing splitters coming we'd dodouble splitters coming out of
the back of the lindrum, andyou'd get that sound. And just
that, then that would runthrough a a, basically a limiter
that would just pull the spikeoff the top of the sound, where
you could go into a four out of16 or or some other thing. Maybe
you double and trick, you know,up triggering more drums and

(36:56):
that kind of stuff. All mydrums. I put piezos on all the
drums so you just plug into theshell. Still to this day, no,
no, no anymore. Now you know allthe engineers want to run the
world, so let them do the letthem do everything. It's so easy
to show up. Hell yeah, so, butwhat? What that created was a

(37:17):
playing situation where you hadto in order to know you were
firing everything. The dynamicswent out of the kit, which I
really miss. But then I get usedto just slamming all the time.
And then I realized when I quittriggering, that you don't have
to play that way all the time,right? And if you play you're
playing through the heads. It'sit's too far totally. So, so

(37:39):
yeah, but looking forward to thenext five years. Gosh, I I'm
enjoying life. I've got, I'vegot, my three kids are very
successful. I've got seven greatgrandkids. We're, we're trying
to spend more time with them.And are they all here in this
area, Middle Tennessee?Actually, my first son's in

(38:01):
Vegas. He's still at Nellis.He'll be getting out of the Air
Force, and he's trying to decidewhether to move back here.
Second son is a professor oftheology and at Whitworth
University in Spokane, and ourdaughter does live here, just
about three minutes from us, andwe have the grandkids over at
the house all the time. Theylove being in Opus house. That
is awesome. It's a great life.We've gene are still together

(38:22):
and and very thankful. That's
a great victory, right there.Marriage is tough, especially
when you're in the arts andyou're traveling, and you keep
your schedule like you
keep Yeah, so it's but a lot oftimes I fly southwest, so much,
she flies with me companion, soshe fries for free. So she loves
that. She goes.
I know there's less there's lessbells and whistles on Southwest,
but I'm a Southwest man becausethey I just I find that they're

(38:44):
the kindest, funniest, happiestemployees,
yeah, and you know ourschedules? I know yours does
too. Your schedules change allthe time, and they don't, they
don't bust your
chops for changing the schedule,and they don't charge you for
the luggage.
And if anybody knows somebodywho is in the executive ranks at
Southwest, we could reallythey'd make a great sponsor.

(39:06):
Are you kidding me? Speaking ofsponsors, we got to pay some
bills. We'll be right back
the rich Redman show. We'll beright back.
Learn by Doing, I definitelythink resonates with what we're
about here at the School ofRock. I'm Angie McCarthy, and
I'm the owner of the School ofRock in Franklin and Nashville.

(39:29):
I would say that the majority ofkids that come in have either
been sitting in their bedroomswatching YouTube, learning how
to play, or they've taken musiclessons at some point in their
life. We do have a lot ofbeginners. It doesn't matter
what level you're at, you canparticipate in our programs,
whether you're a beginner oryou're advanced. We don't teach

(39:50):
music to put on shows. We put onshows to teach
music. Connect with School ofRock today. Search School of
Rock Franklin. Four Nashville.
This is the rich Redmond show.
You know, I used to have mydrums parked right across from
you, over at SSU, and JimHandley was your guy forever?

(40:14):
Was your drum tech? Is he stillworking with you? He's been with
me over 25 years. And so I wouldalways look, and I would see you
would have old Yamaha electronicdrums and octopads and things.
You were just like, I better notget rid of this. Maybe it'll
come back. I was like, it waslike, almost like a museum of
electronic percussion.
I wish I could find thesyndromes. Yeah, I don't know

(40:34):
what happened to him. Justsomewhere along the way, right?
Yeah. They disappeared.
Disco right. Then, did you evermeet Yogi Horton? Yogi Horton,
he was like, the he played onthe hustle. He was like, Oh, the
disco guy.
I didn't know who would haveplayed on that, yeah. I didn't
know if it would have been ed orsomeone. Yeah,
Ed green, he died, and Ed ishere. Is he not? Ed's here,

(40:56):
yeah,
I did a thing for see himfantasy weekend. Did you did? I
was thinking you did that last,last year, fantasy weekend that
they put on rock and rollfantasy weekend. Oh, I saw him
there. They put it
on a couple of them in LosAngeles. I thought you had,
yeah. David fish, off.
David Fisher, yeah, used tomanage. This is a great Do we

(41:17):
have time? Sure. So talking toDavid. And David used to manage,
road manager, Ringo, right,right? And so, so we were
talking with David. David's agreat guy. And he said, you know
when? When I said, Well, youknow, with that expensive band
that Ringo takes out and he'splaying the Ryman, do you make
any money? And and David said,Nah, he doesn't make any money.

(41:40):
Spends it all on private jets,and, yeah, and, and paying the
band, you know, he's got, Imean, he's
Luke or therapist, yeah, he'sgot expensive, incredibly
expensive band, right? Yeah, hedidn't make any money, but he
stays home. And he's a schmuck,taking out the trash. He goes on
the road. He's a beetle
Ringo takes out his own trash.Wow.

(42:01):
You know what? If you guys go toPaul lime.com it's L, E, I m,
there's a lot of informationabout Paul. You can see pictures
of all the celebrities workedwith over the year. His gear,
there's videos, there's a fulldiscography, and he's got this
thing called Paul's hitsnippets. And so when you've
worked with everyone from LindaCarter to Shinya Twain and
everybody in between, RebaMcIntyre, Rogers, every you

(42:25):
played on, I've had the time ofmy life, the Grammy Award
winning song that I played atweddings. There's, there's a
little
that's a good pair. I get paidfrom that all over the
there's a little medley you haveof just some of your hits. And
so we're gonna fire up a littlebit of this right now. Okay,
take it down memory lane.
Yeah. Got this

(42:57):
feeling. This is normally whereI come in when I'm doing a
clinic. I'll play.
I'll come in and start playingthere, and then, then I'll play

(43:19):
the rest of this whole thingthrough. It lasts about 25
minutes. Nice?

(43:42):
Is it me? I love you. Take meright

(44:02):
back to the
if I'm not
in love, I'm
on the first I'm not in

(44:37):
love, I'm on the verge
over the water,
everything gets hotter when thesun goes down. That's just
incredible, incredible. Now
you're talking about a changingindustry of the 250 million
records you play on Chennai wasresponsible for 75

(45:00):
Of them, at least, yeah.
And then you were saying, youknow, Taylor Swift's just as big
as Shania Twain. She only sold15 million. Now, that's the
difference. That's
what's happened to our business,yeah. And obviously, she's ever
been as successful as she nowever was, but it just it. You
know, she's probably got asmany, if not more, spin. What do

(45:20):
we call them? Any more spin,spins on spot. Yeah. What do
they call it? Spotify, or thecolumns plays, yeah, events, or
whatever it is. But yeah, that'swhere, that's how much the
business has changed. It's just,I don't think, from a CD
standpoint, it is not possiblefor that to happen again. And
I'm not bragging. I'm justsaying, unfortunately for guys

(45:41):
coming up, can you say, what,what you have? What can you
recommend for guys and andthere's the difficult part is
that we all know is you used togood, go and play a club gig for
100 bucks a month, and you couldget a great apartment for 200
bucks a month. I mean, yeah,hello, play for 100 bucks a
month. Yeah, that was really andno go and play for 50 or 100

(46:03):
bucks a night, right? Fivenights a week at a club
somewhere, you may 500 bucks aweek, make couple $1,000 a
month. This back in the 70s,make a couple $1,000 a month,
and your and your rent was 200bucks a month at an apartment.
That's a 10 to one ratio, yeah,and it's a Gosh, and it's just
money went so much further. Youknow, they say there's not

(46:26):
inflation now, it's absolutecrap. Inflation is so bad. It's
unbelievable. Yeah, they do iton purpose. But anyway, you
remember
when I told you about the one ofthe episodes we talked about
this, when tool released theirlast album, they did something
very interesting, actually, toencourage a full CD buyout. They

(46:46):
included a digital screen, likea little LCD screen, that you
could actually play videos onand download content to, and
encourage people to download theentire album, as opposed to just
buying a single. That's good,yeah, it's very innovative, and
it's almost like the pendulumshift, kind of going back down.
That'd be nice.
That was a business modelinvented by the by the New York

(47:10):
attorneys, by the way. But whenElvis was having hits, it was a
singles business. You never sawa single from James Taylor,
right, right. Even Neil Diamond,early 7375 still had some
singles, but you know, after 70,after 75 there were no singles
anymore, and what they forcedyou to do is buy 10 Songs.

(47:31):
Instead of about to get one. Youhad to buy 10, right? That was
also a planned thing by verysmart attorneys, right? People
still wanted to just to hear thehit, and they'd hear the hit on
the radio, but you had to buythe record, right? So they
basically could force people inthe corner. So from a standpoint
of liking songs or having yourfavorite song, our business was

(47:53):
inflated, kind of artificiallyfor for 2025, years, just from
that business model. As youknow, most things in life are
business model and the so it'swhen it left that that's where
the difficulty came in. We'reback to a singles business now.

(48:14):
But now what you're talkingabout now if, if, if they are
incentivizing piece people tobuy the entire album. That's
That's beautiful. You remember
when you bought albums, theystill, they told a story. You
know, my first album I listenedto, and I always heart, I get
made fun of online, inflamed byour fans that I bring up Van
Halen so much. But that was thefirst album I listened to, front

(48:35):
to back.
Sunset Sound, right there. Theyrecorded that whole searcher.
Yeah, man.
But I mean, that was it. Youcould read. You remember the
sonic qualities going from songto song to song, and it told
somewhat of a story. You know,they're kind of put together. I
mean, that isn't really doneanymore. It's that's got to come
back.
Yeah, talking about sunset.Sound ever worked there? Yeah.

(48:58):
You know the courtyard in themiddle? Yeah, we were doing
Kenny and Dolly Christmasrecord. This little tune called
I believe in Santa Claus, andI'll be, you know, Christmas
without you. Just anyway, everyChristmas it plays, and Foster's
producing it. So we're out thereon a break, and John Hobbs and
Billy Walker and Joe Schmee wereoutside. We're shooting bass,

(49:20):
yeah, shooting hoops. Walker,Walker, Foster, David Foster,
comes out. And he worked thereso much he came out and he said,
Throw me the ball. And there wasa hoop was on the right side of
the courtyard, and there was astraight wall on the left,
straight wall on the right,behind the
behind the hoops on the right,on the
basketball goal. On the right,he comes out and he hauls the

(49:44):
ball as hard as he can towardthe wall on the left, it hits,
goes over the top, hits the wallon the far side and goes through
the net. Nothing but
net. Damn. He just got a goldentouch like. With everything he
does about somebody
can't do anything wrong, hecan't and it was we all just

(50:05):
went
and he has actually, DavidFoster has actually fostered
generations of celebrities likehis fit now he's married to
Catherine McCarthy, but thenhe's like, his children are all
like, massive influencers infashion and cosmetics. So
yeah, we're great friends withLinda Thompson. He was married
to Linda had kids with LindaThompson. They would come to our
house. When they come to town,they would come to our house,

(50:27):
the golden touch. So speaking ofthat, looking back, do you have
favorite producers, musicians,songwriters, studios, I mean,
because I'm sure kids, unlessyou journal or keep a diary,
even me, you know, 2324 years ina Nashville, it's very blurry.
Someone has to remind you, yeah,you remember? I don't remember

(50:47):
that, but thank you forreminding me something like come
to mind,
favorite rooms, favoriteproducers. Yeah,
I really enjoyed a lot of guysdidn't enjoy working with mutt,
but I really enjoyed workingwith Mutt Lange. He was, when it
comes to music, I'm pretty muchof a perfectionist. I'm a little

(51:08):
bit of a music snob, right?Because I've done so many
different things
or so, for those that don'tknow, he produced Shania, but he
also produced AC, DC and DEF,Leppard
and Brian Adams and yeah, youcan, you can hear a mutt song in
a second when it comes on. Youknow it's mine, but he was great
to work with David Malloy.Working with David Malloy, I

(51:28):
enjoyed that. Kyle Lenning, forsure. All the Randy Travis
records, beautiful buddy cannon,all the Kenny Chesney records.
I've did Kenny Kenny's recordsfor over 20 years. Nice Guy and
buddy's great guy. Used to be abass player on the road with I
can't think of it right now, butanyway, yeah, the what? I'm so

(51:51):
thankful that that I've had theopportunity to work in so many
different situations. I'm notgood at doing the same thing.
I'm not sure. I would notprobably have been able to do
what Ronnie tut did and be withNeil for 35 years. 3540
years, I'm already at 20 and Iplay the same 24 songs every
night. Yeah, that's why I got togo do some

(52:13):
other things. You got to dosomething else to keep your
fresh. And because in LA, youknow, in the morning, you'd be
doing an American Airlinescommercial, then that night,
you'd be doing a lot of Richie.Then the next morning, you'd be
doing Battlestar galactic. Andthen that afternoon, you'd be on
a jet flying over to Vegas to dotwo shows with Doc Severinsen.
Get on the jet, fly back home,you'd end up in Universal Studio
The next morning doing BuckRogers in the 21st Century.

(52:39):
Yeah, I watched the littleshows. And then you get back on
the jet, and you fly to Vegas,you do two shows with jock, and
you fly back, and the nextmorning, you're at bell sound,
doing American Airlines again.Then you get, you know, just it
was always something different.It was so healthy
though. I mean, you were, youwere primed for it, and you were
trained for it, and you werecalled for it. You know, when I
was in college, the seven yearsthat I went to higher education,
studying everything fromplaying, you know, Night on Bald

(53:02):
Mountain, you know, mountain onthe symbols to learning crotali
parts and sure over trainingmyself and really working on my
reading playing in the oneo'clock lab and with charts 20
pages long. Sure, then the musicbusiness dies. And I don't have
an outlet for this stuff. Youknow what I mean. But I come and
so when I have to play a threechord, rock, country song, all

(53:23):
the training makes it supereasy.
Yeah, what, what you trained foris what I was, I'm not once
again, I'm not bragging. WhatI'm saying is, we had an
industry and out in Los Angeleswhere you had to go in and sight
read on the drums. And thenwhen, what? When there wasn't a
cue, like with John Williams,there wasn't a cue, then you'd
go over and be with Joe Picardoor Jeff's dad, Joe picaro, or

(53:46):
Emil Richards, or Larry bunker,or bunk or or or any of the
guys. You'd go over there andthey would put you on a temp
part, or they put you on and I'mnot, I'm not a mallets guy. You
you actually, with yourtraining, you're you're more
qualified to have done what Iwas doing. The problem is, by
the time you it got to the pointwhere you'd have been very

(54:07):
successful doing movies andtelevision in Los Angeles with
your experience and knowledgeand education. Seinfeld had come
out, yeah. And instead of a Qbeing a full orchestra at
$20,000 a week, it was brownburpee. And the cat was out of
the bag that you didn't have tospend that much money every week

(54:28):
on a big on a big orchestra.
Yeah, King of Queens. The musicis like a cash register opening
and closing and finger snaps.
It's insane. It turned into itturned into Dollar General
Walmart, instead of being NeimanMarcus music for for every,
every TV show.
God, I missed the Golden Age andtalked to Alex Acuna recently,

(54:48):
who is still in his mid 70s, isstill crushing it playing on all
the Marvel movies and stuff. AndI guess then the new hot guy is
Bernie Dressel. So between.Cunha and Bernie Dressel.
They're doing all the Marvelmovies and all right, you know?
And that's like the elite, youknow, big budget stuff, and then
everything else for likeindependent films and stuff. Is

(55:09):
a laptop composer, so it'sreally affected everyone.
And it's the stuff really soundsgood, you know, when I don't,
when I'm producing a record, andI don't have the budget to hire,
to hire Chris, to do strings andstuff like that, and do a real
orchestra, you know, you getsomebody like Larry Hall, and it
just sounds fantastic, butthere's a, there's a guilt
factor in there, yeah, becauseI'm a, I'm a lifetime musician,

(55:31):
my I'm, I am musicians, I'm yourbiggest fan. You know what I'm
saying? I'm, I'm lifetimemusicians. I'm the, I'm the, I'm
their biggest fan.
Well, you're the guy that'salways at the union meetings and
stuff, right?
Not anymore, I know, after beinga trustee and putting so much
time into that, yeah,
I backed away from am I gonnahave
my retirement? Is it gonna bearound?

(55:53):
Yes,
let me ask you. Buy more rentalcondos. Yes, that's what I'm
doing. Yes,
you mentioned, like, you know,you know, I'm a huge Marvel fan,
and part of that, thatexperience, is the music. Are
you telling me that it's not? Imean, the the orchestration of
that music, is it not what Ithink it is? It's not a big room
of music. No, that, that is,that is, yes, but that is, like,

(56:14):
big budget. That is, I mean,because the music is just
incredible. I mean, the
last and then they did thatSuperman music movie where they
had, you know, like 20 drummerswith drum sets. Hans Zimmer
brought in, like, anybody whoowned a drum set at the highest
level in Los Angeles, andeverybody played at the same
time. And I'm
speaking of a layman here, froma layman standpoint. Give me an
example of the opposite of that,of what you're talking about.

(56:38):
The
opposite of that would be alaptop composer who basically
has all sorts of plugins for,like, right, somebody who's
sampled the Vienna or symphony,and they have those sounds in
their laptop, and they go, Ireally want to have some real
drums and percussion. So thenyou come over and you can do
everything at the guy's crib, oryou're set up like this, and you
could do it yourself and sendfiles to the guy.

(56:59):
But I mean, what? What are like?You know, the big band example
is Marvel. What's an example ofthat where they kind of scale it
down, and they do it off alaptop, and they come to mind, I
don't
know. I have to look at theunion
contract. A lot of horror filmsare like a laptop composers, and
then they may bring sprinkle insome real instruments here.
Okay, so some of the percussionsounds you hear now in movies
went to the new Star Wars Theother night, and some of those

(57:19):
sounds you hear those, yeah,those big sound design. It's
bigger than you can it's biggerthan you can physically make it.
You just can't do that. But anacoustic instruments, acoustic
instrument insurance instrumentsjust don't sound like so what?
What a lot of the orchestratorsdo, they almost always nowadays,

(57:40):
do a mock up. And if you have anolder guy, say, anybody older
than 45 this is ageneralization, but you take
somebody like Johnny Harris, whoarranged all the Tom Jones
records, and we did all theWonder Woman series, and all
like that, with Johnny, when hedoes it a mock up, it's, it's
whatever he can get to to getclose and it's, you know, it's,

(58:01):
he'll say, he'll say, this ischeesy. This is not what it's
going to sound like. Put drumson this. I'm going to overdub
the orchestra, right? But youtake somebody like on Zimmer,
he's fabulous at doing realorchestra stuff, and then
they'll overdub the orchestra onthe orchestra stuff he's already
got. So then he's already gothis, he's already got his parts,
parts marked and and spotspicked out through where that

(58:26):
were, the big booms and the bigin, the big sounds that are
bigger than life, yeah. Andthat's Michael Bay sounds. Yeah.
That's, that's part of havingthe work print ahead of time.
And, yeah, did you ever do, didyou ever do movies and stuff?
I so want to now. I'm now, I'mjust like, you know, I want to
be on the screen, so I startedstudying acting, got my sad
card, and I have my voice overdemo. I have a hosting reel.

(58:50):
It's fun just to kind of explorethat other stuff, you know,
yeah, it's icing on the cake.Yeah, sure. So this has been so
fun. Jim, Yeah, buddy, what didyou learn from our guest? You
know, I've learned thedifferences between a real
orchestra and a laptop. I mean,it's, I had no idea, you know,
I, like I said, if, if you wereto pull up a song, I
could play you one right now,you would not believe I filled

(59:11):
the conductor of the NationalSymphony. Is that on Spotify
track? Look, see if you can goto go to Amazon music, okay, and
I think it's on Amazon. See, didI just type in amazon.com
amazon.com and go to Jesse LeeJones, who owns Roberts western
world here in town. He's aBrazil, while you're looking for
that, he's a Brazilian immigrantthat came over and 30 years

(59:32):
after he listened to Tom Jonesand Elvis Presley growing up,
and 30 years after he was here,he wanted to do this all the
songs that he grew up listeningto that he loved, and he just,
he's a great singer. You know?He's got the band downtown with
Robert's western world calledBrazil Billy. So they do real
traditional country music. Buthe's, he's, he does,

(59:54):
it's funny, but they're
great. They are. They've beenaround a long time. Would you?
Jesse Lee. Jones and see if youcan find that, and then see if
that'll show up there. And then
I've been in love so many aselection of sacred songs. I
wonder
if I'll never see if you canfind I'll never fall in love. I

(01:00:17):
wonder if
he's on Spotify. Jesse LeeJones, because I don't, I don't
know how Amazon Music Works.
Jesse Lee Jones, justice, rightthere. Jesse Lee Jones, I'll
never fall in love again.
See if you can find it. And
that looks like dude.
So this is an example of this islisten to the opening of this.

(01:00:39):
And the way I the way I
call samples harp,

(01:01:01):
I've been in love so many times.
Thought I knew the score,
but now you've treated me sowrong.
I can take anymore.

(01:01:23):
Yeah, you can kind
of, kind of sort of tell
so, no, you can't. I wantedthis. I wanted this to feel like
an orchestra, Joe gershio Elvis'conductor, and Mr. Las Vegas, he

(01:01:44):
would have seven orchestrasgoing at once in the 70s in
Vegas, he introduced me to toJesse Lee and but by that time
with Graceland, I was prettymuch helping Joe all the time
with with coordination andprojects and stuff like that. So
but I wanted this to feel likeit was conducted. And matter of

(01:02:05):
fact, Joe sat out in the studioand was conducting while we were
playing. I love him. I miss himso much. But anyway, so I had, I
had Larry build the orchestrapart first, and we overdubbed
the rhythm section to it. And Isaid, Give me a click. Give me a
moving click. I want the clickto move. I don't want it to be I

(01:02:26):
want it to feel like I want itto move and flow with the
orchestra first, and then we'regoing to, we're going to overdub
the rhythm section to it. Hesaid, you want to do this
backwards, don't you? And Isaid, Yeah, that's what I want
to do. So that's on severaltracks on that record, we were
able to make it feel and it'snot only a rhythm thing.
Orchestras don't play perfecttime, you know, play organic

(01:02:47):
time. They'll play organic time.That's a good way to put it. And
so we were able to, when Ibrought in Jim Gray, we had to
do the homeless shelter concertsthat we do every year with the
Nashville Symphony had Jim comein and and do take downs on this

(01:03:08):
so we could do so we could do itlive with the orchestra. And
when he listened to it, he wassaid on that trumpet, he said
that that's a high F. He said, Iknow Steve's got a high E. I
didn't, I didn't think he hadhigh a triple I knew he had a
triple E. I know I have a tripleF. I mean, that's really high.

(01:03:29):
Yeah. Then he said, Oh, thatFrench horn players. That's,
that's perfect. That's beenperfect, too. And that must be
Helen. It must be Helen. He's,he's telling me who my band is,
right, right?
Did you say anything? Not for a
while, I didn't. And of course,his his copyist was there too.

(01:03:52):
And when I finally said, guys,it's all faux in copies. Oh, no,
I knew. I knew it.
I knew that was all Yeah, Icould tell,
oh, my god, so Jim, what Ilearned is that to survive and
thrive in five decades of themusic business, you have to
grow, evolve and change. StayAhead of things, embrace things,

(01:04:13):
be a knowledgeable, likableperson, and show up with your
big boy pants ready to rock. 30minutes early. 30 minutes early
is the way to go get your cup ofcoffee. Guys. There's a lot of
podcasts out there. Our one askof you is, if you love what's
happening here, tell a friendabout it. Give us a rating.
Leave us a review School ofRock. Thank you so much for

(01:04:33):
being a sponsor of the show.Guys, be sure to check out Paul
lime.com if you're a drummer,make sure you get a hold of the
recordings. Transcribe them,play along with them, soak up
this guy's DNA. If you're a nonmusician, just reach out to Paul
and say thank you for fivedecades of American music
making. Thanks for being myguest, my friend. Thank you for

(01:04:54):
having real pleasure. Happy NewYear everyone. Thank you coming
back for the good stuff. We'llsee you next time.
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