199: Unbelievable Stories with Leland Sklar

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
I saw him sitting in the room. Hi, you're the Calcles.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm Paul, I'm Bob, and I'm Susan Cowsill and welcome, Welcome,
one and all to the Calcil Podcast, where we have fun, fun, fun,
even when we're being serious every.

Speaker 3 (00:22):
Single week with our music stories and weekly special guests
from all walks of life.

Speaker 4 (00:27):
All of us can use a break sometimes, take a breezer.

Speaker 5 (00:30):
Right right right, Well, if that's proove for you, then
you have a ride at the right place at the
right time.

Speaker 6 (00:37):
So we want you to sit back, reading back and escape.

Speaker 3 (00:41):
With us and to our world of harmony, laughter and
tom foolery.

Speaker 6 (00:46):
So let's get to it.

Speaker 5 (00:47):
Here's today's episode of the Castle Podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Yet, who ain't too much turkey? Oh?

Speaker 5 (00:58):
Me?

Speaker 1 (00:58):
Because we had Ham too?

Speaker 2 (01:00):
Oh yeah, God and him Yeah, Ham showed up.

Speaker 5 (01:04):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
I've learned late in life that people did that. They
did turkey on Thanksgiving and ham at head Christmas, and
we never did a kid. I think we have turkey
both times we have.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
I've always turkey twice and nobody in my colonies understand me.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
Oh okay, yeah yeah, why are we.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
Doing turkeys twice in a month. It's like yeah, what
happened in my house.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
Mom must have loved the dinner.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
Well so do I and so does my family, and
so now we have to have it even if we
which we've never really not sat, but we've had some
half sat let's say, half sat dinners like shifts. But
no matter what, it gets made you left over.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
Yeah, we're going right into our guests.

Speaker 4 (01:51):
Okay, but we can't see him yet.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
What God knows.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
There he is.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
You're doing?

Speaker 6 (02:00):
Man?

Speaker 2 (02:01):
I like it, I have, I have this. I've never
seen all this. I've never seen lips look so good
through a white beardar.

Speaker 6 (02:13):
Hi, kids, how are you all?

Speaker 2 (02:17):
It's funny. He has such a famous look and I
heard it he started growing it after out of high
school or something. But this is an iconic beard. It's
called and now I have nothing iconic that follows me around,
but this beard. Yes, it is.

Speaker 4 (02:32):
You actually did you used to have a dimple in
the middle of your chin.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
That the iconic.

Speaker 4 (02:36):
I'm just I'm tine.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
That's how it's going to be.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
So I'm going to do a formal introduction. Okay, gentlemen,
welcome to The Costle's podcast. We have been searching for
this man for a long time. He was like the
Waldough of our lives? Where is he? Where is he?

Speaker 4 (03:00):
And angeles?

Speaker 2 (03:01):
And he played with everybody but us. He has performed
with every I'm still don't say that, Leland. Can you
imagine Leland's clar starting Indian Lake? I look over, I
go on, what's going on here? Anyway? Leland Sklar pianist
and bass player extraordinaire. We find out, of.

Speaker 6 (03:22):
Course, and you can also turl a bazon, go Bob.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
I don't know if you can still do that? That
might be Can you still do that?

Speaker 6 (03:30):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (03:30):
Yeah he can, he can. And people are going, what
are they talking about? This guy is one of the
greatest bass players historically, in our generation and even next
generations to exist. But he's known for so much more.
And is it Leland Sklar? Okay, I have to go now,
Oh no.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
Spooking to other people about us and know our ways?

Speaker 6 (03:56):
Leland?

Speaker 2 (03:57):
How many people pos this up and they look, I
don't know who they gets and they see him and go,
oh my god, they got Leland scar.

Speaker 6 (04:05):
I'm like gum on your shoe, you know, he got
rid of me, and then you got a nice cube
and peanut butter in the carpeting trying to get rid
of me.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
You're a nice gum on our shoe.

Speaker 1 (04:18):
You can I start this properly, gentlemen, Yes, thank you.
Hello Leland Sclar and welcome to the Cowcils podcast.

Speaker 6 (04:27):
My babe, why And I have to say you are
the best hug Thank you that you are that made.

Speaker 1 (04:38):
Wait no, he's talking to me. We had a moment.
I think the cacophony of the universe had peaked at
some point, and there was Leland and there was I
and we were speechless, and so a hug happened and
everything seemed to get.

Speaker 4 (04:52):
Right normal, quiet, everything went away.

Speaker 1 (04:55):
It was great.

Speaker 2 (04:57):
I have to say, if I ever hugged Leland Sklower,
I would feel that this has been a long time coming,
a long time for this.

Speaker 6 (05:05):
When when we do your record, we'll all hug.

Speaker 1 (05:09):
I am except look I am getting a pen out
right now. Leland. You better watch yourself. So look you okay,
First of all, we are very very honored. I won't
embarrass you with too much of that because I'm know
how you are. But like, dude, like I just want
to jump to Rockford files and pray that to you
on base. But we're gonna Oh God help me.

Speaker 4 (05:30):
Okay, let's start where we start.

Speaker 2 (05:32):
Leaving went ahead.

Speaker 1 (05:34):
You have a dossier that has blown my mind more
than any of our other mutual friends.

Speaker 6 (05:40):
That's the FBI one, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (05:43):
Really did start your background check?

Speaker 1 (05:46):
No, we actually we do not. We stay away from
all kinds of FBI any legalities.

Speaker 2 (05:51):
We just never.

Speaker 1 (05:52):
What's the point None of us will get off this
screen and sharing at that point. So I would like
to take you very far back to early days in Milwaukee.

Speaker 4 (06:04):
When you're just baby Leland with your cute little baby beard.

Speaker 2 (06:07):
Probably it was brown.

Speaker 1 (06:09):
It was brown, well, of course.

Speaker 4 (06:10):
It was probably maybe even maybe you were toe headed
and so it was too.

Speaker 6 (06:14):
But so I love that. I don't mean to interrupt.

Speaker 1 (06:21):
No, that's all we do. Leland works.

Speaker 6 (06:24):
I'm just going to sit here and dig you.

Speaker 1 (06:26):
No, I know you're not.

Speaker 4 (06:27):
You're gonna be answering soon, sir.

Speaker 1 (06:29):
So in your household, where there's mom and there's dad,
maybe there's music, dunno, Maybe there musical dun'no. But you're
here and you're born, and there are fire trucks being
placed in front of you, and I'm sure doctor Kit
was somewhere in there, because it sure was in all
of our Christmas Day before you hugged your first instrument.

Speaker 4 (06:52):
Was there anything that little Leland wanted to beat or do?

Speaker 1 (06:55):
And then did he back around it when he got older.

Speaker 6 (07:00):
It's from the very beginnings. Music was it. I would
sit with my parents and they would watch the Liberaci
TV Show, and I would sit there and watch with them.
I was about four and a half years old and
we had a piano in the house. It was kind
of inherited. There was no My mom could plunk a

(07:22):
little bit on the piano and my dad plunked a
little bit on saxophone. But we weren't. They weren't. They
never pursued music, but they were amazingly eclectic in their listening.
So we had a great record collection in the house.
But I would sit and watch the Liberaci Show and
was enamored with, as I've talked about in the past,

(07:44):
just the panache of his yea, just dressed to the night.
I mean, this was before he became, before he became
what Elton became, you know, sitting there, Yeah, sitting there
in his tuxedo with his candelabra. And then his brother
George would come out and play violent we watched. Yeah,
it was, you know, one of those things that I

(08:07):
immediately gravitated towards the piano. By the time I was five,
I was studying piano and and we had just moved
to Los Angeles at that point from Milwaukee, and so
they found me a piano teacher, and and I was
off and running and there was it was. It was
both fantastic and troubling from the standpoint the piano teacher.

(08:30):
Her name. I mean, it's weird, the things you go,
What don't I have for breakfast today? But I'll never
forget that. Her name was Ethel Sanborn mcbernie.

Speaker 1 (08:39):
You know, I don't think you forget that any.

Speaker 6 (08:42):
Your phone number when you were a kid or yeah,
but you don't know, you know, what the hell's going.
So I started studying with her, and I had an
affinity for it. And by the time I was eight
years old, I had met Eugene Normandy, who was conductor
of the Philadelphia Orchestra. I had won awards from the

(09:04):
Hollywood Bowl Association as like the accomplished young pianist. But
what was happening in hindsight was she was using me
to live out the lack of success she had in
her life.

Speaker 1 (09:20):
Wow, can get.

Speaker 6 (09:23):
I How does someone do that? And what well I
was doing. I was doing a lot of recitals. I was,
you know, under pressure a lot, and she's of course
telling my folks you know, he's really brilliant and all that,
and everybody's buying into it. Next thing, you know, by
the time I was twelve, I was seeing a shrink
about it because I was so stressed out. Oh wow,

(09:44):
so you were a protege.

Speaker 4 (09:45):
They were trying to make it happen and you wanted to.

Speaker 2 (09:48):
Well, Taylor.

Speaker 6 (09:49):
What happened at that point was we left her and
I started studying with a guy named Ernest Hughes. And
Ernest Hughes was one of the premier studio pianists in
Los ange Is, doing all the movies and everything. Well,
the youngest I was eleven or so, I think at
this point. The youngest student he had ever had at

(10:09):
that point was twenty five. So he was dealing with adults.
So like, when you're doing something wrong, he's going, God,
damn it, you know love. My mom would showed up
to pick me up from my lesson and I would
be beat red from crying and this was just spiraling
down a good movie. But well, I finally ended up

(10:29):
with a fantastic piano teacher named Debbie Green out there
in the valley. She was somewhere in Van Eyes and
was set up in her garage, had a little studio there.
Years later, when I'm in the studio working, one of
the great drummers I worked with over the years was
Ed Green, and we were talking about our backgrounds and

(10:50):
I told him about this, and he went, that was
my mom. Debbie Green was Ed Green's mom. He was
probably in the house when I was taking back, but
at that point I was so burned out that one
I got into I went to Birmingham Junior High and
High School. I grew up in Van Eyes and Valley kid.

(11:12):
When I got to junior high school at twelve, you know,
I kind of assumed, you know, after all the accolades,
that I'd be the piano player in the organ. And
I got there and Ted Linn was the music instructor,
and he he just said, look, we got about fifty
kids that play piano. We need a string bass player.

(11:34):
And he pulled an old k up right out of
the back room and showed me how to hold it
and said if you're interested, and he showed me, and
I plucked one note and felt that vibration run through
me and I just went done.

Speaker 4 (11:46):
Man, that's like magic.

Speaker 6 (11:48):
Yeah. And I turned my back at that point on
piano and just stop and focused on bass at that point.
And it was. And we had a great music department.
Milton anders And was our one of the other teachers,
and he started the Young Americans at our high school.
And I was in the original rhythm section for the

(12:08):
Young Americans when I was in high school. You know,
just all these things, there's all this crap going on,
and sometimes it just all comes together and you go,
it all.

Speaker 1 (12:18):
Comes together for you in these notes.

Speaker 6 (12:22):
I mean, you know, we're all so you know, as
much craziness as we've all had in our lives, we're
also so profoundly blessed to have been able to make
a life in music. When everything else is tanking around you,
you go, I can just put on some headphones, listen
or play or do something and it shuts out. The

(12:42):
only other thing for me that ever gave me that
same satisfaction. And like you warn me that you guys
ramble and go on. Well, my wife always goes he's
a blabber mouth.

Speaker 2 (12:55):
The right spot.

Speaker 6 (12:57):
But I went to safer in a Valley State College
or cal State Northridge, whatever you want to call it.
And I started there as a music major and hated
it because I realized that really all they were gearing
you towards was teaching credentials at that point, and I
had no desire to be a teacher.

Speaker 1 (13:15):
I don't have any teachers. Yeah that makes sense.

Speaker 6 (13:18):
Yeah, I wanted just to be playing. So I went
up to the to the administration building and took a
whole battery of aptitude tests, and my highest, my highest
aptitude came up in art and science. So I became
a co major and switched over to the art department. Now,
the other thing that brought me great satisfaction was welding,

(13:40):
and and I did metal sculpture for you.

Speaker 2 (13:43):
I had a career there. Yeah.

Speaker 6 (13:44):
Yeah. And the beauty of that is you drop that
helmet down and your entire world is a little spot
of light about that day, so you're not dealing with
any of the bullshit that's going on around you or anything.
And I had that same kind of thing. Music has
that laser quality of getting you into that zone and
focus and art did the same thing for me. And

(14:07):
if I hadn't, if I hadn't had the opportunity I
had where my career started, which was totally by accident,
I would have been probably doing something I was looking
towards possible, like medical illustration or something, because I love
the science side of it. But I was also like,
I loved hyper realist drawing and painting, so you can.

Speaker 1 (14:29):
You're you're graphically inclined as well.

Speaker 2 (14:32):
Yeah, you know, a science lab. A science lab gives
you that same focus you were looking for on the
piano thing. Before we get too far away from it,
I want to ask you about that, because you seem
like you were really accomplished through the rest of your
musical career that's coming towards you. Are you ever going
to be allowed to revisit that gift and use it
on a recording and help people out on a keyboard

(14:54):
you just walk away and say I'm a bass player.

Speaker 6 (14:57):
Yeah, I kind of did. I stuff. I was blessed
to be around remarkable keyboard players, so I wasn't about
to raise anybody else's bar. The thing that was great, though,
was when my opportunity to start working in studio, work
in town. Was piano gave me reading chops? Yes, So

(15:18):
many of the guys of my age when we were
all getting started weren't readers. I mean they could play
their ass on for sharing. It opened doors for me
to do movies and television and jingles where reading was
required and also coming from piano. If a copy is
screwed up and wrote the bass parts in treble or tenorcliff,
I could still read that. So I came in with

(15:40):
a set of skills when the opportunity opened up that
I was smart, rather than somebody calling you for a
date and go you know you can read, can't You
were str.

Speaker 2 (15:52):
Make my own little.

Speaker 1 (15:53):
Notes, oh man, yes, and not been able to read,
just kind of winged it.

Speaker 7 (15:58):
And also you went from eighty eight down to four man, can't.

Speaker 6 (16:04):
Yeah, you can't downsize better than that, I hear you.
It lets you go to a flea market and buy
a really shitty piano that only has.

Speaker 2 (16:13):
So your early base work. Then not. But you love
the bass even though you're not you're not on a
fender yet, but you're you're on a stand up and
you love it a string base and you love the
stand up. You're going to live with that for a
while until what's gonna what's going to flip you?

Speaker 6 (16:28):
Well, what flipped me was when I started playing I
immediately around twelve years old. I started with other guys
in the area. We're doing bands and stuff, and the
school was generous enough to let me use the bass,
so you know, I'd be dragging that damn thing home
from school.

Speaker 1 (16:45):
It's amazing, Leland, I have to interject one thing, you
have to answer it and then go right back to
that if you're capable.

Speaker 2 (16:52):
We're not.

Speaker 1 (16:52):
But like, was any of this to try and get chicks?

Speaker 6 (16:56):
Uh? No, I hadn't come to terms with my sexuality,
which is I just did two weeks ago, and I
realized I'm actually I.

Speaker 1 (17:04):
Am happy for you for that because that's a long journey.
But I just wanted to make sure because it's it's
so much a part of most of the musicians men I.

Speaker 6 (17:11):
Know girls intimidated though, living ship out of me.

Speaker 4 (17:14):
And rightfully so, so back to what.

Speaker 6 (17:16):
You are, much higher form of.

Speaker 1 (17:18):
Art, I understand scare me too, so.

Speaker 6 (17:21):
At least that's what you told me to say before
we got here today.

Speaker 2 (17:24):
But can you get back to it again.

Speaker 6 (17:29):
So what happened was, I was we were starting to
play in bands, and I was going, I can't hear myself.
I'm like sitting next to a drummer and a guitar
player who's got a little new amp and play with
maybe his you know, a kid from Ensino. So they
got a B three organ. You know, I'm sitting there
bleeding because I'm beating the ship out of this thing.

(17:51):
So my dad finally took me down to stein on Vine,
which was part of the Musicians Union at that time.

Speaker 1 (17:59):
I've heard of it.

Speaker 6 (18:00):
It was great, and I bought he bought me a
melody a Japanese base called a melody bass, a little
four string bass and it's Saint George amp. And I
plugged that in. And I mean it took a period
of adjustment to go from fretless upright to a you know,
sitting down with a fretted instrument. But all of a
sudden I was a contender. I could play with the

(18:24):
other cats and not be you know, flogging myself, and
then I would go through you know, I was an
absolutely like all of us. I was enamored with the Beatles,
so but I couldn't afford a Hoffner. So I got
an echo bass that was shaped like one, and you know,
things evolved. I got a stand do you run and make.

Speaker 4 (18:42):
A band real quick? After the Beatles?

Speaker 2 (18:45):
Always?

Speaker 1 (18:46):
I mean yeah, I mean everybody we went.

Speaker 2 (18:50):
You were in five bands at once?

Speaker 6 (18:52):
Oh yeah, oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:53):
No.

Speaker 6 (18:53):
We were constantly playing.

Speaker 2 (18:56):
And now that now, honestly, is that because the great
bass player Leland's glaris around or there aren't any base
players I was.

Speaker 6 (19:03):
I was, I had a van so now you know,
whatever whatever people see me as now, we all started
in the same primordial ooze, you know, yes, and I
was working with really wonderful players that were all young.
We were all like, you know, thirteen fourteen fish we were.

Speaker 1 (19:25):
But where do you go?

Speaker 6 (19:27):
When I was fifteen? We would go down because I
was doing jazz a lot with upright, So we would
go down and we would play concerts by the sea,
which was the White House at that point, played at
Shondo d Shelley's Manhole, and all these different places. So
we were cutting our teeth all the time, you know, playing.

(19:48):
I knew every frat house in UCLA and USC because
we were always playing frat parties on weekends.

Speaker 4 (19:54):
These are your teen years. You are out there just
rocking the valley and.

Speaker 2 (19:58):
Are you tucking?

Speaker 6 (20:00):
Sorry?

Speaker 2 (20:00):
Are you plucking or picking?

Speaker 6 (20:02):
Are you picking your bass? I never picked because I
never played guitar in my life. I really have no I'm.

Speaker 2 (20:08):
There, I'm with you.

Speaker 4 (20:10):
I don't pick either.

Speaker 6 (20:12):
I I wish I did at times, because I do
love the sound of it when I listen to all
the old stuff that Carol Kay and Joe she used
to pick, Yes, the guitar player who became Yeah, I
love that sound. But I just I've never I'm as
much as I'm not lazy, I'm totally lazy.

Speaker 1 (20:34):
Very much like that, I.

Speaker 6 (20:35):
Would have I would have had to sit down and
really dedicate some time to getting my chops up, because
if I was playing with the pick, I'd be sorry,
and then as soon as i'd play with my fingers,
I'd go so much. I'm expressing myself the way I
want to. I do love the sound of it. I'm
not adverse to anything to me anyway. Somebody plays an

(20:56):
instruments valid when you see these arguments on social media,
guys going, oh, if you're playing a five string, you're
not really playing, or if you're playing with bullshit. You
use the tools that you need for you and anything
if you have, I play a one string bass or
a ten string bass if that's what I needed. So
I really look at Uh.

Speaker 1 (21:18):
You really can get anything out of it.

Speaker 2 (21:20):
Did you ever? Did you ever put a bass part
down and then put the same part down with a
pick and use them both.

Speaker 6 (21:26):
No, But what I've done at times was I've done
a bass part and then I'll go back and double
it with a piccolo base, which is an octave heart.

Speaker 2 (21:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (21:34):
Yeah, all of a sudden, it sounds like an eight string.
But what you can do then is lay down the
original really clean, and then when you do the piccolo,
do it with a little chorus or something, and it
becomes a dramatically Oh yeah. I worked with a number
of years ago was Billy Thorpe, and we did an
album called Children of the Sun, and almost all the
bass parts on that were all doubled between regular and interesting.

Speaker 2 (21:57):
Yeah, you can find that. And when you're young like this,
you're in five bands. You're in this band, that band that.
Are you also investigating genres that you like, styles that
you like or do you love them all? I'll play
it with everybody I'll do it all.

Speaker 6 (22:10):
At that point, we're all too young to even understand genres.
Most of it was kind of like surf bands from
the Valley, and then kind of bluesy rock bands.

Speaker 1 (22:23):
I was.

Speaker 6 (22:24):
One of the best things that ever happened to me
was when the Beatles played at the Hollywood Bowl in
nineteen sixty six. I wanted to see them desperately, and
I sent for tickets and I got a letter back
that said sold out. We have The year before, I
had applied to see if I could get a job
as an usher. Well, I suddenly get a note saying

(22:46):
we have a special concert coming up and we need
extra ushers. So I got an usher at the Bowl
when the Beatles played there, which also kept me on
for the whole season. So besides seeing them, I got
to see Jim Hendricks, Vanilla Fudge OLiS India Festival. Did
you bring the boys? You know? I mean it was everything,

(23:09):
a whole year of wow, and you brought the blankets.
You gave everybody blankets and stuff. I just let them
sit on my beard than a blanket.

Speaker 4 (23:21):
Okay, wait, okay, I'm wrangling. I'm wrangling.

Speaker 1 (23:24):
Okay, so that's what I'm doing. So you are this
little young man in all these little bands and now
you work at the Hollywood Bowl? Does you playing on
major theme songs of TV shows I watch as a child?

Speaker 4 (23:39):
When does this come in?

Speaker 6 (23:40):
Okay? What happened was I was played on rock?

Speaker 1 (23:43):
Well, do you tell.

Speaker 2 (23:44):
Us most baby Mike posts? You go ahead.

Speaker 6 (23:47):
Yeah, what happened was I was in a band, uh
with a group of guys from Encino back in nineteen.
I'll be seventy nine.

Speaker 1 (23:56):
No, when you're doing this?

Speaker 6 (23:59):
What I'm doing this? Well, it was sixty seven.

Speaker 2 (24:02):
So you're fifteen, okay.

Speaker 6 (24:05):
Or whatever the fuck it is. I didn't think ye. Yeah,
today I was in this band called Group Therapy, which
was an aptly named band. But we got a record
deal with a company called Canterbury Records. And the thing
that was great about that, and this is really one
of the great things. Canterbury Records was owned by a

(24:28):
guy named Ken Handler, and Ken's sister was Barbara Handler.
Their parents owned Mattel so Ken and Barbie in real
life are brother and sisters.

Speaker 2 (24:37):
Oh what, yeah, that's beautiful.

Speaker 6 (24:41):
Yeah, it's the folk. Yeah. But when we got to
do the record, I don't know where the connection came.
It might have come through the record company, but the
producer was Mike Post, and Mike Post was at that
point was the musical director for the Andy Williams Show
and he had just done Classical ass with Mason Williams

(25:01):
at that point. So we went into the studio. It
was my first experience ever going in the studio, but
we weren't allowed to play on our record because we
were too young in an experience, So it was the
wrecking crew on it. And we were at United Recorders
when it was still United Western, and the big room
in front was the first studio. I was sitting on

(25:24):
that couch looking through the window at Hal Blaine, Carol Kay,
Dennis Budemir, Mike Dacy al Blaine. It was Mike Rubinie,
Mike Melvoyn and Larry Nektel were the three keyboard players.
Jim Gordon was the young percussionist. Now at that point
Al Casey was also playing, and we had a string

(25:47):
section and we cut like four sides or so and uh.
And that was how I met Mike. And then when
my career actually started in the studio, he suddenly saw
that this guy that he had worked with back then
was around it, and he contacted me and uh, and
we talked about like reading chops and all that, and

(26:10):
so he and asked me if I wanted to come down.
So I went down and we did the theme for
the Rockford Files. Then we did a team in Hill
Street Blues and Magnum p I. I did every one
in my pagers.

Speaker 1 (26:20):
I cannot believe that that is to me.

Speaker 6 (26:27):
Well, I'm just so.

Speaker 5 (26:30):
So you guys go in your group Therapy is the band,
and you guys realize, hey, we're not going to be
able to play our own music because we're just not there.

Speaker 2 (26:40):
How did that affect you guys? Heads? Did you guys
go in thinking.

Speaker 6 (26:44):
Oh, man, we're going to kill this and then realize, oh,
I'm not doing it. We knew from from the get
go that we weren't going to be playing on it.
We sang on it kind of like the Association sort of.
But yeah, it was one of those things where seeing it,
the thing that was weird for me was I'm looking
at these people and they're like consummate pros like the

(27:06):
stuff's were, and there they got parts down and I'm
thinking to myself, I could never do this. And and
in three years I was playing.

Speaker 1 (27:14):
With exactly what you're doing.

Speaker 2 (27:16):
Yeah, that's what happened, but you do have your own
recon crew the section, but that's not.

Speaker 6 (27:20):
It was so le Leland, go for it, Leland. I
was going to explain how I actually got into the
business from being a kid in the valley playing in bands,
so that would be good. In sixty eight and sixty
nine I was in a band called Wolfgang. That was
still one of the best bands I was ever in.

(27:42):
It was really one of the greatest musical experiences I had.
I loved these guys. We called ourselves Wolfgang because our
manager was Bill Graham, and that was Bill Graham's real
name was Wolfgang. So we thought, how better to suck
up to your management than to name your band after him.
I mean, what the hell? So so we we got together.

(28:06):
We were doing you know, some covers, but in a
very unique way. We were doing Dylan songs and stuff,
but his hard rock and our drummer Bugs Pemberton, who
was England. We had two guys from England in the band.
We had Bryn Howarth on guitar who's still over in England,
a really successful evangelical musician. He played guitars, he does

(28:29):
great albums and.

Speaker 1 (28:30):
He's want to be on our podcast.

Speaker 6 (28:32):
No, No, he's great, he's fabulous. And Bugs Pemberton who
played drums. Warren Pemberton who was in Jackie Lomax and
the Undertakers in London were who were rivals of the
Beatles back in the day, and great drummer. Well, one
of his best friends was a guy named John Fishbeck
who owned Crystal Recording Studios over on Vine Street and

(28:53):
and John would come and hang out at our rehearsals
with us. We had rented a house in Sunland area
up on Wheatland and we had this crazy house on
the top and the band kind of lived there. Well,
one of our rehearsals, John said, it's a cool if
I bring a friend of mine along with me, and

(29:14):
we said, sure, it's a party up here, let's hang out.
And he shows up with this guy who had just
gotten back from England who was an old friend of his.
Turned out it was James Taylor. Now nobody know who
James Taylor was here at that point he had done
his Apple record over in England and he had come
back and Peter Asher was going to be producing him.

(29:35):
And they had just done his first American album and
we were so we're rehearsing. He he hung out for
like two days with us and we're talking and he's
playing us his tune, so like we ended up doing
like a hard rock version of Country Road for Our City.
And then he got offered a gig at the Troubadour

(29:57):
to premier Se and they already had the core of
their band together because they had just done the album.
They had Danny Korchmar on guitar, they had Russ Kunkle
on drums, and they had and Carol King on piano,
but they didn't have a bass player because the guy
who did the album wasn't going to be in the
in the band with them. So he came to the

(30:20):
rehearsal and next thing I know, he calls Peter and
he goes, I found the bass player and they so
they tracked me down and asked me if I would
play that gig at the Troubadour with him, and I said, well, sure,
I'd love to. And I was still in college at
this point.

Speaker 5 (30:36):
The Troubadour gig, So when that call came in, Okay,
did you sense did you have any vibe or any
sense of of what that might be meaning you getting
the call.

Speaker 6 (30:48):
Just I just figured we were playing a gig and
I was gonna I had finals coming up.

Speaker 1 (30:53):
And stuff, and he's just a guy, right, he Taylor.

Speaker 6 (30:58):
Yeah, so we play the game, remember that. Yeah, So
we played the gig and the next thing, you know,
James is on the cover of Time magazine.

Speaker 4 (31:06):
He wasn't famous yet when he found it.

Speaker 6 (31:08):
And he was, well, wave was coming in.

Speaker 1 (31:12):
It's like Bruce, right, like when Bruce showed up on Top.

Speaker 6 (31:14):
Ago and Elton when Elton did Troubadour with Nigel and
d and all of a sudden changed the music scene
with these things. So all of a sudden, they got
offered another gig after this because it was so successful,
and they got offered a month tour and they said,
do you want to do it? And I'm sitting here
looking I got final exams coming up, and I went,

(31:35):
fuck it, let's go. And that was, you know, nineteen
seventy and I never went back to school, never graduate.
I had five years under my belt up there, but
we hit the road.

Speaker 1 (31:47):
And I call that graduating.

Speaker 2 (31:49):
Lay.

Speaker 6 (31:50):
Well, I'll tell you what was graduating when when I
was in Wolfgang the very first gig we ever played
as a band, because we had rehearsed tons. We were
so tight, but we had never on a gig. We'd
only just sat up on Wheatland Avenue. The very first
gig we did was at Winterland opening for Zeppelin.

Speaker 2 (32:07):
That's the first.

Speaker 6 (32:08):
That's the first time we ever were on state.

Speaker 2 (32:11):
Who are you hanging around with? You're important people?

Speaker 6 (32:14):
Well, we were there because Bill Graham was our manager.

Speaker 1 (32:17):
Remember Bill wolf Graham was and nobody knew who he was,
either more or less.

Speaker 6 (32:22):
Right, Bill, Bill was one of the most dynamic people
in this industry, but he was still behind the scenes.

Speaker 1 (32:29):
Kid, Right, how old was he?

Speaker 6 (32:30):
You know, probably it was probably ten years older than
the rest of us or something.

Speaker 1 (32:34):
But I mean that's his beginning, this is yeah.

Speaker 6 (32:38):
And then when we started with James, we were up
at like the Berkeley Community Theater, we were at the
Greek in Berkeley and you know all that stuff. So
all this stuff it became it really became like a
title wave where it started happening.

Speaker 2 (32:53):
So are you saying Wolfgang open for James Taylor.

Speaker 6 (32:56):
Or you're a jail No, Wolfgang open for Led Zeppelin?

Speaker 2 (32:59):
Yeah, that's because that's but that was kind.

Speaker 6 (33:01):
Of like one of those trials by fire you could
we pulled.

Speaker 2 (33:05):
That had to be your first exciting audience. Oh, the
led Zeppelin audience.

Speaker 6 (33:10):
Are you kidding? At winter Land? With all of the
opay yeahs, with all jelaty and crazy. It was fantastic.
It was really fantastic. But so so when James started,
all of a sudden, it just took on a life
of its own. And I have people like like come
to me at like clinics and stuff and they go,
we want to do what you did? How did you

(33:30):
do it? And I go, I have no idea. It
was a set of circumstances and open different doors. The
only thing that I had really going for me was
and and a lot of people go through this. The
opportunity opens up, but you got to have the goods when.

Speaker 2 (33:46):
The opportunity, You've got to come through.

Speaker 6 (33:48):
Yeah, if suddenly you get this opportunity to go play
with somebody and they go dude, sucks, you know, yeah,
it words out and then you're back doing what you do.
So I was lucky that it seemed like whatever whatever
I did seemed to fit the moment. And then The
thing with James was he was really like at the

(34:08):
forefront of that singer songwriter movement where you had like
the Dylan's and phil Oaks and all the more.

Speaker 1 (34:13):
Of the folks.

Speaker 6 (34:16):
It was different. It was different. Yeah, And then all
of a sudden the labels all saw that and probably
one of the most profound things in my in our
career as the guys from the section, he was Peter,
you know, because he insisted that our names appear on
the album jacket, which the crewde got no notoriety. So

(34:39):
when people were listening to Sinatra and the Association and
the moments in the composite and they hold on my
my alarm.

Speaker 2 (34:49):
That's okay, do you have to go?

Speaker 6 (34:52):
No? Wait is it eleven eleven eleven thirty? I was
just doing this to I had something that I needed
to live and they did it before we started talking.

Speaker 2 (35:03):
The thing about Peter Asher, I think another thing about
him that probably lend itself to your development, all of
the difference. He was known to not use other people's
band like if you're if you're the Motels, well you're
you're not going to play on the record. You're going
to do it this way. He always went to you
guys for everybody.

Speaker 6 (35:24):
But that was as time went on, we became But
but the fact that he put our names on those
albums and labels, which meant something at that point, Yeah,
look it up for it was one of those things
that they were sitting there seeing the success of James.
So they were starting to sign singer songwriters right now,

(35:46):
wild all right, and they would look at James's record
and go, well, if these guys are good enough for
James Taylor, let's see if we can get them for
our record. And so suddenly I went. I went from
literally having only done one recording session and which was
a demo for a Wolfgang, to being like doing four
sessions a day, six days a week.

Speaker 2 (36:08):
Wow.

Speaker 6 (36:10):
So we had like the Carol Kings and the Jackson
Browns and Linda Ronstats had them all bookoh and all
these things and every day. I mean I still have
all the old day books from the seven.

Speaker 1 (36:21):
Oh you're killing me right now, go Paulie.

Speaker 2 (36:25):
Leland. So was there a moment?

Speaker 7 (36:27):
Was there a moment in that time that you're in
right there that you got to look at your buddies
and go, guys, we're the new wrecking Crew did that
ever get into your brain that.

Speaker 6 (36:38):
No, not not really. I think we were just all
I mean, we were still young. We were like in
our early twenties.

Speaker 1 (36:44):
It's happening. You don't know what's happening.

Speaker 6 (36:47):
In the moment, and it's one of those things. The
minute the last gig year hired for is over, you go,
well that's it, we're done. You know it's over, and
then the rings in another project comes in. So it
was on going. And the thing that that really I
and all of us really felt was in our hearts.

(37:07):
The real difference between us and the Wrecking Crew was
the Wrecking Crew never left the studio. They did the
records and then when people went on the road, they
hired a road band or whatever they were going to do.
But we were on the road half the year perform,
which is what I really loved. And it's interesting when
we did the documentary you know, for Danny about the

(37:30):
immediate family. Yes, I love it, he said, you know,
because he had done the Wrecking Crew documentary. Because his
dad was Tommy Tedesco, who was like the great guitar
we met him. Yeah, oh yeah, I'm sure you guys. Yeah,
it's it was one of those things where he said,
look at the wrecking crew literally lasted ten years for

(37:51):
the real viability that you know, guys are still working
and stuff. Don Randy's still out there doing stuff. But
for the most part, they're they're real meat and potatoes.
Was ten years and he goes and they never left
the studio. You know, Hell might go to Vegas and
you know, get Marquee, you know, Marquee with Sinatra or
somebody like that, gey Gity Cat. But he said, you

(38:16):
guys have been together over fifty years, you're still doing it,
and you go on the road with the artists too.
So it's a very different dynamic. But at that time
we were just thrilled. We couldn't believe we were working musicians.

Speaker 2 (38:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (38:32):
Really.

Speaker 6 (38:33):
And then then when I would be in the studio
and I'd walk in and there would be Hell. I
did tons of records with Nechtel and Melvoine and Tommy
and did lots of films, and we became they were
sort of mentors in a way, just because they had
so much experience that I could sit with them and
draw from, you know, the Chucknicos and all these people.

(38:55):
It was a magical golden.

Speaker 1 (38:57):
Age question before Paul's the real one, or I'll let
Paul ask the real one.

Speaker 5 (39:03):
Go Paul, Well, I was just gonna bring up a
point that I've read through so much stuff, and I
picked out these four things that you had said at
some other time in some other interview, and as I
took them from there and put them in a row,
I think I have the reason that you are so successful,

(39:25):
and that I believe the reason is is because and
these are.

Speaker 8 (39:28):
Your words, I gave them nothing reflex Nothing in this
business is predictable. That's what you said. And then you
said I take nothing for granted.

Speaker 5 (39:40):
And then the last two things that blew my mind
is that you get a buzz when the phone rings,
and then you say, never say no to a call.

Speaker 1 (39:52):
Yep, and that's why he's here, And that.

Speaker 6 (39:56):
It's absolutely true. You never know what's around the corner.
And like the only time I've ever said no to
anything is if there's something deep in my gut that
says this is not going to be good. And I
know so much. The music might not be, but the
business is bullshit. But for the most part, I every

(40:17):
time that phone rings, I feel viable. You know, I
still you know, yeah, almost eighty years old at this point,
and I'm just kind of going, I still love when
the phone rings and I love then do you.

Speaker 4 (40:32):
Kind of see everything as an audition as well?

Speaker 6 (40:34):
Well, it's I have several moments do you play well?
I sort of do both, you know, Like I'll be
driving to a session and I'm just on the drive there,
I'm kind of going, don't suck, Just don't suck. But
I'm not talking about them. I'm talking about me because
as musicians, most of us are, you know, still anxiety
riddled and you know a lot of self doubt. Where

(40:57):
you're going, I'm no good, I'm no good. Am I
going to be able to cut it? Because I would
say probably eighty percent of the time I have no
idea what I'm showing up to light or anything like that,
So I don't know what the demands are going to be,
and you got to show up and have your rolodex
of ideas ready.

Speaker 3 (41:16):
As soon as you say no twice, you're down at
the bottom of the list. Even as good as you
could be good, you're never say no. I mean I
talked to Hal about that once and he said, when
he first started playing in town, doing work. They asked him,
whoever the producer was you play percussion too, don't you?
He said no, absolutely, never played percussion. Is ran down

(41:38):
to like the like Stein or one of those places
like a tambourine and some shakers and stuff that.

Speaker 2 (41:44):
Yeah, if I would have.

Speaker 6 (41:46):
Said no, they would have had somebody else and he
would have gotten never gotten another call.

Speaker 2 (41:51):
That's so right.

Speaker 6 (41:52):
And the other thing I also always think about is
everything I do is etched in mud, because you've got
to be pliable in this business. You can't come in
there with an attitude and go it's my way or
you know it's not happening, you go. But what I'll do,
like on a session, if if I feel like there's

(42:13):
something I could contribute that's different, I'll make sure I
get the part that they want and if you can
give me another shot at it here, let me try
something else. And there's times where they've looked at me
after this and they'll go, you just made the record,
and other times where they'll go, you know, we're so
used to the old part, and I go, it's cools cool.

(42:33):
As long as you're happy that I'm happy.

Speaker 1 (42:35):
Absolutely. I actually I offer that vocally if I come
into it, like get called in. You know what you hear,
tell me what you've got, and if you want before
I leave, I'll roll out what I heard, keep it lose,
I don't care what you'll do with it.

Speaker 6 (42:49):
Yeah, but it's just.

Speaker 1 (42:50):
Kind of and so coming prepared it kind of just
kind of happens. So that's nice.

Speaker 6 (42:55):
Yeah, But it's one of these things that there's so
many dynamics to this industry that you just have to
be kind of prepared for Anything's I don't do many
masterclasses or clinics, but I've done a few, you know,
and it's and it's very little playing involved in them.
It's really talking to the people about the ethics of

(43:17):
the studio. To me, there's when that phone rings, you
have two options. You say yes or no. If you
say yes, it comes with obligations. When the session starts
at ten am, you're not pulling in the parking lot
at ten After you've been an hour, You've already gone
through your setup, your tunes, you're ready to play it now.
The artists may not show up till noon, but that's
their call. The young bock starts.

Speaker 2 (43:40):
I also learned Leland that you when you answer that phone.
You don't say no, because you and I have done
recordings together with Charles from the Red Sox, and I'm
going you must know more. Child is Leland's clar at
Sunny's in Santa Monica on stage playing the Real Diamond

(44:01):
Song for the Red Sox. So you were there having
fun also, I assume that's fun for you because it
was fun for me and I went on doctor on
Charles Steinberg songs. He's a bass.

Speaker 6 (44:11):
Player, oh man, all of that stuff. I mean, Lauren
Harriet is just a fascinating guy. And every time he
pulls up a project. Bernie Williams from the Yankees, And
remember when we got called for that, and Bernie was
the center fielder for the New York Yankees at that
At that time, I hadn't retired yet, and we did
it that one in New York and we showed up

(44:32):
to the studio and you know, I've done a lot
of vanity projects for actors and different people, and you go,
it's it's cute, sweet. But Bernie pulled out his guitar
and J. T. Thomas was playing keyboards, and Kenny Aronoff
was playing drums and Tim Pearce.

Speaker 2 (44:47):
Was playing guitar something there.

Speaker 6 (44:50):
Yeah, and Bernie pulls out his guitar and we all went, oh, man,
this is the real deal. He's a monstrous guitar player.
Yeah good, it was great. It was great. And those
kind of things you just never know. But I've done
tons of the those kind of athletes and actors and all,
and a lot of them they started in music.

Speaker 2 (45:10):
Yeah, a lot of music.

Speaker 6 (45:11):
It's like Bernie said, he when he was growing up
in Puerto Rico, he was a music major all through
school and he was playing ball out in a field
with some friends and a Yankees scout was in Puerto
Rico and saw him, and the next thing you know,
he's making a hundred million dollars a year.

Speaker 1 (45:28):
Well, Leland, you're looking at a couple of what would
have been major ballplayers. The one on top for he
was really in it because he didn't have.

Speaker 5 (45:38):
On.

Speaker 2 (45:40):
I keep them all day. We're going to move it along.
But go ahead, I want to ask something.

Speaker 1 (45:45):
But go ahead, Okay, but I get I'm afraid I
won't get it in and I have to do this.
Are you The bass part that starts off Sweet Baby James.

Speaker 6 (45:55):
Sweet Baby James is guitar that bone, the down.

Speaker 4 (45:59):
Bone boom is a guitar.

Speaker 1 (46:03):
Think, think of the intro.

Speaker 6 (46:05):
I'd have to listen to it again because we've done
it like live recording.

Speaker 1 (46:09):
There's it's got a eye. Well, it sounds like a
bass and a guitar. It's the intro.

Speaker 4 (46:13):
It goes bone the doon boone.

Speaker 6 (46:15):
No, I think it's just guitar. Okay, I think it is.
But James James was a challenge for me to start
with because James's guitar playing is so unique and there's
you know, every time i'd work with anybody from Clinton Christi,
Arth Brooks and stuff, they go James Taylor and all
they want to do is play James songs so they
can show you. Because James his thumb is always playing bass.

(46:40):
And when I started with him, I kind of went,
what the hell am I going to do? He's already playing.

Speaker 1 (46:44):
Well, then that's the answer to that question, Leland, because
it isn't in my heart in my eleven year old head,
it's it's a bass and maybe a guitar with you.

Speaker 6 (46:54):
No, it's his thumb.

Speaker 1 (46:55):
Because did you play on that song?

Speaker 6 (46:57):
Oh yeah, No, I mean all those stand Okay, it does.

Speaker 1 (47:03):
It for me late.

Speaker 6 (47:04):
But you know, for me, the real enjoyable part of
my career has been variety, being able to work with
somebody like James Taylor, Jackson Brown or Linda Ronstatt, but
then do like Spectrum with Billy Cobbham and and and
do like I did tons of records with like Reba

(47:25):
and Vin.

Speaker 5 (47:27):
And that's saying yes, that's because you said yes, That's
why that diversity came into you.

Speaker 6 (47:33):
Yeah, and it's really it keeps it because you know,
there's a part of me where I would say, you
can get a little jealous when I see somebody like Flea, Well,
who's all. This is not knocking Flea, but all he's
ever had to do with Chili Peppers, he's shitload of
money and a lot of success, and then he can
go do whatever he wants to do. Where every time

(47:54):
I walk in the studio, I'm joining a new band
and I'm up with new ideas. Where I I've worked
on somebody estimated I've worked on about twenty six thousand
songs during that It's amazing. But you know, I've gotten
to play with Charlie wattson Ringo Star, Yeah God, and
Jeff Beck and all these people where if I was

(48:15):
in a band, those opportunities would have never been there.
So on the one, you know, it's a double edged
sword with these things where it's great.

Speaker 2 (48:24):
So I have a question about the road because you
didn't shy away from the road, your road warrior. We
love the road. We don't have any problem with the road.
We're the ones you want out there? Are you that way?

Speaker 6 (48:35):
Yeah? We were around the road with Hyle. Love it
most of this year.

Speaker 2 (48:40):
You love it still?

Speaker 6 (48:42):
I mean, you know, of course, going through the bullshit
you have to go through with airports.

Speaker 1 (48:46):
When you're yes and you get older, it's more bullshit
every day.

Speaker 6 (48:50):
You know, it's you know, climbing in the bunk. I
always figure you're too old for the road when you
can't get in the center bunk.

Speaker 1 (48:57):
I'm on top and center.

Speaker 2 (49:00):
You're talking about bus births people we know.

Speaker 1 (49:03):
But coming down we are the three stooges on top,
Paul is middle and Bob is bottom. For eleven years,
thank you very much.

Speaker 2 (49:09):
I have been on the bottom berth for eleven years
and it only became a first. I used to roll
out and just pop up and get out. Now I
have to roll out to get up.

Speaker 6 (49:18):
I negotiate.

Speaker 2 (49:20):
It's two steps up.

Speaker 6 (49:21):
That's with Laya life. Got Jim Cox right underneath me.

Speaker 1 (49:25):
Are you condo bunks? Are you condo bunks?

Speaker 3 (49:30):
It depends on the bust your bunk swept beside Chuck
Negron for shoot seven years.

Speaker 6 (49:39):
For years we were Wow.

Speaker 2 (49:41):
Okay, so we figured your road work because me and
but what's great about your road is you played to
the biggest crowds and the and smallest crowds for everybody,
the most famous and the least famous. Diversity thing. I
love that one thing. So I know you got Our
good friend is wadiwrock Tael. We grew up with Wyu Newport.
You know this, and you're going to bump into him?

(50:02):
What during the romstat years? What do you meet? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (50:04):
When do you meet Wannie? Good question?

Speaker 6 (50:07):
I met Waddie in nineteen seventy three before any of us.
We were doing Oh God, what's his name? It was
an R and B singer album. We did it well.
It sounds city. I'm suddenly blanking on this.

Speaker 1 (50:24):
It's the first time you did it.

Speaker 6 (50:25):
I say, you doing I'll call you late tonight.

Speaker 2 (50:29):
Session guys on me.

Speaker 6 (50:30):
We were just session guys. He had come to town
and so we met on that and then he you know,
he met Russ and it became this thing where we
all sort of ended up together.

Speaker 1 (50:43):
And then Danny right Cooch was there from.

Speaker 6 (50:46):
The very beginning, Yeah, because he was with James, because
they grew up together on Martha's vineyard.

Speaker 2 (50:52):
All this is centered around Electra asylum, right, they're kind.

Speaker 6 (50:55):
Of they always say that, but we were, you know,
we were doing a lot of the Electra Sylum artists,
but we were working for everybody. But when you see
these things that are written out, you know, on Wikipedia
and stuff, you know they were the Mellow Mafia, and
we always go fuck you.

Speaker 1 (51:12):
Oh we can't forget fuck you, and we can say
that on this cast continuously because oh no, we need
to get to our book.

Speaker 2 (51:21):
Wait, I got to tell you what finger book? So Leland,
So I'm I'm at a doctor Charles session and either
you're coming by, I missed you, but I'm sitting there
going do I ask him to take my picture giving
him the finger? Do I ask him to take my
picture giving him the finger? And you never stowed up,
so I didn't. I didn't have to go through that.

Speaker 1 (51:41):
If we have a family council.

Speaker 2 (51:44):
My biggest fear, My biggest fear that day was him
showing up and saying, no, I'm not going to take
your picture, giving me the finger, because.

Speaker 6 (51:52):
You would have been you would have been embraced by
my my cute you know I have.

Speaker 2 (52:00):
The photographic once I think the immediate family okay, so decide.
You know we're not. None of us are done. And
it's you. I got one question. I know why you
do it now. It's it's it's your love, it's your game,
it's what you do. My course about the immediate family
is Russ, Danny, Waddie and Leland. Who the heck is
Steve Pastell and how did he get cracked?

Speaker 6 (52:22):
That's all we should have entitled the album In the
hell is Steve Poste? The way that all came about.
Steve Postell, about eighteen years ago, came up to me
at a NAM show and we had never met, and
he came up and said, you're going to play on
my record And I said, fine, that's what I do.
Call me, you know I did. And it was me

(52:45):
and Steve Feroni playing drums and stuff and we had
a great time with him. Well Cooch at this point
had moved back east. He came back out to la
and he ended up moving pretty close to where Postell lived.
And they met up at somebody's party and some and
the people there had a couple of guitars and they said,

(53:06):
we why don't you guys, you know, you want to
play together? And they started playing and they looked at
each other and they went, this is really pretty cool.
So Danny got offered a deal with a label in
Japan and to do a solo record, and so he
started trying to think, you know, what can I do

(53:26):
for this thing. He and Postel hooked up and they
started working on his songs, because what it was was
basically songs that Danny had written for artists, you know,
other artists, and he was going to record them in
his own way. And so they worked on that, and
Danny figured Russ and I would and Waddy wouldn't be

(53:48):
around town. It just so happened that week Russ and
I were in town and Jackson Brown let us use
his studio down in Santa Monica. Waddy was out with
Stevie at that point, but he could come the We
were in for three days, so he could make the
third day. So we got in the studio and since

(54:08):
Danny had been working with Steve working on all this stuff,
he had him coming too, and it just was kind
of one of those things. The guy's there and he
didn't leave, you know, he just became a part of
the music.

Speaker 1 (54:20):
You know.

Speaker 6 (54:21):
They ended up. They hit it off really well and
it worked for all of us, just in terms of
how fun.

Speaker 4 (54:28):
For the Steve guy.

Speaker 2 (54:29):
Yeah, people sell think like, oh my god, I made it.
I finally there was an element of that way he
would talk about it.

Speaker 1 (54:36):
Because guys made a chick singer.

Speaker 6 (54:38):
Just kidding always. I know that, but it was one
of the things. She's like ten years younger than everybody else,
so he kind of grew up looking at us the
way we would look at the Wrecking.

Speaker 2 (54:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (54:49):
Well, for him it was really enjoyable. And and I've
done other projects with him where he's producing. He's got
a nice little home studio, and I've gone to his
house and worked on other people's projects with him. We
all have a good relationship. The issue we've had with
the band, it's an issue that most everybody has. I
mean here we've been playing together for like Russ and

(55:10):
I and coach. We look at each other. We've been
playing together for fifty six years each other, but in
the eyes of the public and of the industry, we're
a new artist. So, you know, we were hoping that
maybe the Grammys we could get nominated as Best New
Artist in the thing.

Speaker 2 (55:27):
That would be awesome.

Speaker 1 (55:28):
That would have been the cutest freaking thing.

Speaker 6 (55:32):
It would be fun. We could all get matching walkers
and stuff.

Speaker 2 (55:36):
Yeah, are you going to book? Are you going to
book it? Are you going to book the immediate family?
You're going to tour?

Speaker 6 (55:42):
Well, no, we did. But the problem that we have
with it is since nobody knows who the hell the
band really is, the the the dough is so low
that we lose money every time on for you, every
time we got to play gig, because a thousand bucks
to go play a gig?

Speaker 2 (56:01):
Are you?

Speaker 6 (56:02):
And we would go do the gigs and the places
are you know, pretty full, and the people are loving
it and we're playing all this, but we can't get
advances that are enough to cover our costs and we
go out bare boned.

Speaker 1 (56:15):
In a friends let you open for them and pay
you nicely. No, I know that, I just want I
just wanted to say, I tell you there's plenty over here.

Speaker 2 (56:30):
I thought, you guys history your your history, but.

Speaker 1 (56:34):
We should let them open for us.

Speaker 2 (56:36):
Well.

Speaker 6 (56:36):
The thing that that that I would love to have
done would to have been gone on the road and
book it in such a way where we play like
a few songs to a Q and A with the
audience for the play and then but it's never come
together in that way. In the same way we've been
bugging management all these people to get us corporates because

(57:00):
you guys, I've never gotten We've never gotten an offer
come in for anything. So it's a lot of bullshit involved.
And at this point Cooch pretty much has called it
for himself. No, he moved back to Rhode Island and
he's just kind of enjoying, you know, being here his daughter.

(57:24):
But when there was an agency involved and they would
start to come up with some offers, and Russ and
I'd be out with Lyle Waddie would be out with
Stevie Yea, and we couldn't commit to things, so we
couldn't get the patient.

Speaker 1 (57:37):
You could still but listen, you could still with Cooch
in Rhode Island. That's not oh yeah, you could still.
I think I know, I would appreciate, and so if
I do, people who really know more than I do,
really would appreciate that sitting. I would go to that,
I would sit, I would listen. I would love to

(57:58):
have question and answers. I'd love to see you guys
sit on stools, put them out whatever.

Speaker 6 (58:03):
I'm still going out. I've got three. I'm still going
out with Denny Tedesco doing screenings of the documentary movie Okay,
and I'm the guy that goes and does the Q
and as cool good, that's good. I love it.

Speaker 1 (58:17):
Yeah, I love you, love it. We love it.

Speaker 6 (58:19):
Yeah. So we've got one coming up in Hollywood, I
think on the third. Then we're doing a gig down.
I did an album with a really wonderful artist name
Patty Zachlitt, and we're doing a showdown in Carlsbad with
her playing her album and then screening the movie and
doing a Q and A after.

Speaker 1 (58:38):
That nice for her Annia.

Speaker 6 (58:42):
And then Denny and I are going up to I
think like half Moon Bay or somewhere up near like
San Jose to do a screening and we're going to
go to the university and he's going to talk to
the film school, and I'm going to talk to the
music school. So I still I love doing it. And
Denny and I really travel well together and love doing

(59:03):
this stuff. So the documentary still has legs. Especially I
went to we went to England and did a screening
in London and it was great. I mean it was
like five hundred musicians in the place and they went
crazy for the movie. And then we did about a
forty five minute Q and a after with all the

(59:25):
guys after that.

Speaker 2 (59:26):
And that's excellent. Well it's are you Are you recognized
a lot out there because you're a famous appearance.

Speaker 6 (59:33):
Well, the thing is, I'm really fortunate from standpoint that
I'm a side man. So when people see me every
day at the supermarket, you name it, at gas station,
they don't come up freaking out like they would if
it was James Taylor or Phil Collins or something like that.
They just come up, aren't you the bass player? With

(59:55):
Oh man, I saw you guys, and we have a
really nice little conference, maybe take a picture together and
stuff like with Lyle. I've got my book on the
He's very generous with all of us, and he said, no,
if you want to sell your book, at the merch
table do it. So we have a life sized poster
of me out there that says I'll be doing a
Q and A or hang meet and greet after the

(01:00:18):
show at the merch table, and I go out there
and I sign books for people and take pictures.

Speaker 1 (01:00:24):
Well, it's really kind of wile.

Speaker 6 (01:00:26):
Well, yeah, he's great about that stuff. The way he
talks about everybody in the band. He gives everybody time
on stage to introduce.

Speaker 2 (01:00:34):
Well, I wanted to ask Leland. So you know, way
back in the day, we're all recording.

Speaker 5 (01:00:39):
It's all analog and we're just having a ball, and
we're all got fingers on the pods when we're mixing, and.

Speaker 6 (01:00:45):
You take that, you take that, you take that and all.

Speaker 5 (01:00:48):
That, and now you get a call, and because you're
the yes guy, you go, yeah, yeah, I'll be over
Where am I going?

Speaker 2 (01:00:53):
You get an address.

Speaker 5 (01:00:54):
Now you're walking into somebody's closet because that's where pro
tools is at.

Speaker 6 (01:01:01):
Do you miss the studio?

Speaker 2 (01:01:02):
And all that is?

Speaker 6 (01:01:04):
To me? The the the best this is is when
you have a group of putting players in a room
and everybody's feeding ideas off. You know, at this point,
I I never want to get into the discussions of
analog versus digital, because most of thes that I work
with are young and they've never been around digital. I mean,

(01:01:25):
they've never been around analogy. I don't want to. I
don't want to come off as the old fart. So
maybe you want you want to go well back in
my day and you sound like Grandpa.

Speaker 1 (01:01:36):
No, no, no here.

Speaker 6 (01:01:37):
But if they ask. But if they ask me about it,
I'm really happy to talk about it and share it.
And there's a lot of young artists now that want
to harken back to those days. They're digging out.

Speaker 1 (01:01:47):
It's not about technology to me, it's about the experience.
And I do not want to leave a studio floor
and go into a booth to sit and listen to
what we just did, and stare at a screen and
look for a monitor to tell me what just happened.

Speaker 4 (01:02:03):
Nobody's looking at each other anymore.

Speaker 1 (01:02:05):
It is the oddest thing in the world to me
to not sit there and listen and go, well, what
did you hear?

Speaker 2 (01:02:11):
I can't.

Speaker 6 (01:02:13):
It's like I always encourage people to when I would
do these clinics that said, the most important thing is
if you're all in the suit together. When it's when
you finish the track, you go in and listen to
the playback. You don't get on your phone at this.

Speaker 1 (01:02:25):
Don't look at the screens, listen, but listen.

Speaker 6 (01:02:27):
You close your eyes and dig it and if it's working.
It's like I remember a zoom thing for Berkeley and
one of the people on the zoom was the great
Omar Hakim drummer, and his best line was don't lose
the dance floor.

Speaker 1 (01:02:44):
Yeah, And that's.

Speaker 6 (01:02:46):
When you look. If you're in the room and you
just see everybody, it's there. If all of a sudden,
everybody's just talking and they're like, something's not working. But
there's aspects of all of this, like I'm constantly having
people send me files and I'm sitting at home doing
base parts for people.

Speaker 8 (01:03:04):
Now.

Speaker 6 (01:03:05):
On the one it's not nearly as satisfying as sitting
in a studio. The thing that comes with that is
it turns me on to a global community where to
be with the guys, You've got to be in la
or I've got a fly somewhere where when they send
me this stuff. I've been doing albums for people from Scandinavia,
from Asia, from Yeah, it's and all they're doing is

(01:03:28):
sending me, you know, files, and it's a little harder
for me from the standpoint we're not talking in the studios,
so a lot of times, instead of coming up with
one base part, I'll end up sending them three or
four base parts. Aggressive that's okay, and do whatever you
want with the Yeah, I could.

Speaker 2 (01:03:48):
Totally get into files sending in Yeah. That the side
of it where I'm going, Man, this is me. I
get to do this, but your your record guy.

Speaker 5 (01:03:59):
Nobody say hey, good job man, good job everybody.

Speaker 6 (01:04:01):
So like I've never expected that.

Speaker 1 (01:04:04):
You know.

Speaker 6 (01:04:05):
There's times where I've been sitting in the studio and
I worked on something that just you know, just sold
thirty million copies. Yet while we were doing it, nobody
was going a great part doing other things. I mean,
it's again, it's like the different genres every day, even
though there's a similarity to what we do every day,

(01:04:27):
is a unique experience. It's it's the first the primary
thing is the song.

Speaker 2 (01:04:34):
That's a way yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:04:37):
I mean, I don't know what bass I'm going to
play on something until I've heard the song. I don't
know if I mightn't I tend not to use pedals
or anything that, but I'll suggest things because those things
can be done post rather than pre and I'd really
rather give them this cleanest bass they can have. So
many times when I'm in the studio, I'm at the

(01:04:59):
bears skeletal moment of this of the song, yes, the rhythm,
rhythm section, and then all of a sudden you hear
it finished, and you're going, if I'd have known that's
what they were going to do, I would that you
gotta be kind of cognizant of a whole lot of
and the dialogue is what I missed though, when you're

(01:05:21):
in a studio and you can kick ideas around. I've
done just finished a second album with this remarkable guitarist
named Laurie Bassilio who's from Brazil and she's amazing. Just
finished a European tour and it was like me and
Vinnie Coluta with her, and she plays. She's a shredder,
but absolutely writes all melodic, beautiful songs. And Steffan has

(01:05:47):
chops for days, and you know, and we're in the studio,
we're just sittinground, we talk for a moment, kind of
sus the chart out and all this, and we get
the song and a take. Yeah, it's organic, and you
just go. And there's times where you'll walk out of
a studio and you're just going it sucks. There's just
there's nothing there for you. But you still give it

(01:06:09):
your best shot because you said yes when the yes, Yeah,
I love it.

Speaker 1 (01:06:15):
That's what I mean by auditioning.

Speaker 4 (01:06:16):
You just do it like it's your first and mood.

Speaker 6 (01:06:18):
And also you might walk out of there and go, God,
that was that was sucked And next thing you know,
it's number one record.

Speaker 2 (01:06:26):
Wrong.

Speaker 6 (01:06:27):
Yeah. Other times you've played on something that you thought
was the best thing you ever played on and then
it gets shelved and never even gets released. So yeah, you.

Speaker 2 (01:06:35):
Know, you know, I have one last question about something
that's stuck out that you said, and it's not going
to mean anything to anyone, but you said a Hoffner bass.
You use all these basses, You got to know all
the basses. But the line about Hoppter bass there, Yeah,
you only use that as the song demands. So what
is it if you can't quickly? What kind of song

(01:06:57):
would demand a Hoffner bass?

Speaker 6 (01:06:59):
Well? Well, I ended up using I was I did
an album? Uh this is a two parter. I did
Vanessa Carlton's record with A thousand miles. That song a
thousand miles on it, and one of the songs we
cut on that she did a cover of Painted Black,
the Stones Painted Black. I tried my Frankenstein in the

(01:07:23):
hall and nothing sounded right, and I looked at Ron
Fair and we kind of went, I wonderful Hoffner would
be good on this one. It was that kind of
dead thudy or sound. And we contacted. Oh god, who
was doing all the redtle at that time? I remember,
I can't remember right now, it's been ir let's just

(01:07:43):
say well, it was an individual. No, no, no, no,
it wasn't Bob Bradshaw. It was Wes s I R.

Speaker 1 (01:07:52):
Did he have something to do with s I R?
Why don't I know?

Speaker 4 (01:07:55):
It was our producer, but I felt he had something.

Speaker 6 (01:07:57):
That was Two guys started that.

Speaker 2 (01:08:00):
They lived with us.

Speaker 5 (01:08:01):
You guys, we we gave them the money to start
the first I knew we had something to do.

Speaker 6 (01:08:09):
With Santa Monica. Yeah, yeah, next to the first one.

Speaker 2 (01:08:14):
Guys are always on their sailboats next.

Speaker 6 (01:08:17):
To the army.

Speaker 4 (01:08:18):
Sorry I digressed.

Speaker 1 (01:08:18):
I knew we had something to do with it my dad.
I thought it was I was fine.

Speaker 6 (01:08:23):
So we ended up getting that that and and I
thought this is a cool piece to put in my inventory.
So I checked and the company that actually distributed Hoffner
was out in Sunland, and I went out there and
I tried like a dozen of them until I found one,
because they're really inconsistent, you know, somewhere really okay. I
found what I liked, And then when I went in

(01:08:44):
the studio to with BB King to do his eightieth
birthday album, I thought for his music that might be cool.
And I put a bunch of foam rubber under the
strings and got them really in their flat wounds, so
it had that real almost uprighty, dead old bluesy thing
and it was perfect. And the best part of that
was when we finished the project, I had BB sign

(01:09:04):
the bass and I have a picture of him signing it,
so nobody can see shit, that's not BBeB. Where was
that we did that out in the valley? I forget
where that studio was somewhere down.

Speaker 2 (01:09:18):
So when we show up at a Leland Sklar session
and you're the bass player, am I going to walk in?
I'm going to see five or six bass guitars on
stands there next to you, or you figure out what
you're going.

Speaker 6 (01:09:29):
To do before I might I might have two basses
with me. I might have my old kind of quasi
Fender and I might have my new dan Wall five
strings that I've been using a lot. And then if
somebody said, could you bring a Fretless, then I'll bring
a Fretless with me. But for the most part, I'm
not a gear head, you know. To me, yeah, I'll

(01:09:49):
use almost the same bass for every genre. You know,
like a smooth jazz thing on it, and then I'll
go do a metal thing. It's just how you approach it,
how you use it.

Speaker 1 (01:10:01):
So two seconds for me, Phil Collins, Go Phil Collins,
when did you play with him?

Speaker 6 (01:10:08):
The first time I played with Phil Collins was doing
a Lee written hour album. Lee. I had always known
Lee for a long time, and Lee got to know
Phil and he had a song on his on one
of his solo albums, and he decided he wanted both
of us to play. I was aware of Phil through
Genesis and he was aware of me, like James Taylor

(01:10:28):
and all that stuff, and we hit it off, and
he afterwards said to me would you could you do
my next album and tour? And I had already committed
at that point to James Taylor and I said, I
can't do it, but please, I'd love to work with
you at some point. So he called me in eighty
four and asked if I could come to England and
do No Jacket Required with him and eighty five. We

(01:10:51):
were on the road all year and the thing that
was fascinating about that was at that point Phil was
a drummer in Genesis. Nobody really knew anything about him.
Then all of a sudden we did that album and like,
so studio, you know all that happened, and.

Speaker 1 (01:11:05):
We can hear it coming.

Speaker 6 (01:11:07):
We went from little gigs one day to like arenas
sold out?

Speaker 1 (01:11:12):
Are you oncket?

Speaker 6 (01:11:15):
Because that was on the previous album that was previous.

Speaker 1 (01:11:17):
So but but what did you suit studio? That's you?

Speaker 6 (01:11:22):
Yeah, well that's not actually me on that because that
that's the one track that was all David Frank did
all the key synth on that. But we played.

Speaker 2 (01:11:33):
When you're touring, When you're touring, this is you're in
the A game, right, I mean, yeah, well you're you're
everything's top of the line, right.

Speaker 6 (01:11:43):
A private plane and all that.

Speaker 2 (01:11:45):
Oh I love that. Okay, that's not the middle berth
on a bus, I'll tell you it's not.

Speaker 6 (01:11:51):
It's not. But it's also one of those things where
you you step away from you go, don't get used
to this because it's ridiculous.

Speaker 1 (01:11:59):
This is because it's ridiculous.

Speaker 6 (01:12:01):
But we did things on that tour that were great.
We did like, at one point in that tour we
played La We did I think sold out six nights
at the Forum for that.

Speaker 1 (01:12:11):
Wow.

Speaker 6 (01:12:13):
On the seventh night, we played the will Turn and
we did the but the gig wasn't announced until that day.
When you watch your ticket, you had to walk in
the door. There was no scalping, no nun We did
a three and a half hour show that night and
it was probably the best show of the week. Wow.

Speaker 4 (01:12:32):
I always wanted to sing a duet with Phil Collins?

Speaker 2 (01:12:35):
How did that happen? Who brought that up? Hey, let's
go to the Wilter now that the Forum's done? How
do you help that?

Speaker 6 (01:12:41):
That's that's Phil And that was Tony Smith, his manager. Okay,
Tony's like the greatest.

Speaker 2 (01:12:47):
That's a cool idea.

Speaker 6 (01:12:48):
Yeah, And we did a lot of things like that,
and they were real thoughtful with the song Another Day
in Paradise, which we had in nineteen ninety. At every
gig we played, he would talk about homelessness and all that,
and they had buckets at the doors for people to
make donations, and he matched every night himself.

Speaker 2 (01:13:12):
Wow.

Speaker 6 (01:13:13):
So he's a good guy. I knew it. He's a
great guy in the stuy Well. And in the same
way when we did the James Taylor Carol King Troubadour
Reunion tour, like in twenty ten, somewhere around then, when
we played that gig at the Troubadour, which was our reunion,
which was going to it was to celebrate I think

(01:13:36):
the fortieth anniversary of the Troubadour.

Speaker 2 (01:13:39):
Yes, it wasn't Troubadour celebration.

Speaker 6 (01:13:41):
And so one of the things they thought would be
great is for since Carol was in the original band
and that's where she got exposed as an artist and
not just a writer. They said. So we did five
nights there at the Troubadour and it was great. It
was one of those things, well they said, this is
console wiving offered these massive gigs like at the Madison

(01:14:04):
Square Garden and all these giant arena gigs we go,
how do you take this intimate Troubadour show and put
it into an arena? So what we did was they
created it was in the round. We had a round
stage in the center of the arenas massive video screens
so even if you were in nosebleed, you could see great.

(01:14:25):
And the thing turned the whole it would turn.

Speaker 4 (01:14:29):
Were all facing each other or facing out.

Speaker 6 (01:14:31):
We were facing well, we were facing all over. We
were looking at looking out. But the thing that was
cool was they built a nightclub around the stage. So
that was the VIP section for the show, where those
seats they had a little table and chairs and stuff.
You felt like beautiful, It felt like you were in
the Troubadour And those were like for the VIP thing.

(01:14:54):
I think it was like fifteen hundred bucks of seat
to see the show. But the thing that was great
was the people that bought those seats got to come
to sound check, got to have dinner with the band
and the artist, everything and every penny of that went
to homeless shelters and stuff that the tour money didn't

(01:15:15):
begin until outside of that ring around the thing, and
I think they raised like eight million dollars. You know,
it's just some of these. It's like some people got
and they do, oh we got a VIP thing and
you barely see them and they give you a laminet
or something.

Speaker 1 (01:15:29):
Yeah, and you get rushed through a photo.

Speaker 6 (01:15:31):
Yeah. This was really a good experience. Plus it was
tax deductible for the people because of the charity. Oh,
it was a win win for everybody. But like we
played Nashville right after they had had their major flood
down there and all the money from that went right
to it flood relief and.

Speaker 1 (01:15:49):
The best man, that is the best spill in.

Speaker 2 (01:15:52):
What's your next project?

Speaker 5 (01:15:53):
Wait?

Speaker 1 (01:15:53):
Wait, I have one last I have one last question
before we wind them up, and it's it's something I
need to know if I may. Okay, So you played
down here with a guy I know. His name's Jay Keckerd.
He was in There's the New Orleans Suspects and he's
a singer and he's anyway you may or may not remember.
That's not the thing.

Speaker 4 (01:16:09):
But what he noted was, and is this something you
do intentionally as.

Speaker 1 (01:16:13):
A bass player. He noted as a singer that you
pay attention to a singer breathing while you're playing bass.
Is that something you consciously do or is that just
something my friend picked up on you.

Speaker 6 (01:16:25):
No, I think it's something that that I've just learned
over the years as an accompanist. Yeah, you have to be.
It's like I remember. One of the hardest gigs I
ever played recorded was when Linda Ronstadt did Pirates of
Penzence on Broadway. Yeah, they decided to make a movie
of it, and when they went to do it, they

(01:16:45):
realized that at this point the pit orchestra was not
exactly on top of it. It was good, but not
good enough for a movie. So they it was Peter
Asher was producing it, so they decided we had to
go in and place all of the parts because the
singing was already there, that was done, so this had
to be to the singers and the problem that they

(01:17:08):
that they should have done but didn't do, because they
even had the conductor come to the session. It was
just Valge Ray engineering, Peter Asher and the conductor and
me because they I was the first guy replacing. It
wasn't like an orchestra. It was one person at a time.
They should have videotaped him conducting because Gilbert and Sullivan

(01:17:30):
is insane to follow. These tomes are all over the place,
and I would look over at him and go, what
am I and he go, I don't know what to
tell you. It was a little different every night. So
I was sitting there and at certain points I had
them cranking Linda's vocals so loud that I could hear
take her breast before the downbeat on it. And because

(01:17:51):
you're not going to be sitting there moving everything on
pro tools, it was performance. So it was saying and finally,
I think, and and the book on that, it's like
as thick as a as a New York fun that's exciting.
And at one point I just sat there and I
punched the music stand and knocked everything flying. I was
so freezing, but it.

Speaker 1 (01:18:10):
Was it was a beautiful approach to challenge. Isn't that
just a cool thing?

Speaker 2 (01:18:14):
All right?

Speaker 1 (01:18:15):
All right, so Bob, you can wind him up and
let let everybody know where to get your book.

Speaker 2 (01:18:20):
Do you get challenged these days?

Speaker 6 (01:18:22):
Yeah? Yeah, right, yeah, I mean certainly every day is
a challenge with it. And sometimes you go in and
you go, this is way beneath my chops kind of thing.
But there's other times you walk in you go, holy fuck.
I wish they would have called so and so who
like it can be difficult, but there's stuff coming up.

(01:18:47):
We're starting got some stuff and I think on the
eighths to the eleventh with Lyle we're going down doing
a cruise, one of those cruises down and then we're
playing a thing called Stage Coach out here in April,
a huge Lyle's going out. He and John Hyatt go
out every year as a duo.

Speaker 1 (01:19:06):
Whoa you wow.

Speaker 6 (01:19:08):
I think they're out in February and March.

Speaker 1 (01:19:11):
Are those personalities that go together.

Speaker 6 (01:19:14):
Musically, it's great.

Speaker 1 (01:19:15):
Beautiful say no more no, it's great.

Speaker 6 (01:19:17):
Well, you know, there's different stuff going on all the time.
This year was like we started out this this year
in Scandinavia with with Lyle, I know, in the UK,
and then we went back to do Scandinavia after that,
and then we got hired to go do a private
in Florence, Italy for a guy's birthday and.

Speaker 1 (01:19:37):
You know it's weird for you.

Speaker 6 (01:19:39):
Well, it was a lot more travel than gig.

Speaker 1 (01:19:43):
It usually is, like we say, we get paid.

Speaker 6 (01:19:46):
For all the no, that's all decent musicians you always go,
I do all the gigs for free. And I get
paid to kill team amen.

Speaker 1 (01:19:54):
I only ask you to buy this merch so I
can pay for my guests, I swear to God.

Speaker 2 (01:19:59):
Just a great question, because I'm curious, because man, question
Beard management. I mean, seriously, do you have to tie
it at night?

Speaker 1 (01:20:08):
Or do you have a Santa? Just had to ask that.

Speaker 6 (01:20:12):
Ignore it, okay, nor pretend it's not there. The great
thing is like on the holidays, like you're at the
supermarket and somebody's pushing a little kid in a cart
by you, yes, yes, freaking out and then when the
mom's not looking, you lean in and you go, I
know you've been really bad. You're not getting shit.

Speaker 2 (01:20:29):
Oh take my book.

Speaker 1 (01:20:32):
Well take my book.

Speaker 6 (01:20:36):
I mean, I don't know how much time you guys
want to spend here, but my deepest moment on tour
was because of this.

Speaker 1 (01:20:47):
Because you're not leaving without your deepest moment on tour.

Speaker 6 (01:20:50):
We were with Phil Collins. This was in nineteen ninety.
We were in Glasgow and getting ready to head to
play I can't remember it was. It was Dublin, not Belfast,
it was Dublin. And so we're sitting, you know, just
in there, waiting the commercial flight over there. There's nothing

(01:21:11):
private over in Europe. You're just grabbing commercial flights. And
so we're sitting there and I look over and there's
a mother sitting with a little boy who's like four
years old and three young daughters who like maybe we're
from like six, eight and ten something like that age group.
And Bridget Bryant, who was one of the singers, was

(01:21:32):
sitting near them, and she came back over and she goes,
that little boy thinks you're Santa Claus. And so next thing,
you know, the three little girls come over and they go,
are you guys a pop group?

Speaker 1 (01:21:45):
You know?

Speaker 6 (01:21:45):
They wonder what's going on and we said, well, yeah,
this Phil calls. Well I go over and I talk
to the mom and I said, so, what's what's you
guys up to? And they said, well, you know, we're
heading home from here. And I said, well, we're playing
and Doublin tomorrow night. Would you like to come to
the show? And she said, we're meeting my husband at

(01:22:08):
the airport. I have to check with him to see
you know, well when we get there, we'll find out.
Well we get to the when we get there, I
meet him and they go, this would be fabulous. But
I go over and the whole time I'm talking to her.
This kid, his name's David. He's staring at me, just

(01:22:28):
freaking out because he thinks I'm Santa Claus. When they
finally call our flight, I'm still talking to her. So
he gets up and he's got a little suitcase and
and I say, hey, David, let me carry your suitcase
for you. So I grab his hand and I grab
his suitcase and we go to the plane and get
on the plane. He's like freaking out the whole time, subtly.
So we get there and we invite the family to

(01:22:51):
the show. Well, the next night we do the show
and they show up and she goes, you know, I
kind of thought, maybe you we're like just being nice
that the But there were tickets and VIP passes for
him and everything. And the sweetest thing was when the
show was over, they came backstage and the girls had
gone out and bought autograph books, and so I got everybody,

(01:23:12):
from Phil to every crew member, every band member. We
filled their books with everybody. And at a certain point,
our publicist is sitting there and Phil's sitting there, and
she points to Phil tells David you know who that
is and points at Phil. He goes, he sent his
helper and a like dying at this point. It's great.

(01:23:34):
So when it's time for us to leave, I walked.
I walked them to the to the parking lot. And
as we're walking and and David had said to me,
he goes, I've been really good. I want to train. Well,
as we're going, I tell his dad, here's what he
what he said, He goes, he's already got it for him.

(01:23:55):
And so well, I've stayed in touch with his family.
And when we were there, he was so he was
four years old. And the last time we were in town.
I'll show you this.

Speaker 1 (01:24:08):
I can't believe this. This is thirty years later.

Speaker 6 (01:24:11):
Twenty two years later, he gave me the train. It
was a Thomas the train. Oh got my name on it.
It's oh, twenty seventeen. Was that was when I saw him?
Was in twenty seventeen.

Speaker 1 (01:24:24):
He's Thirty's great Christmas story.

Speaker 6 (01:24:27):
He's thirty four years old.

Speaker 2 (01:24:29):
Now, wow, glad to.

Speaker 1 (01:24:31):
Ask about Phil?

Speaker 2 (01:24:32):
Did you have to break us harder? Does he know
you're not SAand.

Speaker 6 (01:24:36):
To I started a minute. I started to think, I am.

Speaker 4 (01:24:40):
I'm sure you are I want to leave it like that.

Speaker 6 (01:24:43):
One of these things that I stay in touch with
the family. We write to each other on birth years.

Speaker 2 (01:24:49):
Crazy, but I.

Speaker 6 (01:24:51):
Would have people to say, tell us a rotary and
they want to hear like it was their Newton mud wrestling,
And I'll tell you I've got a couple with stories
like that. And a lot of times if you're talking
to like a reporter, they're kind of blazing over at
that point. This is not what they wanted to hear.
They're just being patient to let you so they had

(01:25:12):
delete and beautiful.

Speaker 1 (01:25:13):
Look, this has been way more than we ever dreamed
and I'm so glad that we bumped into it last week.

Speaker 6 (01:25:20):
Thank you Leland for coming on man. And I'm just
gonna wait until you guys call me to record with you.

Speaker 1 (01:25:25):
We're calling you.

Speaker 4 (01:25:26):
I'm going to talk to the boys later.

Speaker 1 (01:25:27):
I heard you loud, I'm.

Speaker 6 (01:25:28):
Clear, And after that, if I retire, I'm good to.

Speaker 4 (01:25:33):
Make everybody's dreams come true because.

Speaker 5 (01:25:35):
I'm you know, we're going to call you in on
our next project because it is an a cappella perfect.

Speaker 1 (01:25:42):
Perfect You'll be here from Thank you so much.

Speaker 6 (01:25:47):
Also, if anybody's interested in the book, that we.

Speaker 1 (01:25:50):
Need to always get the book. That's why we're even here.

Speaker 6 (01:25:52):
Yeah, So go to Leland scolarsbeard dot com and it's
a book, a huge, six pound coffee table book of
six people going. I love it.

Speaker 1 (01:26:05):
He has amazing commercials from all of his pals holding
up this giant thing going.

Speaker 6 (01:26:11):
Also yeah, and it's also it's about humanity because there's
a finite amount of ways of doing this, but the
face is infinite. It's like every every kind of reaction
anything like that. But it's you know, it's got the
James Taylor's and Jackson Brown's and yeah and all. But
it's also got people at the airport and ah nice

(01:26:32):
like awesome and stuff. So it's about humanity and not you.

Speaker 2 (01:26:35):
Have little David. It has David in it, No, I don't, don't.

Speaker 6 (01:26:41):
But it starts with babies giving the fingers, So it's
that we could have been in.

Speaker 1 (01:26:46):
That because there's a picture of Bob as a twin
who is no longer with us, but when they were
six months old, they took a photo and my brother
and it stayed the whole of their lives was right
there with him.

Speaker 6 (01:26:55):
Absolutely.

Speaker 4 (01:26:56):
I mean that's I might send it to you just
for fun.

Speaker 6 (01:26:58):
But it just means your numbnumber one. If you ever
want to do a part two, I'm here for you.
We want to for I got a million more questions
and I said.

Speaker 1 (01:27:15):
Part one over you boys to have that turkey? Sure
was good?

Speaker 8 (01:27:26):
Okay, everybody, We hope you enjoyed visiting with us today.

Speaker 5 (01:27:29):
We definitely had a blast visiting with you.

Speaker 2 (01:27:32):
Don't forget.

Speaker 3 (01:27:33):
Each episode of the podcast is available to download on demand.

Speaker 4 (01:27:39):
So please subscribe and give us a rating thumbs up.

Speaker 3 (01:27:43):
You can also follow the Couciles on Facebook and at
council dot com, and of course.

Speaker 6 (01:27:49):
We will see you in concert and on the road.

Speaker 2 (01:27:53):
Until then, let's stay.

Speaker 3 (01:27:54):
In touch by tuning in each week for another episode
of the Councils podcast

Speaker 2 (01:28:00):
Yellows Yeah I

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