October 9, 2025 • 31 mins
It is an honor to welcome author, educator, and music executive Tom Sturges to The Jake’s Take with Jacob Elyachar Podcast.
Tom served as president of Chrysalis Music, EVP and Head of Creative for Universal Music Publishing Group, and VP/GM of Shaquille O’Neal’s TWIsM Records. Tom’s signings include 3 Doors Down, 50 Cent & G Unit, Afroman, Chris Brown, Foo Fighters, Jack Johnson, Owl City, and Vanessa Carlton. He also signed several hit songwriters and producers, including Jason Epperson (Jay-E), Mark Batson, and Sean Garrett. Tom Sturges’s signings produced a combined 195 million albums and 32 million singles in addition to registering over a billion views and streams. They also composed 22 number-one singles and received 19 Grammy Awards.
Tom Sturges is also a published author. His books include Parking Lot Rules and Other Ideas for Raising Amazing Children, Grow the Tree You Got, Every Idea is a Good Idea, Preston Sturges – The Last Years of Hollywood’s First Writer-Director, and A Good Divorce Begins Here. Tom Sturges is also a published author. His books include Parking Lot Rules and Other Ideas for Raising Amazing Children, Grow the Tree You Got, Every Idea is a Good Idea, Preston Sturges – The Last Years of Hollywood’s First Writer-Director, and A Good Divorce Begins Here. Tom’s latest book, Men Explained, Finally, is currently out! He pulls back on the curtain and offers a candid, funny, and surprisingly tender guide to understanding the men in our lives. With equal parts charm and honesty, Tom explores why men love forts, fib without thinking, compartmentalize everything, and never quite stop being 14 years old.pulls back on the curtain and offers a candid, funny, and surprisingly tender guide to understanding the men in our lives. With equal parts charm and honesty, Tom explores why men love forts, fib without thinking, compartmentalize everything, and never quite stop being 14 years old.
Tom has made an impact on higher education. Together with fellow professors Jeff Jampol, Steve Berman, and Lenny Beer, he created Music Business Now at the University of California, Los Angeles, which is a required class for the school’s Music Business degree program. Over 1,200 students have taken the course over the years. Tom has also spoken at numerous universities, including New York University, Princeton, Stanford, and the University of Southern California. He also presented at both the Aspen Challenge and the Aspen Ideas Festival.
On this episode of The Jake’s Take with Jacob Elyachar Podcast, Tom Sturges discussed his writing process for Men Explained, Finally, and how working with music superstars like Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, Dave Grohl, and Jon Bon Jovi led him to discover men’s fundamental truths.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/jake-s-take-with-jacob-elyachar--4112003/support.
Tom served as president of Chrysalis Music, EVP and Head of Creative for Universal Music Publishing Group, and VP/GM of Shaquille O’Neal’s TWIsM Records. Tom’s signings include 3 Doors Down, 50 Cent & G Unit, Afroman, Chris Brown, Foo Fighters, Jack Johnson, Owl City, and Vanessa Carlton. He also signed several hit songwriters and producers, including Jason Epperson (Jay-E), Mark Batson, and Sean Garrett. Tom Sturges’s signings produced a combined 195 million albums and 32 million singles in addition to registering over a billion views and streams. They also composed 22 number-one singles and received 19 Grammy Awards.
Tom Sturges is also a published author. His books include Parking Lot Rules and Other Ideas for Raising Amazing Children, Grow the Tree You Got, Every Idea is a Good Idea, Preston Sturges – The Last Years of Hollywood’s First Writer-Director, and A Good Divorce Begins Here. Tom Sturges is also a published author. His books include Parking Lot Rules and Other Ideas for Raising Amazing Children, Grow the Tree You Got, Every Idea is a Good Idea, Preston Sturges – The Last Years of Hollywood’s First Writer-Director, and A Good Divorce Begins Here. Tom’s latest book, Men Explained, Finally, is currently out! He pulls back on the curtain and offers a candid, funny, and surprisingly tender guide to understanding the men in our lives. With equal parts charm and honesty, Tom explores why men love forts, fib without thinking, compartmentalize everything, and never quite stop being 14 years old.pulls back on the curtain and offers a candid, funny, and surprisingly tender guide to understanding the men in our lives. With equal parts charm and honesty, Tom explores why men love forts, fib without thinking, compartmentalize everything, and never quite stop being 14 years old.
Tom has made an impact on higher education. Together with fellow professors Jeff Jampol, Steve Berman, and Lenny Beer, he created Music Business Now at the University of California, Los Angeles, which is a required class for the school’s Music Business degree program. Over 1,200 students have taken the course over the years. Tom has also spoken at numerous universities, including New York University, Princeton, Stanford, and the University of Southern California. He also presented at both the Aspen Challenge and the Aspen Ideas Festival.
On this episode of The Jake’s Take with Jacob Elyachar Podcast, Tom Sturges discussed his writing process for Men Explained, Finally, and how working with music superstars like Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, Dave Grohl, and Jon Bon Jovi led him to discover men’s fundamental truths.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/jake-s-take-with-jacob-elyachar--4112003/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello everyone, and welcome back to the late's edition of
the Jake Sake with Jacoballey Show podcast. I'm your host,
Jacob ay sharda chief content producer and writer of jakesak
dot com, a pop culture entertainment news website. If you
listeners on audio, please give us a five star rating,
and also please download this episode and all the all
other episodes after this conversation is done. I'm honored and
(00:22):
thrilled to welcome this guest today. He's a music mogul
and best selling author. Here's The Bove, The Careers of
fifty Cent, the Food Fighters, Jack Johnson, Three Doors Down,
and The Desta Carlton, to name a few. But he
has a new book out called Men Explained Finally, it's
out of October seventh. It's an honor and thrill to
welcome Tom Sturges to the pod podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Thank you, Jacobs, so appreciate you having me on. I'm
a big fan, been following you for a minute and
I'm so glad to be here to be able to
discuss my one of my favorite subjects, men.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
And it's an honored to have you here, sir, because
you've built up a lot of artists over the years
that I've played a huge role.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
In my middle school, to high school and to college age.
So it's a privileged to talk with you.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Thank you. So my role in the music business was
I was a talent finder as a music publisher. So
you've heard all about the copyrights and whatever you do,
don't give up the copyright. So my job was to
go and convince all these wonderful songwriters to let me
be their partner and to look after their copyrights, protect
(01:32):
them and add value. And whether that was just the
basics of looking after the legal or promoting the songs
to film and television, or in many cases actually sending
unrecorded songs to important artists and hoping they would find
favor in the song at least as much as I did.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
That is so cool, and that brings me to my
next passion.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Because you've been in the industry, You've been in industry
for a very very long time, almost over thirty five years.
So how has the music industry evolved over the years.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Well, the music business, I think is the most changeable,
fungible business there is because the music is at the
center and how it gets to the fan and how
it gets to the public has changed basically every ten
to fifteen years, whether you're talking seventy eighths, which is
you know, the thirties and forties, or you're talking thirty
(02:31):
three and a third albums, which was the whole sixties
and early seventies, and then we get to the modern
day where everything is distributed via the ether. So I
think that the music has not changed. There are still
people who are loved to write, and love to entertain
(02:51):
and love to tell their stories. But how those how
their genius makes it into the hands of the public,
that's what's really fundamentally different.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
I definitely remember getting my listening going on a walkman
with a CD Welcome Men, working out to Britney Spears
oopsided and again at the gym, and and also gat
my very first iPod, the very first iPad pod, and
watching putting all those songs onto my bringing all those
songs onto the CD, and then of course the iPhone.
(03:22):
So it's been I've been part of the latter half
of the data of the first part of the last
half of the two thousand, so it's been I've seen
a lot of way.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
I had lunch last Friday with the A and R
guy who made that Britney Spears record. A wonderful, wonderful
guy who found the song, gave it to her and
made sure it came out like that. Name was Jeff Finster,
very well known A and R guy.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Which is perfect I love. I would love to talk
to you about more of A and R. But however,
we got to talk.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
We gotta talk. While we're on the subject of A
and R.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
We got to talk about this artist that you've had
the chance to develop. Curtis fifty Cent, Jackson, the Food Fighters,
Jack Johnson, Three Doors Down, Vanessa Carlton are just some
of the artists that came up and played a role
in my childhood. So how are these artists in your opinion?
Speaker 3 (04:11):
How did it?
Speaker 1 (04:12):
What was it like seeing these artists grow and then
also make an impact on the entertainment industry.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
So I don't want to overstate my role. I can't
really say I helped develop fifty cent. I saw and
heard that record in the club. I only because the
music publishing business is a very interesting business. You have
three minutes to convince somebody that you're a great songwriter, right,
(04:38):
and if that three minutes, that song nails it, then
people like me will chase you to the ends of
the years and go let me look after your copyright.
So let me help you out. But that's it. You
only get three minutes when you're in the record business,
which is the actual recordings you get to make albums
and so forth like that. So for me, it's a
(04:59):
slightly different version of the same of judging the same talent.
So I remember I was had a creative at Universal
Music Publishing and we got a call that the Republic
Records had just signed Three Doors Down and we had
an option on their publishing that they stuck into the deal.
So they told us this when we had two days
(05:22):
to make the decision, and they came to me and said, okay,
you have a day basically to figure out if we
should be doing this. And I said, well, what's the
what's the price of the option for Three Doors Down?
And they're like, well, it's a million dollars for the
first album with a two million dollar option for the
second album. And I said, oh, okay, so what evidence
do we have, uh, And they said, oh, we can
(05:44):
play you one song and I'm like, okay, what's the song?
The song was Kryptonite and I was like so you've
heard that song a thousand times, so to you, it's
like no brainer. Of course you signed that, but you
know what, You hear that alone in an office and
it's just you and the music, and you've got to
make a million dollar decision and you have a couple
(06:06):
hours to do it. And that was so I reached
out to the manager and asked, how did this song
get written and where's this come from. I looked at
the lyrics and I called my boss. I said, you
got to pull the trigger and do this because this
song is a monster and whoever wrote this song, this
won't be the only song like this that they wrote.
So that turned out to be a fantastic signing and
(06:29):
they've gone on to make a lot of history. Another circumstance, similarly,
where the guy only wrote that one song. It was
a guy named Joseph Foreman, who I don't know. You
probably don't and I don't know if you know that
that's his real name. That's his real name. His art
name is Afroman. So somebody came to me and said, hey,
(06:53):
we have an option on this record, but you only again,
you only get to listen to one song. I'm like,
what's the song goes because I got high and I
listened to that record, and I was like, how is
this not going to be a monster somehow, some way,
This is just going to be impossible to stop because
(07:14):
it's funny and it's truthful and it's self deprecating and
it's and he delivered it one hundred percent. It was
like a Paul Simon thing, and you know, like it's
all one guy who came up and thought with it.
So we picked up a very expensive option at my encouragement,
and the biggest hit that kid's ever known, you know,
Joseph Foreman Afroman. I was going to go to work,
(07:38):
but then I got I know that that's true.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
So the thing is when I when I the thing
is when I go when that when he when I
heard Kryptonite, Kryptinite goes to my head more. Because of that,
then I was gonna then Afroman because for.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
Me, I'm a huge superhero fan.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
So DC marvels Man's, Superman, Spidey, the X Men, that's
my jam.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
So he wrote that song as a high school senior
sitting in a chemistry class, looking down to his left
like this at this apparently absolutely beautiful girl who just
left him breathless. He couldn't even look at her for
more than ten seconds without having to change everything. So
(08:25):
it's and I think one of the reasons that song
is such a huge hit is because men can relate
to it. It's just it's us in a nutshell, like
the beauty is our kryptonite, you know, we get crazy
around it.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
So absolutely absolutely so that brings us perfectly to talk
about men. Explained Finally, so what inspired you to write
that book?
Speaker 2 (08:50):
So it turned out because my father passed away when
I was very very young. I passed away when I
was three. Last time I saw I was one, and
I as a result, I grew up observing. I was
an observer and I would watch all my friends and
their dads and see them do things together, and I
(09:11):
just I felt kind of boxed in because I didn't
have that life. And it's a practice and a habit
that stayed with me. I notice everything, much to my
wive's annoyance. I'm like, wait a second, when did you
buy that? Or you know, details have never escaped me.
And I started to notice things about men that were
(09:33):
very man that and I would talk to my friends.
I said, do you I said, do you realize that
you do such and such? And they were like, oh
do I And I started jotting down these notes and
to better understand who men are and what men are.
By the way, this is my sixth book, so I've
gotten I gotten the habit of observing children. I wrote
(09:54):
a couple of books about children, and I worked with
a lot of songwriters as you as we've discus us,
and I wrote a book about creativity and how to
have more of it in your life. So it was
sort of the observer mentality. And then I started noticing
that there's a lot of similarities in guys. We are
not all that different. Not to say we're not unique
(10:15):
and individual and everybody special. I'm not. I'm saying that
there's a lot of similarities. For instance, how we fall
in love as a just to throw that out of
the out of the box. So would you say, would
you agree and say that men fall in love with
the face first and everything else afterwards?
Speaker 3 (10:39):
Absolutely? Absolutely?
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Okay. So not one woman I've ever spoken to since
I wrote this book and started talking about it to
the world knew that that was a fact of life.
They're all like, really, and yeah, it doesn't the hair,
the clothes, the shoes, the tush. She now nowhere near
(11:02):
as important as the face. And that's what brings us in,
that's what captures us, that's what electrifies us. And you know,
if you look back five hundred years, Christopher Marlowe talked
about the face that launched a thousand ships, and Shakespeare
and Romeo and Juliet when Romeo's climbing up on the
balcony and he says, oh, Wood, that I was a
(11:24):
glove upon that hand so I could touch that face.
And then the way you look tonight by Frank Sinatra,
and just the way you are by Billy Joel, and
just the way you are by Bruno Mars it's all
the same idea, we love your face. But once those
truths started to occur to me, and I started taking
my notes and watching friends of mine and competitors in business,
(11:49):
and I realized. Another realization is that we're basically fourteen
years old, and we get to fourteen and we're like, hey,
this is pretty good. I'm fine with this, and we
operate as that fourteen year old boy the whole rest
of the time. Our enthusiasm, our passions are all made
(12:10):
up our decisions are there. What we think beautiful is
what we think funny is what we're going to let
scare us. It's all kind of set in place by
about fourteen, and that is our operating manual the whole
rest of the way.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Which is very fascinating because the thing is, my dad
always told my dad and Matthew shout out to Matthew.
To my dad, Matthew, he said, the day you stop
learning is the day you start dying.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
And it's like the thing is.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
With that fourteen like you could have that set up
to the fourteenth, like you have that manual, but however
it feels like you can add more pages and after
with more experience into it.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Absolutely, but you approach it, at least to my point
of view, as the as a fourteen year old kid
where everything's fascinating and if it's not fun, you know,
this isn't so interesting and if I'm not getting of
a reward, why am I bothering? Just like any good
fourteen year old, right, where's the fun? Where do I
get to have a great time? And you know this
(13:10):
is a lot of like look at your career for instance,
I bet this is a blast. You get to talk
to people and enjoy their company and ask wonderful questions.
And I mean, you're a kid to me.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
So I'm going to turn thirty. Well, I'm going to
be thirty seven in the in September, so.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
It doesn't mean you're not fourteen inside.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
Absolutely, absolutely, let me try another.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Let me try another one on you and see if
you would agree with this one of my because I
wrote this book primarily for women to have a better
understanding of the man in their life, or if you're
if it's not that way, or your partner is a man,
then whoever, so you have a better understanding of them.
And one of the essays I wrote is that if
(13:56):
asked nicely, a man will do almost anything.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
I always try to be nice in front of everybody,
no matter if it's a peer, ap pere, if it's
my CrossFit coaches, or they're my or my peers at
my workplace, or even like even some of my guests
who I became very friendly with our acquaintances with. I
always try to be nice to people no matter their
stage in life, no matter if you are an Oscar
(14:25):
winner or you are working in my bid in at
my work building as a janitor, I always try to
be respectful, and that's what I think my mom and
dad has taught me.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
I think that's exactly right that we learn that the
fourteen year old boy and us we just want to
be pals, right. I mean, it's much harder to have
an enemy than to have a friend, because with an
enemy you got to remember, oh yeah he did that
to me, But with a with a friend. And one
of the one of the essays I talked about is
(14:57):
man's greatest gift to human vanity? What would you guess
that is man's greatest gift to humanity?
Speaker 3 (15:07):
I would fain friendship.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Oh wow, what a great answer. I'm going to write
that down. Actually, the answer, according to me, is man's
greatest gift to humanity is pets. Oh because somewhere twenty
five thirty thousand years ago, as we were hunting and
exploring and going all over northern Europe, these wolves were
(15:32):
following the men and the hunters, and when they would
leave a campsite, the wolves would go in and eat
the scraps and everything else, And so they just followed us.
And then some brilliant guy decided that a friendly wolf
would be much better than an angry wolf and started
throwing in little bits of food or leaving things for
(15:53):
them on the perimeter of the camp, because that's who
men are. We just want to be pals. I don't
want this chasing me. I don't know. You're some have
some squirrel, have some blubber. That's fine and sharing and
became friends with these wild animals and turned them into
turned them into compatriots and helped helped us become who
(16:16):
we are today. Do you take that pet concept and
get it down to the present day. We're doing the
same thing. We're being nice to strangers, We're being kind
to animals and letting them into our lives, the same
thing we've been doing for the last thirty thousand years.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
I think that's one and that's wonderful because I have
a doggy nephew that Mac named Maxwell, that can be
very enthusiastic and sometimes goes to me when we have
in my entire families together and tries to get food
from us. And if it's chocolate, no, no, Maxwell, we
cannot give you chocolate.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Right right, But that's the nature of who we are.
Let's be pals. I think that is us at our core. Now,
that's the great percentage of us there are there's a
much more percentage of us that are marauders and not
nice people. And we see that somebody else has something
like Ukraine, for instance. We see that somebody else has
(17:15):
something that we want, and then we go and try
and take it right. Because that's and that to me
is the fourteen year old boy at his worst. But
it's still the fourteen. It's such a childish thing to
do to go and attack somebody and say I want that,
that's mine, that should be mine. Who are you? But
to me, that's so childish and so immature and so wrong.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
I totally agree with that.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
Because the thing is, I see a lot of my
colleagues and they're getting names, get big names, and I'm like.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
I want that. I want that person to come on,
Why are they visiting? Why are they visiting? Then? Not
first not me? So I admit it.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Like there are the people, the men in my life,
the heros I look up to, the big legends, the
Simon Cows, the Elton John's, the Billy Joels, Howard Starr's,
the Lettermans, they all the Stanley's, they all knew how
to get their stuff. But the problem is with me.
I'm still starting out. I'm fifteen fifth, sorry in my
fifteen years. And the thing is, I have a long
(18:17):
way to go because my greatest two heroes we just
Phil and Barbara. Well the late we just feel in
the late Barbara Walters, we're in three for fifty years.
I can't just go out with the women in fifteen
right now.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
You've got to build up and be patient, which is
something fourteen year old boys don't have a lot of
his patients. And you'll probably find that one of the
things that we do as men is that we kick
our own asses more than anybody else does. I'm sure
if you talk to your friends or your parents or
your family and go, hey, look at all I'm doing,
(18:51):
they're going, you're great, You're fantastic, and you're like, yeah,
but I gotta do more. After run and get a
glass of water? Can you hold one second?
Speaker 1 (19:01):
And the thing is we're always taught were The thing is,
I always try my best to stay on our lane.
You have to stay on the course. And unfortunately those
fourteen year olds have not learned about staying on the course.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
No, you bounce around all over the place because we
are distracted by shiny objects, whether it's a beautiful car
or a beautiful watch, or a new movie or whatever
it is. Oh wow, let's go over there. Let's try that.
And it makes for some very interesting challenges. But I
(19:35):
think if you can recognize that that's what's happening to you,
and that you are subject to these forces that are
kind of out of your control. Right, you're a kid.
So as long as you can recognize that and move
yourself forward that way, I think you can get a
lot more out of your life and get a lot
more done. Absolutely, my hopes are to interrupt you. My
(19:59):
hope is that the women who read my book and
the early several have gotten this out of it is
I want them. I want the women to have a
better understanding of the man in their life and a
better relationship with us because of that. Because if you recognize, hey,
wait a second, this is just a big kid. I mean,
(20:20):
I know, he shaves, and he's got a passport, and
he's got a big important job. But you know, you
peel away a couple of layers of the onion. He's
just a kid. Okay, that's maybe high. So if the
husband comes home from work and he's miserable and he's
angry about everything. Maybe that's not the time to engage.
Maybe you hand him a cold, brought the beverage, sit
(20:44):
him in front of the TV, and say, hey, I'm
going to talk to you in about a half hour
after you've had a chance to oh okay, and let
that man just kind of be himself. One of the
things I discovered about us is that we compartmentalize as
a big part of our defense mechanism, so that you
(21:04):
can have a bad moment over here, put it in
a box, get rid of that box, and open the
next box and there's your video game collection. Or open
the next box and there's all the movies you want
to see. Or open then the.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
Next box and there's a comic book collection.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
And there's a comic It's all but we have. We
live our lives in these beautiful little boxes that we
can jump in and jump out. So if it's a
bad day, close that box, find the box you want
to live in, and jump into that one for a while.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
And also the thing is I've also learned that we've
also had them in that times impulse control problem.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
And it took me.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
It's been take one of the biggest things that I've
saw from a fourteen year and when I was fourteen
is I had it. I admit that I had an
impulse control problem. And the thing is, it's like, slowly
but surely I've been over the years, I've been learning
how to do that.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
But however, the thing is, impulses can get can also
be very problematic.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Right Well, I think that's just the kid in you, honestly,
that the impulse control and if you can learn to
recognize whatever it is that triggers you. You know, you
hear the theme to Superman and you have to leave whatever
you're doing and go watch that movie.
Speaker 4 (22:15):
But that's just because of the distractions of.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
The way we grow up. We're used to pursuing fun,
and what's more fun than watching Superman for the nineteenth time,
you know, especially if you have to, you know, vacuum
the house, or mow the lawn, or clean out the gutters,
or are anything else that's on your that's on your agenda.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
Absolutely absolutely I would because the thing is we brought up.
You brought a lot.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
You've worked with a lot of iconic men over the years.
Besides Curtis fifty cent Jackson, John bon Jovi, Dave Grall Lee,
and Childish Gambino. So how did your experience in a
recording industry need to discover some of the men's basic truths.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Well, just to clarify, I pursued Childish Gambino, but my
friend Lindsey Lanier signed him, so I pursue he and I.
He and I were not Monoemno. It was just an
incredible talent that I tried to bring into my life.
So I don't want to overstate anything I've done. I
think what I did is I used my understanding of
(23:18):
man as I grew up watching and observing as one
way of recognizing their talent and their ability to make music,
because certainly rock and roll is child's play. If you
think about it, you're inviting all your friends over for
a big wrestling match in the living room. It just
so happens. There's musical instruments and you're singing, but it's
(23:41):
just a bunch of kids getting together, right and all
those early bands. It's just it's crazy how much fun
it is when you actually make music with somebody. There's
a video somewhere on the Internet of I was on
stage with bon Jovi at Giant Stadium and they were
doing doing a show for C one hundred and I
(24:02):
had said to Ritchie and John, I said, is there
any way I can stand on the side of the
stage and record this, because I want to know what
it sounds like when you have sixty thousand people singing
your lyrics. And there's a moment in the show where
John turns his mic and points it at the audience
(24:22):
and all the band stops playing, and it's ghostly and
evocative and beautiful and artistic as all these people are
singing back the words that these two guys wrote, and
it's just it was mind bowing. But standing next to them,
(24:42):
I'm like, these guys are kids. They're just having a
great time. They happen to be incredibly talented, brilliant songwriters,
ridiculous performers, but they're just kids having a great time
helping all those other kids have a great time.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
I've been around concerts before like that, and there are
some incredible moments, And I agree with you that having
those kinds of moments not only bonds people together, it
bonds people. Because I remember hearing this love when Maroon
five came to Kansas City, a couple of years ago
and having the entire team mobile center seeing the chorus
(25:20):
back to that, that was the movement. And also when
I when the Boss sings dancing and every time when
I saw The Boss through dancing in a darker born
in the USA, that was another moment.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
It's so fantastic. It's it's a he creates a community.
The great songwriter creates a community within his song and
welcomes everybody into that community. So when he's holding his
hand to his ear, that's he wants to hear you
singing back this thing. And it's that goes back to
(25:53):
you know, when we're kids and the teachers like, Okay,
we're going to do the alphabet or.
Speaker 4 (25:58):
Oh we're going to do this together, We're going to
do that. It's really quite a brilliant, quite a brilliant thing.
But I think rock and roll as kids is kids work,
you know, absolutely, And as you get to the edges
of it, you know, the Ozzy Osbourne, they're just there
to be outrageous. Hey I'm gonna eat this bat, watch
me right, just do something completely outrageous, and that's it.
(26:20):
That's the kid in him, right, that's not the practiced artist.
What can I do here to bring no.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
No, that is a kid. I'm gonna eat this bat.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
I'd long live Osney.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
The leader of the leader of a whole movement that
fell in behind him.
Speaker 3 (26:41):
Absolutely absolutely. I want to talk.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
About what would you like the readers to take away
from men?
Speaker 3 (26:47):
Explain? Finally?
Speaker 2 (26:49):
What an excellent question? Well, I'd like that. Well, there's
two halves, right, because there's the men who are going
to read it or their wives are going to force
them to read it. Oh, and it's the women who
can't wait to read it because it's all these it's
like an instruction manual. It's an operating guide for us.
(27:11):
So I would like the women to who read it
to have a better understanding of their man and to
have a reason to be a little more sympathetic and
a little more patient with him, because maybe they come
to realize that he's not quite as in control of
the process as he likes to make you think, right,
(27:34):
He's operating on pure instinct for most of the time.
And you know, one of the facts about men is
that when we don't know what we when we don't
know something, we bluff generally, right, Oh, I know where
we're driving. I got this, you know, or I mean,
how many times have you bought something and thrown away
the instructions. It's just our it's just who we are. Ah,
(27:56):
I got this, and it's not because we're being jury.
It just because that's you know, let's get to the
fun part. Let's let's let's get the car driving and
see how that works out. And for men, I would
like men to come out of this and go, you
know what, that is true? I do. I am a kid, right,
I am a kid, and I do make quick decisions,
(28:20):
and I do bluff my way in and out of
a bunch of things. And as long as everybody knows
that's how you work, I think that would be a
win for the man as well, because he's not There's
nothing in here that a woman could read to the
to her husband or boyfriend and have him go, that's
a lie. That's not true because it's not. There's nothing accusatory.
(28:43):
It's just informational. Right, Be be who you are. Be
a good guy. We're gentle, we're kind, we like to please,
ask us nicely. We'll do almost anything. I mean, these
these ideas are just are just foundational to who men are.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
In my view, I think that's a good and I
think that's a great point. I think this is going
to be a very fascinating book. So my final question
is this, where can my audience find the book and
also connect with you on social media?
Speaker 2 (29:21):
So I love talking to people about this subject. It's
one of my favorite subjects, and I hope to become
a reigning expert for a couple of minutes. Who knows,
But I can be on Tom Sturge's Ideas on x
and Instagram and my website tom sturges dot net. You
(29:44):
can reach me there and you can buy the book
at Amazon, and I'm hoping to get a bunch of
folks out to pick it up so I can get
my first week bestseller in on Amazon and brag about
that for the rest of my life. So if your
folks are in intrigued and they want to know more
about how I, uh, how I think about men and
(30:05):
now what a wonderful group of folks we really are. Uh,
as long as you understand us, you know, if if
you' it's we're we're like, ah, we're like the tide.
If you fight us, you're gonna get swept out to
see if you kind of figure out where we are
and get along with us. We're gonna You're gonna have
(30:25):
the greatest day at the beach ever.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
Awesome.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
And guys, if you miss an episode of the Jake's
Take with Jacob is our podcast, Listen our channels on
Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and spreaker.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
Jake's Take with Jacob sr j A c O b
e o y A c h a R. Now are
you on social media?
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Because I'm on social media too, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, threads
and YouTube.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
Jacob al shr j A c O b e o
y A c h a R.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Want to listen to more podcast conversations, want to follow
my my take on America's Got Talent All?
Speaker 3 (31:01):
Or on my music reviews.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
Visit the blog that started it all, Jake Sayshake dot com.
I was getting jakesaidshake dot com. And I want to
thank my friends over at the American Business Awards for
selecting me to being for the Silver Medalist for Best
Interview and Talk Show. Thank you everyone and Tom. It
was such an honor and thrilled to speak with you.
I'm so glad we have had this conversation.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Congratulations to you and all your accomplishments thus far. I
hope those are just the early steps. And remember, just
have a great time and people will have a great
time watching you and listening to you.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
Thank you so much, Tom and guys, thank you so
much for listening.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Until next time, have a great one everybody, good bye,
Hello everyone, and welcome back to the late's edition of
the Jake Sake with Jacoballey Show podcast. I'm your host,
Jacob ay sharda chief content producer and writer of jakesak
dot com, a pop culture entertainment news website. If you
listeners on audio, please give us a five star rating,
and also please download this episode and all the all
other episodes after this conversation is done. I'm honored and
(00:22):
thrilled to welcome this guest today. He's a music mogul
and best selling author. Here's The Bove, The Careers of
fifty Cent, the Food Fighters, Jack Johnson, Three Doors Down,
and The Desta Carlton, to name a few. But he
has a new book out called Men Explained Finally, it's
out of October seventh. It's an honor and thrill to
welcome Tom Sturges to the pod podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Thank you, Jacobs, so appreciate you having me on. I'm
a big fan, been following you for a minute and
I'm so glad to be here to be able to
discuss my one of my favorite subjects, men.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
And it's an honored to have you here, sir, because
you've built up a lot of artists over the years
that I've played a huge role.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
In my middle school, to high school and to college age.
So it's a privileged to talk with you.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Thank you. So my role in the music business was
I was a talent finder as a music publisher. So
you've heard all about the copyrights and whatever you do,
don't give up the copyright. So my job was to
go and convince all these wonderful songwriters to let me
be their partner and to look after their copyrights, protect
(01:32):
them and add value. And whether that was just the
basics of looking after the legal or promoting the songs
to film and television, or in many cases actually sending
unrecorded songs to important artists and hoping they would find
favor in the song at least as much as I did.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
That is so cool, and that brings me to my
next passion.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Because you've been in the industry, You've been in industry
for a very very long time, almost over thirty five years.
So how has the music industry evolved over the years.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Well, the music business, I think is the most changeable,
fungible business there is because the music is at the
center and how it gets to the fan and how
it gets to the public has changed basically every ten
to fifteen years, whether you're talking seventy eighths, which is
you know, the thirties and forties, or you're talking thirty
(02:31):
three and a third albums, which was the whole sixties
and early seventies, and then we get to the modern
day where everything is distributed via the ether. So I
think that the music has not changed. There are still
people who are loved to write, and love to entertain
(02:51):
and love to tell their stories. But how those how
their genius makes it into the hands of the public,
that's what's really fundamentally different.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
I definitely remember getting my listening going on a walkman
with a CD Welcome Men, working out to Britney Spears
oopsided and again at the gym, and and also gat
my very first iPod, the very first iPad pod, and
watching putting all those songs onto my bringing all those
songs onto the CD, and then of course the iPhone.
(03:22):
So it's been I've been part of the latter half
of the data of the first part of the last
half of the two thousand, so it's been I've seen
a lot of way.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
I had lunch last Friday with the A and R
guy who made that Britney Spears record. A wonderful, wonderful
guy who found the song, gave it to her and
made sure it came out like that. Name was Jeff Finster,
very well known A and R guy.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Which is perfect I love. I would love to talk
to you about more of A and R. But however,
we got to talk.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
We gotta talk. While we're on the subject of A
and R.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
We got to talk about this artist that you've had
the chance to develop. Curtis fifty Cent, Jackson, the Food Fighters,
Jack Johnson, Three Doors Down, Vanessa Carlton are just some
of the artists that came up and played a role
in my childhood. So how are these artists in your opinion?
Speaker 3 (04:11):
How did it?
Speaker 1 (04:12):
What was it like seeing these artists grow and then
also make an impact on the entertainment industry.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
So I don't want to overstate my role. I can't
really say I helped develop fifty cent. I saw and
heard that record in the club. I only because the
music publishing business is a very interesting business. You have
three minutes to convince somebody that you're a great songwriter, right,
(04:38):
and if that three minutes, that song nails it, then
people like me will chase you to the ends of
the years and go let me look after your copyright.
So let me help you out. But that's it. You
only get three minutes when you're in the record business,
which is the actual recordings you get to make albums
and so forth like that. So for me, it's a
(04:59):
slightly different version of the same of judging the same talent.
So I remember I was had a creative at Universal
Music Publishing and we got a call that the Republic
Records had just signed Three Doors Down and we had
an option on their publishing that they stuck into the deal.
So they told us this when we had two days
(05:22):
to make the decision, and they came to me and said, okay,
you have a day basically to figure out if we
should be doing this. And I said, well, what's the
what's the price of the option for Three Doors Down?
And they're like, well, it's a million dollars for the
first album with a two million dollar option for the
second album. And I said, oh, okay, so what evidence
do we have, uh, And they said, oh, we can
(05:44):
play you one song and I'm like, okay, what's the song?
The song was Kryptonite and I was like so you've
heard that song a thousand times, so to you, it's
like no brainer. Of course you signed that, but you
know what, You hear that alone in an office and
it's just you and the music, and you've got to
make a million dollar decision and you have a couple
(06:06):
hours to do it. And that was so I reached
out to the manager and asked, how did this song
get written and where's this come from. I looked at
the lyrics and I called my boss. I said, you
got to pull the trigger and do this because this
song is a monster and whoever wrote this song, this
won't be the only song like this that they wrote.
So that turned out to be a fantastic signing and
(06:29):
they've gone on to make a lot of history. Another circumstance, similarly,
where the guy only wrote that one song. It was
a guy named Joseph Foreman, who I don't know. You
probably don't and I don't know if you know that
that's his real name. That's his real name. His art
name is Afroman. So somebody came to me and said, hey,
(06:53):
we have an option on this record, but you only again,
you only get to listen to one song. I'm like,
what's the song goes because I got high and I
listened to that record, and I was like, how is
this not going to be a monster somehow, some way,
This is just going to be impossible to stop because
(07:14):
it's funny and it's truthful and it's self deprecating and
it's and he delivered it one hundred percent. It was
like a Paul Simon thing, and you know, like it's
all one guy who came up and thought with it.
So we picked up a very expensive option at my encouragement,
and the biggest hit that kid's ever known, you know,
Joseph Foreman Afroman. I was going to go to work,
(07:38):
but then I got I know that that's true.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
So the thing is when I when I the thing
is when I go when that when he when I
heard Kryptonite, Kryptinite goes to my head more. Because of that,
then I was gonna then Afroman because for.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
Me, I'm a huge superhero fan.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
So DC marvels Man's, Superman, Spidey, the X Men, that's
my jam.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
So he wrote that song as a high school senior
sitting in a chemistry class, looking down to his left
like this at this apparently absolutely beautiful girl who just
left him breathless. He couldn't even look at her for
more than ten seconds without having to change everything. So
(08:25):
it's and I think one of the reasons that song
is such a huge hit is because men can relate
to it. It's just it's us in a nutshell, like
the beauty is our kryptonite, you know, we get crazy
around it.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
So absolutely absolutely so that brings us perfectly to talk
about men. Explained Finally, so what inspired you to write
that book?
Speaker 2 (08:50):
So it turned out because my father passed away when
I was very very young. I passed away when I
was three. Last time I saw I was one, and
I as a result, I grew up observing. I was
an observer and I would watch all my friends and
their dads and see them do things together, and I
(09:11):
just I felt kind of boxed in because I didn't
have that life. And it's a practice and a habit
that stayed with me. I notice everything, much to my
wive's annoyance. I'm like, wait a second, when did you
buy that? Or you know, details have never escaped me.
And I started to notice things about men that were
(09:33):
very man that and I would talk to my friends.
I said, do you I said, do you realize that
you do such and such? And they were like, oh
do I And I started jotting down these notes and
to better understand who men are and what men are.
By the way, this is my sixth book, so I've
gotten I gotten the habit of observing children. I wrote
(09:54):
a couple of books about children, and I worked with
a lot of songwriters as you as we've discus us,
and I wrote a book about creativity and how to
have more of it in your life. So it was
sort of the observer mentality. And then I started noticing
that there's a lot of similarities in guys. We are
not all that different. Not to say we're not unique
(10:15):
and individual and everybody special. I'm not. I'm saying that
there's a lot of similarities. For instance, how we fall
in love as a just to throw that out of
the out of the box. So would you say, would
you agree and say that men fall in love with
the face first and everything else afterwards?
Speaker 3 (10:39):
Absolutely? Absolutely?
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Okay. So not one woman I've ever spoken to since
I wrote this book and started talking about it to
the world knew that that was a fact of life.
They're all like, really, and yeah, it doesn't the hair,
the clothes, the shoes, the tush. She now nowhere near
(11:02):
as important as the face. And that's what brings us in,
that's what captures us, that's what electrifies us. And you know,
if you look back five hundred years, Christopher Marlowe talked
about the face that launched a thousand ships, and Shakespeare
and Romeo and Juliet when Romeo's climbing up on the
balcony and he says, oh, Wood, that I was a
(11:24):
glove upon that hand so I could touch that face.
And then the way you look tonight by Frank Sinatra,
and just the way you are by Billy Joel, and
just the way you are by Bruno Mars it's all
the same idea, we love your face. But once those
truths started to occur to me, and I started taking
my notes and watching friends of mine and competitors in business,
(11:49):
and I realized. Another realization is that we're basically fourteen
years old, and we get to fourteen and we're like, hey,
this is pretty good. I'm fine with this, and we
operate as that fourteen year old boy the whole rest
of the time. Our enthusiasm, our passions are all made
(12:10):
up our decisions are there. What we think beautiful is
what we think funny is what we're going to let
scare us. It's all kind of set in place by
about fourteen, and that is our operating manual the whole
rest of the way.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Which is very fascinating because the thing is, my dad
always told my dad and Matthew shout out to Matthew.
To my dad, Matthew, he said, the day you stop
learning is the day you start dying.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
And it's like the thing is.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
With that fourteen like you could have that set up
to the fourteenth, like you have that manual, but however
it feels like you can add more pages and after
with more experience into it.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Absolutely, but you approach it, at least to my point
of view, as the as a fourteen year old kid
where everything's fascinating and if it's not fun, you know,
this isn't so interesting and if I'm not getting of
a reward, why am I bothering? Just like any good
fourteen year old, right, where's the fun? Where do I
get to have a great time? And you know this
(13:10):
is a lot of like look at your career for instance,
I bet this is a blast. You get to talk
to people and enjoy their company and ask wonderful questions.
And I mean, you're a kid to me.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
So I'm going to turn thirty. Well, I'm going to
be thirty seven in the in September, so.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
It doesn't mean you're not fourteen inside.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
Absolutely, absolutely, let me try another.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Let me try another one on you and see if
you would agree with this one of my because I
wrote this book primarily for women to have a better
understanding of the man in their life, or if you're
if it's not that way, or your partner is a man,
then whoever, so you have a better understanding of them.
And one of the essays I wrote is that if
(13:56):
asked nicely, a man will do almost anything.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
I always try to be nice in front of everybody,
no matter if it's a peer, ap pere, if it's
my CrossFit coaches, or they're my or my peers at
my workplace, or even like even some of my guests
who I became very friendly with our acquaintances with. I
always try to be nice to people no matter their
stage in life, no matter if you are an Oscar
(14:25):
winner or you are working in my bid in at
my work building as a janitor, I always try to
be respectful, and that's what I think my mom and
dad has taught me.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
I think that's exactly right that we learn that the
fourteen year old boy and us we just want to
be pals, right. I mean, it's much harder to have
an enemy than to have a friend, because with an
enemy you got to remember, oh yeah he did that
to me, But with a with a friend. And one
of the one of the essays I talked about is
(14:57):
man's greatest gift to human vanity? What would you guess
that is man's greatest gift to humanity?
Speaker 3 (15:07):
I would fain friendship.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Oh wow, what a great answer. I'm going to write
that down. Actually, the answer, according to me, is man's
greatest gift to humanity is pets. Oh because somewhere twenty
five thirty thousand years ago, as we were hunting and
exploring and going all over northern Europe, these wolves were
(15:32):
following the men and the hunters, and when they would
leave a campsite, the wolves would go in and eat
the scraps and everything else, And so they just followed us.
And then some brilliant guy decided that a friendly wolf
would be much better than an angry wolf and started
throwing in little bits of food or leaving things for
(15:53):
them on the perimeter of the camp, because that's who
men are. We just want to be pals. I don't
want this chasing me. I don't know. You're some have
some squirrel, have some blubber. That's fine and sharing and
became friends with these wild animals and turned them into
turned them into compatriots and helped helped us become who
(16:16):
we are today. Do you take that pet concept and
get it down to the present day. We're doing the
same thing. We're being nice to strangers, We're being kind
to animals and letting them into our lives, the same
thing we've been doing for the last thirty thousand years.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
I think that's one and that's wonderful because I have
a doggy nephew that Mac named Maxwell, that can be
very enthusiastic and sometimes goes to me when we have
in my entire families together and tries to get food
from us. And if it's chocolate, no, no, Maxwell, we
cannot give you chocolate.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Right right, But that's the nature of who we are.
Let's be pals. I think that is us at our core. Now,
that's the great percentage of us there are there's a
much more percentage of us that are marauders and not
nice people. And we see that somebody else has something
like Ukraine, for instance. We see that somebody else has
(17:15):
something that we want, and then we go and try
and take it right. Because that's and that to me
is the fourteen year old boy at his worst. But
it's still the fourteen. It's such a childish thing to
do to go and attack somebody and say I want that,
that's mine, that should be mine. Who are you? But
to me, that's so childish and so immature and so wrong.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
I totally agree with that.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
Because the thing is, I see a lot of my
colleagues and they're getting names, get big names, and I'm like.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
I want that. I want that person to come on,
Why are they visiting? Why are they visiting? Then? Not
first not me? So I admit it.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Like there are the people, the men in my life,
the heros I look up to, the big legends, the
Simon Cows, the Elton John's, the Billy Joels, Howard Starr's,
the Lettermans, they all the Stanley's, they all knew how
to get their stuff. But the problem is with me.
I'm still starting out. I'm fifteen fifth, sorry in my
fifteen years. And the thing is, I have a long
(18:17):
way to go because my greatest two heroes we just
Phil and Barbara. Well the late we just feel in
the late Barbara Walters, we're in three for fifty years.
I can't just go out with the women in fifteen
right now.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
You've got to build up and be patient, which is
something fourteen year old boys don't have a lot of
his patients. And you'll probably find that one of the
things that we do as men is that we kick
our own asses more than anybody else does. I'm sure
if you talk to your friends or your parents or
your family and go, hey, look at all I'm doing,
(18:51):
they're going, you're great, You're fantastic, and you're like, yeah,
but I gotta do more. After run and get a
glass of water? Can you hold one second?
Speaker 1 (19:01):
And the thing is we're always taught were The thing is,
I always try my best to stay on our lane.
You have to stay on the course. And unfortunately those
fourteen year olds have not learned about staying on the course.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
No, you bounce around all over the place because we
are distracted by shiny objects, whether it's a beautiful car
or a beautiful watch, or a new movie or whatever
it is. Oh wow, let's go over there. Let's try that.
And it makes for some very interesting challenges. But I
(19:35):
think if you can recognize that that's what's happening to you,
and that you are subject to these forces that are
kind of out of your control. Right, you're a kid.
So as long as you can recognize that and move
yourself forward that way, I think you can get a
lot more out of your life and get a lot
more done. Absolutely, my hopes are to interrupt you. My
(19:59):
hope is that the women who read my book and
the early several have gotten this out of it is
I want them. I want the women to have a
better understanding of the man in their life and a
better relationship with us because of that. Because if you recognize, hey,
wait a second, this is just a big kid. I mean,
(20:20):
I know, he shaves, and he's got a passport, and
he's got a big important job. But you know, you
peel away a couple of layers of the onion. He's
just a kid. Okay, that's maybe high. So if the
husband comes home from work and he's miserable and he's
angry about everything. Maybe that's not the time to engage.
Maybe you hand him a cold, brought the beverage, sit
(20:44):
him in front of the TV, and say, hey, I'm
going to talk to you in about a half hour
after you've had a chance to oh okay, and let
that man just kind of be himself. One of the
things I discovered about us is that we compartmentalize as
a big part of our defense mechanism, so that you
(21:04):
can have a bad moment over here, put it in
a box, get rid of that box, and open the
next box and there's your video game collection. Or open
the next box and there's all the movies you want
to see. Or open then the.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
Next box and there's a comic book collection.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
And there's a comic It's all but we have. We
live our lives in these beautiful little boxes that we
can jump in and jump out. So if it's a
bad day, close that box, find the box you want
to live in, and jump into that one for a while.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
And also the thing is I've also learned that we've
also had them in that times impulse control problem.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
And it took me.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
It's been take one of the biggest things that I've
saw from a fourteen year and when I was fourteen
is I had it. I admit that I had an
impulse control problem. And the thing is, it's like, slowly
but surely I've been over the years, I've been learning
how to do that.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
But however, the thing is, impulses can get can also
be very problematic.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Right Well, I think that's just the kid in you, honestly,
that the impulse control and if you can learn to
recognize whatever it is that triggers you. You know, you
hear the theme to Superman and you have to leave whatever
you're doing and go watch that movie.
Speaker 4 (22:15):
But that's just because of the distractions of.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
The way we grow up. We're used to pursuing fun,
and what's more fun than watching Superman for the nineteenth time,
you know, especially if you have to, you know, vacuum
the house, or mow the lawn, or clean out the gutters,
or are anything else that's on your that's on your agenda.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
Absolutely absolutely I would because the thing is we brought up.
You brought a lot.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
You've worked with a lot of iconic men over the years.
Besides Curtis fifty cent Jackson, John bon Jovi, Dave Grall Lee,
and Childish Gambino. So how did your experience in a
recording industry need to discover some of the men's basic truths.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Well, just to clarify, I pursued Childish Gambino, but my
friend Lindsey Lanier signed him, so I pursue he and I.
He and I were not Monoemno. It was just an
incredible talent that I tried to bring into my life.
So I don't want to overstate anything I've done. I
think what I did is I used my understanding of
(23:18):
man as I grew up watching and observing as one
way of recognizing their talent and their ability to make music,
because certainly rock and roll is child's play. If you
think about it, you're inviting all your friends over for
a big wrestling match in the living room. It just
so happens. There's musical instruments and you're singing, but it's
(23:41):
just a bunch of kids getting together, right and all
those early bands. It's just it's crazy how much fun
it is when you actually make music with somebody. There's
a video somewhere on the Internet of I was on
stage with bon Jovi at Giant Stadium and they were
doing doing a show for C one hundred and I
(24:02):
had said to Ritchie and John, I said, is there
any way I can stand on the side of the
stage and record this, because I want to know what
it sounds like when you have sixty thousand people singing
your lyrics. And there's a moment in the show where
John turns his mic and points it at the audience
(24:22):
and all the band stops playing, and it's ghostly and
evocative and beautiful and artistic as all these people are
singing back the words that these two guys wrote, and
it's just it was mind bowing. But standing next to them,
(24:42):
I'm like, these guys are kids. They're just having a
great time. They happen to be incredibly talented, brilliant songwriters,
ridiculous performers, but they're just kids having a great time
helping all those other kids have a great time.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
I've been around concerts before like that, and there are
some incredible moments, And I agree with you that having
those kinds of moments not only bonds people together, it
bonds people. Because I remember hearing this love when Maroon
five came to Kansas City, a couple of years ago
and having the entire team mobile center seeing the chorus
(25:20):
back to that, that was the movement. And also when
I when the Boss sings dancing and every time when
I saw The Boss through dancing in a darker born
in the USA, that was another moment.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
It's so fantastic. It's it's a he creates a community.
The great songwriter creates a community within his song and
welcomes everybody into that community. So when he's holding his
hand to his ear, that's he wants to hear you
singing back this thing. And it's that goes back to
(25:53):
you know, when we're kids and the teachers like, Okay,
we're going to do the alphabet or.
Speaker 4 (25:58):
Oh we're going to do this together, We're going to
do that. It's really quite a brilliant, quite a brilliant thing.
But I think rock and roll as kids is kids work,
you know, absolutely, And as you get to the edges
of it, you know, the Ozzy Osbourne, they're just there
to be outrageous. Hey I'm gonna eat this bat, watch
me right, just do something completely outrageous, and that's it.
(26:20):
That's the kid in him, right, that's not the practiced artist.
What can I do here to bring no.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
No, that is a kid. I'm gonna eat this bat.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
I'd long live Osney.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
The leader of the leader of a whole movement that
fell in behind him.
Speaker 3 (26:41):
Absolutely absolutely. I want to talk.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
About what would you like the readers to take away
from men?
Speaker 3 (26:47):
Explain? Finally?
Speaker 2 (26:49):
What an excellent question? Well, I'd like that. Well, there's
two halves, right, because there's the men who are going
to read it or their wives are going to force
them to read it. Oh, and it's the women who
can't wait to read it because it's all these it's
like an instruction manual. It's an operating guide for us.
(27:11):
So I would like the women to who read it
to have a better understanding of their man and to
have a reason to be a little more sympathetic and
a little more patient with him, because maybe they come
to realize that he's not quite as in control of
the process as he likes to make you think, right,
(27:34):
He's operating on pure instinct for most of the time.
And you know, one of the facts about men is
that when we don't know what we when we don't
know something, we bluff generally, right, Oh, I know where
we're driving. I got this, you know, or I mean,
how many times have you bought something and thrown away
the instructions. It's just our it's just who we are. Ah,
(27:56):
I got this, and it's not because we're being jury.
It just because that's you know, let's get to the
fun part. Let's let's let's get the car driving and
see how that works out. And for men, I would
like men to come out of this and go, you
know what, that is true? I do. I am a kid, right,
I am a kid, and I do make quick decisions,
(28:20):
and I do bluff my way in and out of
a bunch of things. And as long as everybody knows
that's how you work, I think that would be a
win for the man as well, because he's not There's
nothing in here that a woman could read to the
to her husband or boyfriend and have him go, that's
a lie. That's not true because it's not. There's nothing accusatory.
(28:43):
It's just informational. Right, Be be who you are. Be
a good guy. We're gentle, we're kind, we like to please,
ask us nicely. We'll do almost anything. I mean, these
these ideas are just are just foundational to who men are.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
In my view, I think that's a good and I
think that's a great point. I think this is going
to be a very fascinating book. So my final question
is this, where can my audience find the book and
also connect with you on social media?
Speaker 2 (29:21):
So I love talking to people about this subject. It's
one of my favorite subjects, and I hope to become
a reigning expert for a couple of minutes. Who knows,
But I can be on Tom Sturge's Ideas on x
and Instagram and my website tom sturges dot net. You
(29:44):
can reach me there and you can buy the book
at Amazon, and I'm hoping to get a bunch of
folks out to pick it up so I can get
my first week bestseller in on Amazon and brag about
that for the rest of my life. So if your
folks are in intrigued and they want to know more
about how I, uh, how I think about men and
(30:05):
now what a wonderful group of folks we really are. Uh,
as long as you understand us, you know, if if
you' it's we're we're like, ah, we're like the tide.
If you fight us, you're gonna get swept out to
see if you kind of figure out where we are
and get along with us. We're gonna You're gonna have
(30:25):
the greatest day at the beach ever.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
Awesome.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
And guys, if you miss an episode of the Jake's
Take with Jacob is our podcast, Listen our channels on
Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and spreaker.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
Jake's Take with Jacob sr j A c O b
e o y A c h a R. Now are
you on social media?
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Because I'm on social media too, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, threads
and YouTube.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
Jacob al shr j A c O b e o
y A c h a R.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Want to listen to more podcast conversations, want to follow
my my take on America's Got Talent All?
Speaker 3 (31:01):
Or on my music reviews.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
Visit the blog that started it all, Jake Sayshake dot com.
I was getting jakesaidshake dot com. And I want to
thank my friends over at the American Business Awards for
selecting me to being for the Silver Medalist for Best
Interview and Talk Show. Thank you everyone and Tom. It
was such an honor and thrilled to speak with you.
I'm so glad we have had this conversation.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Congratulations to you and all your accomplishments thus far. I
hope those are just the early steps. And remember, just
have a great time and people will have a great
time watching you and listening to you.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
Thank you so much, Tom and guys, thank you so
much for listening.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Until next time, have a great one everybody, good bye,
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