August 31, 2025 • 31 mins
What make men tick? Many people would tell you it's not that complicated and that is exactly what my guest believes.
Tom Sturges is a veteran music executive, author, mentor, educator, inventor, and public speaker. Over his more than thirty-five years in the music industry, he 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 Smashing Pumpkins, Foo Fighters, Outkast, Jack Johnson, 3 Doors Down, and Katrina & The Waves. Selling a combined 275 million albums and 46 million singles, in addition to registering over 3 billion views and streams, the writers and artists signed by Tom have composed twenty-six #1 singles and have received twenty-four Grammy Awards so far.
Tom has written five books and his latest book, "Men Explained, Finally".
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-small-business-radio-show--3306444/support.
Listen to all the episodes of The Small Business Radio Show at www.barrymoltz.com
Tom Sturges is a veteran music executive, author, mentor, educator, inventor, and public speaker. Over his more than thirty-five years in the music industry, he 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 Smashing Pumpkins, Foo Fighters, Outkast, Jack Johnson, 3 Doors Down, and Katrina & The Waves. Selling a combined 275 million albums and 46 million singles, in addition to registering over 3 billion views and streams, the writers and artists signed by Tom have composed twenty-six #1 singles and have received twenty-four Grammy Awards so far.
Tom has written five books and his latest book, "Men Explained, Finally".
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-small-business-radio-show--3306444/support.
Listen to all the episodes of The Small Business Radio Show at www.barrymoltz.com
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Getting ready for all the craziness of small business. It's
exactly that craziness that makes it exciting and totally unbelievable.
Small Business Radio is now on the air with your host,
Barry Moultz.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Well, thanks for joining this week's radio show. Remember this
is the final word in small business. For those keeping track,
This is now show number eight hundred and forty six.
So what makes men tick? Many people would tell you
that we're really not that complicated, and that's exactly what
my guests say believes. Tom Sturgis is a veteran music executive, author, mentor, educator, invenor,
(00:40):
and public speaker. Over more than thirty five years in
the music business, he has served as President of Chrysalis
Music EVP and Head of Creative for Universal Music Publishing
Group and vpn GM for Shaquille O'Neil's Twism Records. His
signings include Smashing Pumpkins, Food Fighters, Outcast, Jack Johnson, Three
Doors Down, Katrina in the Wave, selling combined two hundred
(01:01):
and seventy five million albums and forty six million singles,
audition resident over three billion views and streams. Tom has
composed twenty six number one singles and received twenty four
Grammy Awards. So far, Tom's written five books. His last
is called Men Explained. Tom, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Thank you so much for having me in. Good morning.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
I like the twenty four Grammys so far.
Speaker 4 (01:25):
Right, By the way, I didn't write those songs writers.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Right, I know, I know, right, I understand that. So
and I only mentioned the names of the groups they
actually knew. Right, you've done a lot more groups. So
chatriating the waves. They're going to play that song walk
on Shunshot at my funeral. I love that song.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Oh thank you.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
I remember they came to me and they said, hey,
we have two days to pick up an option on
this Canadian group. Tell us what you think. And they
brought me that song. I said, how much time to
the They said, you got a two days.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
I was like, let's go right exactly exactly. That song
changes everything.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
So the book is called Men Explain. You say that
they're two simple facts. Men are more like other men
than they would probably admit, and men are fourteen forever.
That's a great introduction. Tell us about those conclusions.
Speaker 4 (02:14):
Well, I think we are all of a type generally speaking,
all us guys, because my look and all the people
I've met and the kids I've coached, and everything I've
done in my life has started to come to me
that this is we are one person who happens to
be a roughly fourteen years old, which is that point
(02:35):
we reach in our lives where we start to choose
passion we like and the music we like and the
styles we like, and we operate on those decisions the
rest of our lives. That's the fourteen year old in us.
And for that reason, I think we're such a simple
or simple We're not complicated. We're like a three piece
(02:57):
jigsaw puzzle, easy to break apart, easy.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
To put together.
Speaker 4 (03:01):
And that's how this book comes about as a sort
of a handbook or a guide for women to deal
with the men in their lives as the simple, simple
people that we are.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
But I'm trying to understand what I was. I'm trying
to remember what I was like at fourteen, right, So
fourteen hormones are obviously raging, right, and so just crazy.
And then I want to have fun with my friends,
probably playing sports, whatever whatever it is. I want to
get away from my parents, right from the authority. I
want to do things on my own, right, how do
you see yourself as fourteen?
Speaker 4 (03:37):
Well, my fourteen was a little crazier than most people.
My mom had joined a cult and decided to give
them our house, our car, all our possessions, and I
lived there for the next few years. So I'm not
the usual guy. But my fourteen has continued.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
Now.
Speaker 4 (03:59):
Sometimes I look at my myself walking into a huge
meeting or a corporate presentation, and I feel like I'm
in eighth grade. I'm just as anxious and nervous, but
as confident and composed as I was as a kid.
One of the ideas I have is that why we
are so great at so many things is because we
are so great at bluffing and bumbling and stumbling our
(04:22):
way forward. We almost never admit defeat. We just push
on and push on, and figure sooner or later, this
ship is going to be on the right path and
we're going to get to our destination.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
I love in the book where you talk about that
one of men's superpowers perhaps is that we're childish, immature,
and often unwilling to make the slice effort to grow up.
Why is that a superpower?
Speaker 4 (04:45):
Because this is how we got here, This is why
we're this is why we're in charge and why we're
running these businesses and running these countries is is we
don't We don't stop.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
And go God, I wonder if this is the right thing.
We go we move forward.
Speaker 4 (05:00):
You watch coaches when they're making those decisions with a
minute and a half left, Do I go for it
on fourth and three or do I sit on the ball?
Speaker 3 (05:09):
To me, that decision to go for it, that's.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
A fourteen year old going yes, I can do this,
I can do anything.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
And so that's really what differentiates that, you think from
women that were much more risk takers or just we
don't really think it through.
Speaker 4 (05:23):
What's your thoughts there? I, well, there's you know, there's
so many differences between men and women, and as a
fourteen year old boy, I have really no understanding of
what women are just a bunch of guesses. But I
know women are much more willing to discuss, chop, look
at different angles and try and understand the entirety of
(05:45):
the problem they're facing, where men want to just grab
a couple of band aids or some duct tape, strap
them on and move forward.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
You also talk about which I was very surprised, you
said that men love pleasing because I think a lot
of well, I don't know. I guess a lot of
women would say that we do like pleasing. But I
think men's reputation is not necessarily as pleasers.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
We are not. That is not our reputation.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
But one of the theories I have and I put forward
in the book is if you ask us nicely, we'll
do almost anything.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
But you just have to ask nicely. If it sounds
like an order, hey put out the trash. What are
you doing?
Speaker 4 (06:25):
But your wife comes and says, honey, trash day. Do
you think you get the trash out? You'd run down
and get those things out of there, right.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
Because we like to please the people in our lives.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
Look at us as fathers where we are pleasing our
children for twenty years each husband's where the game.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
Is to keep the wife happy, happy wife, happy life.
That should be tattooed on every man's arm.
Speaker 4 (06:49):
And especially when we get into a corporate environment where
it's truly a team sport and you've got to please
almost everybody to keep that team alive, well and thriving.
Especially small business, you got to take care of your customers.
So I think that's where you see us as pleasers
in the enormity of our lives.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Yeah, you also say, and I love this as men
love forever, and I quote when it comes to old loves,
men prefer their memories their realities. This reason we call
it glory days. Yeah, I think it's very true.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
So let me ask you a question. Who was the
first girl you ever loved?
Speaker 2 (07:27):
I would say, was Karen Goldstein?
Speaker 3 (07:29):
And what is this? What great is this? Fifth grade?
Speaker 2 (07:32):
God, it's got to be And I actually think it's like, well,
at first there were a couple of redheaded twins, but
I never actually talked to them, but I love them.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
Okay, how old were you when that.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Happened, as in elementary school somewhere exactly.
Speaker 4 (07:46):
And this is my point that you still remember, you
still know their names.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
You could tell a story about the way they.
Speaker 4 (07:53):
Got into their mom's car or the ribbon they wore
that day. And that's my point is that we love
always once, we love, we love forever.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
We don't want to.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
Get back together because those those people would be our
age now, but we still love them, the little boy
and us still loves the little girl who we knew
wa back when.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
So what does the role of sex play for men,
because my wife always says, you know, men are very simple, right,
they only want a couple basic things, and one of
them is sex.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
So what do you think a section of sandwich.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
I think, or a good cigar?
Speaker 4 (08:25):
You know, one of those the three s's, sex, sandwiches
and cigar exactly.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
So what do you think that places for men in
their relationships?
Speaker 3 (08:35):
Well?
Speaker 4 (08:35):
Sex is everything, right, Sex is the and that's where
the fourteen year old boy really starts to raise his
hand and say, what about me?
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Exactly? What about me? My friend over here? What about me?
Speaker 3 (08:48):
Hey? I see everybody else is abby, But it is.
Speaker 4 (08:52):
It's a driving force in our lives that I believe
is part of our natural instinct, part of our aliveness.
Part of why we're here is to appropriate and have
more babies and keep the population going. But in a
refined society like we live in, we have to be
more cunning with the women in our lives to try
(09:13):
and get them to understand how important this is. And
it's the first thing we think about most days and
the last thing we think about most nights.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
It is a constant in our lives. It's no, it's
not a bad thing. It's just who we are.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
And as long as we can get to that a
couple of times, two, three times a week if possible, then.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
You're a lucky man. You're a lucky man.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Then you're you're lucky you this guy on your block.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
You know.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
It's interesting because I think that when women start to
understand that that is on men's minds a lot, it
makes relationships a lot easier. Now again, I think that
people just have to talk about it and what's the
right balance for them. But you have to understand it's
on men's minds.
Speaker 4 (09:55):
It's as much as any other natural thing that happens.
You have a mosquito bite, or your ear itches or whatever, you.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
Deal with it, and that's where it is. For men.
It is the best thing that happens.
Speaker 4 (10:10):
That day, should it happen to happen, And it's something
that as soon as it's over, we're thinking about the
next one.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
And it's not a bad thing. It's just a truth
about us.
Speaker 4 (10:22):
Is that is our fourteen year old boy raising his
hand going.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
Hello, Hello, I'm over here.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
You know, men have a bad rap for not naturally
being good communicators, and I believe that we are get communicators.
We just communicate differently from women.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
What do you think we communicate completely differently. We want
I think it's our instinct if there's a problem, fix
it us. Whether there's an essay I wrote about the
importance of duct tape because nothing fixes fast dupe.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (10:57):
So, and that's where we That's how we approach almost
everything that we do is let's let's fix it first,
and then we'll ask questions later about how how well
it's still working or anything else. But let's get this
problem fixed and move on. As far as our communication
styles and skills and that kind of thing, we are
(11:21):
just looking for solutions and we don't need the whole discussion.
You know what happened here, Just fix it. I don't
need to tell you why the car has a big
dent in the front.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
We're going to the We're going to the auto body shop.
Don't worry about it, right.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
I always say to my wife, you know, and this
is one thing I think she likes about me, is
that that I'm very solution oriented. Right, there's a problem,
I want to fix it, right, and let's move on
to whatever whatever. Think that's whatever's next.
Speaker 4 (11:48):
That's your fourteen year old boy going I got this,
but I felt.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
That at fourteen, I thought that being friends was a
lot easier than being keeping your friendships up when you're
sixty five, right, And I think there's a been a
lot written about how men, you know, don't keep as
they age. They kind of get isolated. They're just kind
of with their spouse or whatever it is, and they
don't keep up their male friends. And I've worked very
hard for the last ten years to cultivate a group
(12:14):
of like ten guys and we get together every year,
we go out, you know, whatever it is. Why is
that so hard for men?
Speaker 4 (12:21):
I think it's that's an excellent question because at a
certain point, you know, your friendship changes, right when you're
a kid, right, what is friendship? The basis of friendship
is time spent.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
That's it. Hey, what are you doing today? Nothing?
Speaker 4 (12:35):
Okay, good, let's do that together and that's your friendship.
You know, I got a sixteen year old who will
golf every day, is you know, with his pals or
do all that?
Speaker 3 (12:46):
As we get older, the basis.
Speaker 4 (12:49):
Of friendship changes because you don't want to just spend
a day with another guy. You'd you know him already
so well, So what we do in old friendships.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
As we do favors for each other.
Speaker 4 (13:02):
Like help your friends' kid get into a college, or
help your friends' daughter understand something that she doesn't quite understand.
So we're doing favors, and but listen, as we get older,
people move away.
Speaker 3 (13:15):
It's harder to communicate, and I wonder if we're just
less interested.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
I believe that. You know, the way that I've been
able to move to keep my friendships going is we
try to do a lot of parallel play what they
used to call when you're young, but now it's just sports. Right,
So I'll ride bikes together, hike together, play golf together,
whatever that is, and we're communicating, but we're not really
looking at each other, if that makes any sense exactly.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Yeah, you're just doing it. You're hanging.
Speaker 4 (13:39):
You're chilling with your mates, right, the same thing when
we were kids, and we're doing it now and doing
it now and trying to keep it interested. I love
the concept of the parallel play. I probably should have
written that in the book because.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
It's so true.
Speaker 4 (13:53):
You know, you watch four guys play golf, there there's
no The interaction is the competition.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
It's not that you're helping each other out, right.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
But we're shooting the ship while we're doing You don't
have the guys over the house in Arizona. Once theo
there's ten guys and we're sitting in the backyard. There's
a pool whatever it is. But while we're hanging out,
we're playing bags, right, we're playing cornhole, right, and we're
shooting the ship and drinking things like that. And is
it blast or we're going hiking or whatever it is.
We're very rare. We're never sitting around the table and
just talking. I would tell you that maybe we're eating.
Speaker 4 (14:24):
Right, but you're not going to invite four or five
friends over go he could have coffee and.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Talk exactly, exactly exactly.
Speaker 4 (14:31):
That is fundamental difference men and women. Women want to talk,
you know.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
It's it's so funny. One of my wife's friends, you know,
she'll get on the phone with her. She go, yah,
I got to call so and so, And I'm like,
that's an hour and a half.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
Right.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
I can't imagine being on the phone with anybody that's
not a business thing for an hour and a half.
Speaker 4 (14:50):
Yeah, and making sure you go through every topic and
discuss and how's the ants?
Speaker 3 (14:55):
And how's the kids?
Speaker 4 (14:56):
And know they this is why they're different than we
are and why they don't generally speaking, when women think
that we're simpletons because we don't want to have all
that discussion.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
We just want to get to it.
Speaker 4 (15:09):
Let's go play, let's go there, let's go when and
there's an urgency to us. There's this one essay I
wrote that men and women shouldn't shop together because it's
absolutely different.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
Right, we shop like assassins.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
That's right, exactly right.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
How many times have you left a store with just
one item? That's because that's all.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
You need, that's right, exactly, Or I.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
Ever leave the store with just one item?
Speaker 2 (15:34):
You know, it's funny because I think one of my
wife's favorite pastimes is shopping. She goes it's so much fun.
You know. I go out there, the music is nice,
people are nice to me, and I'm going I can't
think of anything that less do less than go shopping.
And I only go shopping with my wife like once
a year.
Speaker 4 (15:49):
That's it, right, yeah, because you're you're going to be
pulling out all the hair growing from your temples exactly
because and I say that, you know, for a woman
to walk through saxsofft Avenue is like Vincent van Go
walking by the river trying to imagine how he's going
to paint it, because it's a creative experience for them.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
Oh, this would look great in the living room, or
I would look great in these shoes or whatever. And
you're like, where's the glue or where's.
Speaker 4 (16:18):
I need a handle for my new mower. Boom by,
race to the cash register, hustle back to the car,
drive home where assassins their experiences.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
I remember, I remember that show called Defending the Caveman.
It was like a Broadway show, and there was a
great line in that show where the woman says to
the guy, says, listen, can you imagine this couch in
our living room? And the guy goes, I can't afford
this couch. How could I imagine in my living room?
Speaker 4 (16:50):
Exactly exactly, But she's imagining how this fits.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
Doesn't have to. She's just And that's why that's part
of our huge different difference, and one of the compromises
we have to make.
Speaker 4 (17:02):
To be together with each other is to realize, hey,
we're very different.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
I shop like a child.
Speaker 4 (17:09):
I want to hang with my friends if possible, I
want to wear an old an old bar shirt and
a pair of floppy, floppy shoes in the I mean,
if you look at a bunch of guys hanging out,
they are dressed exactly like they were all those years ago.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
It's funny you say that men and men are geniuses
and idiots. What do you mean by that?
Speaker 4 (17:31):
I've discovered this that a lot of men are great
at one or two things. I mean, really extraordinary, And
I use one of the examples. I use Albert Einstein.
This is a guy who figured out how the universe
is held together. He couldn't stand being married to his
wife and would leave notes around the house that said,
(17:51):
please leave me alone. Right, I have the list. I
have a photograph of the list that he left her.
Here are the things I want you to do for me.
And this is supposedly the smartest guy ever. He couldn't
handle being married. And I mentioned in the book a
friend of mine Crazy Story two PhD's one of the
(18:14):
most decorated surgeons in the history of medicine, who thought
his girlfriend was being unfaithful to him and asked me
to do him.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
A huge favor.
Speaker 4 (18:26):
And the favor was to leave to break into the
house she was staying in and leave a voice activated
tape recorder in her bedroom so he could have evidence
of her infidelity. This was the smartest guy who ever lived.
And I was I'm saying, hey, I won't say his name.
(18:49):
I said, Hey, let me just ask the question. Let's
say I go through with this insanity. How do we
get the tape recorder to give you the evidence that
you're looking for? She said, So you have to break
into the house again to retrieve it.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Really, there's a good idea. Well could go wrong?
Speaker 4 (19:07):
You have two PhDs and this is your plan. So
it's idiocy and genius wrapped up in the same guy,
which is I think a lot of us.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
So how do you think it's the best way from
Since men are different than women, like you know, men
are from Mars, women from Venus, what's the best way
for them to communicate with each other?
Speaker 4 (19:31):
I think if we can accept who the other person is. Right,
So if a woman realizes, hey, I need something done,
let me ask him really nicely and it gets done
and say, oh okay. And let's say the husband comes
home from work.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
And he's miserable.
Speaker 4 (19:46):
What would you do with the miserable fourteen year old,
You give him a soda and put him in front.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Of the TV.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Exactly.
Speaker 4 (19:55):
So, your husband comes home, he's incredibly upset, get him
a beer, put them in front of the TV wall,
get chips.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Watch sports, watch sports, Monday night football.
Speaker 4 (20:07):
Let me put ESPN is our first choss. You go
and I think, if we can, if we can appreciate
that the other that we are that different. And at
the same time, if the husband's could you know, the
wife gets home and she's really, really miserable, she needs
to talk to you, you have to shut up and
(20:27):
listen because that's what pleases her is to be able
to get this out and discuss.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
She doesn't want a beer in a TV show. That's us.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
I want to talk about it.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
It's a discussion.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
So you worked with a lot of men and women
artists when you were doing business them.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
Was it a lot different completely? So tell us about
that completely?
Speaker 4 (20:48):
Well, I think, first of all, the once you're dealing
with somebody's creativity, right, which is as.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
Close to their soul as.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
Anything, their instinct, because its creativity, especially songwriting.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
And music creation, is.
Speaker 4 (21:07):
Well that's the essence of that person. So on that level,
everybody's the same. But I had one writer who's had
a ton of hits. I brought her into the music business,
her news Antonina, and she's still having hits. And she
needed to call me with an idea as in its infancy.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
As it grew up. So she would go, Hey, can
you just listen to this?
Speaker 4 (21:30):
This is this verse I'm working on, and she would
sing a cappella a verse of a song and I go, okay, yeah, great,
keep it up, go bye.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
And hang up the phone.
Speaker 4 (21:40):
The guys would finish the whole thing and bring it
to me, which is an interesting thing that she wanted
approval step by step by step. I'm not saying every
woman wants this in their writing, but she wanted to
know that she had a teammate along with her the
whole way, and a guy would finish the the recording, mixed, master, polish,
(22:03):
and present the finish finish thing. So I guess that's
I don't know how that fits in philosophically, but that's
one of the biggest differences, you know.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
I don't know if you've watched the HBO doctormentary on
Billy Joel the Greatest, it's great. You really get an
insight to him and and who he was, all the
good stuff, all the warts and his songwriting and so
you know he always who am well a dear friend
of mine?
Speaker 4 (22:28):
Uh, produce, produce it. I can't say he's a dear
friend of mine. That's BS, which is another thing we do.
I just caught myself BS.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
You met him once on social media?
Speaker 3 (22:42):
Uh? He I wish he was a dear friend. Party guy.
Speaker 4 (22:46):
He's a guy I met once at a party, Not Jenny,
A little bit of than that Gary Getzman. So he's
the The movie Liquorice Pizza is about him, by the way,
and he's.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
The one who produced that thing.
Speaker 4 (22:57):
Uh what I love about There's one line that Billy
Joel said that was like so insightful and brilliant. He
said he's tired of the tyranny of the rhyme. The
tyranny of the rhyme. And I was like, wow, because
that's those are the handcuffs on every songwriter, every poet,
(23:21):
every author is getting the words to fit together and
sound right and and get your get your listener to
think and dream and feel the way you want them to.
And Billy Joel was just God, it's extraordinary what he's accomplished.
One my favorite thing started interrupting a one songwriter, Paul Simon,
(23:48):
Paul McCartney, now Bruce Springsteen, Billy Corgan, one guy saying hey,
I got this. I'll do the lyric and the melody
the rest of you. Dave Grohl, same thing. Dave writes
lyrics and melodies. He shares the songwriting credits with the band,
but it's all him.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
I thought it was interesting in that. Also, after he
came out with River Dreams, he basically says, I don't
have any more words to put to music, and so
he came out with a classical album and that was it. It's
amazing twenty five years ago. So I also found very interesting.
He never said again off topic. He never said that
I'm an alcoholic. He never really admitted that, even though
he went to recovery. It was almost like this is
(24:30):
who I am. Love it or leave me right. Yeah,
It's just it's part of who I am, and I'm
not gonna apologize for I am. Basically, I'm only gonna
do what I want to do. He said that many
times in the documentary.
Speaker 4 (24:41):
So one of the I got a chance to work
with bon Jovi for a number of years in Richie
Sembor and I became good pals. He was such a
he was the same genuine guy on stage, off stage,
driving to the stage, he was always just in kid.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
From New Jersey. Hey, hoy, you doing way, what's up?
Cheering with people on the way in.
Speaker 4 (25:05):
And I remember driving to a concert in a limousine
with m Paul McCartney told me to never drop names,
but uh, this was with some of the members of
Fleetwood Mac and they were so serious.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
With Stevie Nicks was so.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
She seems really serious.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
She was so she could give stairs.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
To Lindsay Buckingham. I don't know who else can you know?
Speaker 3 (25:28):
Yeah, well, we're driving through Deally. This was in Dallas.
Speaker 4 (25:32):
We're driving through Daley Plaza, right by the Frickin' book
Depository and you and she was so focused on being
Stevie Nicks. And I was like, Wow, that is some
serious shit going on here, and everybody else.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
Was like, oh yeah, that's where this was, That's where
this was.
Speaker 4 (25:50):
So maybe that's maybe that's the difference that the guys
are like, Hey, I'm going to step on stage and
I'm going.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
To be a rock star. But as soon as I
step off the stage, I'm back to being me.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Yeah. Absolutely. One last question I wanted to ask you
was You've worked with a lot of people, a lot
of you know, leaders, managers and things like that. And
I've always felt that for me, when I work for
a women manager, I always thought they were better than
men because I could, I could, they were better communicators.
I could figure out what they wanted versus it's hard
to figure out what the fourteen year old guy wants.
Speaker 4 (26:20):
It's so hard because he doesn't know, right, Sorry about
that helicopter. Yeah, the fourteen year old guy, he doesn't
know what he wants. He's you know, he wants the
best idea that day, right, And you've identified it's.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
Like our president. He's fourteen years old, maybe he's five,
but something like that, same kind of thing. Things change
every day every day.
Speaker 3 (26:41):
It's a brand. I'm a brand new person, a new episode.
Speaker 4 (26:45):
Wren and Stimpy, Yes, hey, here we are. But women
like to communicate more. They want to they want to
understand the nuances. And I one of my essays, I
say women have emotions and men have reactions because women
they feel things about everything. You know, paint color gets
an ooh or an uh or food or address, whereas
(27:09):
we're like, yeah, it's red, thank you, I see you later.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
We see the world.
Speaker 4 (27:15):
In a simpler way and they see it in a
more complex way. And you have to find the person
that you can be your best with.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
I always say that I'd probably live with just boxes
if I wasn't living with my wife, because I know
what I like as far as furniture, but I probably
never go and pick it out right exactly.
Speaker 4 (27:35):
And one of the things I mentioned that I think
is a critical piece for us and why we are
so different, is we come partmentalized.
Speaker 3 (27:42):
And there's a book a guy put out Cahol.
Speaker 4 (27:46):
I forget his name, but he says men are waffles
and women are spaghetti because in the waffles or all
those tiny little boxes, and that's that's who we are.
We are so weird can be.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
We can be twenty different people in a day. The
guy we are at work.
Speaker 4 (28:01):
The guy we are hanging out, the guy at the
band practice, the guy you know shooting into the CBS
to get a pen right, and those are are you
can have a fight with a coworker and then go play.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
Poker or basketball with them because it's a different box.
We are different the way the way we approach.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
Do you think that you know, you know early on,
like we're in high school or actually when in college
we have women as friends, right, But as you age,
do you think in your forties, fifties and sixties you
can have women as friends?
Speaker 3 (28:33):
Oh? I love my women friends. I do.
Speaker 4 (28:36):
I think that's one of the one of the joys
is when you realize you're not going to be able
to have sex with all the women.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
You know right or want to or even want to,
or might not even want to anymore, or you you
know that your ardor finally.
Speaker 4 (28:50):
Subsides a little bit. But I love my women friends.
Some of my best pals are the women in my life.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
That's great to hear. Well, I appreciate you being on
the show again. I gott ask you one question. How
did you get started on this topic for this book?
Speaker 4 (29:08):
Men explain, I'm, well, the fourteen year old and they said, hey,
I got a knife.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
We explained it.
Speaker 4 (29:15):
Why don't we share this with everybody because we know
so much?
Speaker 3 (29:19):
Yeah, I'm and during the book I.
Speaker 4 (29:23):
Reflect, I say, it feels like a fourteen year old
is writing this book. Oh wait, a second, a fourteen
year old is writing this book.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
So, and are you married or how many times?
Speaker 3 (29:33):
I have been married? Twice?
Speaker 4 (29:36):
I met my beautiful wife when her car ran out
of gas in a rainstorm and I stopped to help
a stranded.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Motor The hero the men as heroes.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
Oh my god, we are heroes.
Speaker 4 (29:47):
And that's fate and luck right because we had nobody
in common, nobody in each other's rolodex. Wow, and Fate
gave me five minutes to make a decision, pull the
car over, help this woman out, and we've been together
since that moment. By the way, this is twenty one
years old for you. My first wife is the aforementioned Antonina,
(30:11):
that amazing songwriter.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
That's amazing. Why am I not surprised?
Speaker 4 (30:16):
And she and I had two beautiful kids. I have
a wonderful son with my wife. Now. I mean, honestly,
I am the luckiest guy, the most fortunate man, And
I think my thankfulness to the world, despite living in
a cult and all the insanity that that was, I
am so thankful and so appreciative that I think I
(30:38):
wrote this book to make sure that all my brethren
understand how lucky we are and how fortunate we are
to have women in our lives who are willing to
be with us. I mean, think about it, it's who
would fall in love with one of us?
Speaker 3 (30:54):
It's crazy, you know.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
I'm going to get this book for everybody at Guy's weekend.
I think it's gonna be a good welcome gift.
Speaker 4 (31:01):
So you can put the you can zoom me in
and I will chat with all of you guys.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
It'll be hilarious. So thanks so much for being on
the show.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
I so appreciate you giving me the opportunity to talk
about this.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
And where can people catch up with you? Tom?
Speaker 3 (31:17):
All right, all the best, Thank you, all.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Right, thanks so much. I want to thank everyone for
joining this week's radio show. I got to thank our
incredible staff. Sarah Schaffran, are sound ender, Ethan Moltz. Remember
love everyone, trust a few, and pal your own canoe.
Have a profitable and passionate week.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
You can find Barry Moltz on the web at Barrymolts
dot com or more episodes of Small Business Radio at
small buz radioshow dot com.
Getting ready for all the craziness of small business. It's
exactly that craziness that makes it exciting and totally unbelievable.
Small Business Radio is now on the air with your host,
Barry Moultz.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Well, thanks for joining this week's radio show. Remember this
is the final word in small business. For those keeping track,
This is now show number eight hundred and forty six.
So what makes men tick? Many people would tell you
that we're really not that complicated, and that's exactly what
my guests say believes. Tom Sturgis is a veteran music executive, author, mentor, educator, invenor,
(00:40):
and public speaker. Over more than thirty five years in
the music business, he has served as President of Chrysalis
Music EVP and Head of Creative for Universal Music Publishing
Group and vpn GM for Shaquille O'Neil's Twism Records. His
signings include Smashing Pumpkins, Food Fighters, Outcast, Jack Johnson, Three
Doors Down, Katrina in the Wave, selling combined two hundred
(01:01):
and seventy five million albums and forty six million singles,
audition resident over three billion views and streams. Tom has
composed twenty six number one singles and received twenty four
Grammy Awards. So far, Tom's written five books. His last
is called Men Explained. Tom, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Thank you so much for having me in. Good morning.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
I like the twenty four Grammys so far.
Speaker 4 (01:25):
Right, By the way, I didn't write those songs writers.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Right, I know, I know, right, I understand that. So
and I only mentioned the names of the groups they
actually knew. Right, you've done a lot more groups. So
chatriating the waves. They're going to play that song walk
on Shunshot at my funeral. I love that song.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Oh thank you.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
I remember they came to me and they said, hey,
we have two days to pick up an option on
this Canadian group. Tell us what you think. And they
brought me that song. I said, how much time to
the They said, you got a two days.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
I was like, let's go right exactly exactly. That song
changes everything.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
So the book is called Men Explain. You say that
they're two simple facts. Men are more like other men
than they would probably admit, and men are fourteen forever.
That's a great introduction. Tell us about those conclusions.
Speaker 4 (02:14):
Well, I think we are all of a type generally speaking,
all us guys, because my look and all the people
I've met and the kids I've coached, and everything I've
done in my life has started to come to me
that this is we are one person who happens to
be a roughly fourteen years old, which is that point
(02:35):
we reach in our lives where we start to choose
passion we like and the music we like and the
styles we like, and we operate on those decisions the
rest of our lives. That's the fourteen year old in us.
And for that reason, I think we're such a simple
or simple We're not complicated. We're like a three piece
(02:57):
jigsaw puzzle, easy to break apart, easy.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
To put together.
Speaker 4 (03:01):
And that's how this book comes about as a sort
of a handbook or a guide for women to deal
with the men in their lives as the simple, simple
people that we are.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
But I'm trying to understand what I was. I'm trying
to remember what I was like at fourteen, right, So
fourteen hormones are obviously raging, right, and so just crazy.
And then I want to have fun with my friends,
probably playing sports, whatever whatever it is. I want to
get away from my parents, right from the authority. I
want to do things on my own, right, how do
you see yourself as fourteen?
Speaker 4 (03:37):
Well, my fourteen was a little crazier than most people.
My mom had joined a cult and decided to give
them our house, our car, all our possessions, and I
lived there for the next few years. So I'm not
the usual guy. But my fourteen has continued.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
Now.
Speaker 4 (03:59):
Sometimes I look at my myself walking into a huge
meeting or a corporate presentation, and I feel like I'm
in eighth grade. I'm just as anxious and nervous, but
as confident and composed as I was as a kid.
One of the ideas I have is that why we
are so great at so many things is because we
are so great at bluffing and bumbling and stumbling our
(04:22):
way forward. We almost never admit defeat. We just push
on and push on, and figure sooner or later, this
ship is going to be on the right path and
we're going to get to our destination.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
I love in the book where you talk about that
one of men's superpowers perhaps is that we're childish, immature,
and often unwilling to make the slice effort to grow up.
Why is that a superpower?
Speaker 4 (04:45):
Because this is how we got here, This is why
we're this is why we're in charge and why we're
running these businesses and running these countries is is we
don't We don't stop.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
And go God, I wonder if this is the right thing.
We go we move forward.
Speaker 4 (05:00):
You watch coaches when they're making those decisions with a
minute and a half left, Do I go for it
on fourth and three or do I sit on the ball?
Speaker 3 (05:09):
To me, that decision to go for it, that's.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
A fourteen year old going yes, I can do this,
I can do anything.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
And so that's really what differentiates that, you think from
women that were much more risk takers or just we
don't really think it through.
Speaker 4 (05:23):
What's your thoughts there? I, well, there's you know, there's
so many differences between men and women, and as a
fourteen year old boy, I have really no understanding of
what women are just a bunch of guesses. But I
know women are much more willing to discuss, chop, look
at different angles and try and understand the entirety of
(05:45):
the problem they're facing, where men want to just grab
a couple of band aids or some duct tape, strap
them on and move forward.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
You also talk about which I was very surprised, you
said that men love pleasing because I think a lot
of well, I don't know. I guess a lot of
women would say that we do like pleasing. But I
think men's reputation is not necessarily as pleasers.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
We are not. That is not our reputation.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
But one of the theories I have and I put forward
in the book is if you ask us nicely, we'll
do almost anything.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
But you just have to ask nicely. If it sounds
like an order, hey put out the trash. What are
you doing?
Speaker 4 (06:25):
But your wife comes and says, honey, trash day. Do
you think you get the trash out? You'd run down
and get those things out of there, right.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
Because we like to please the people in our lives.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
Look at us as fathers where we are pleasing our
children for twenty years each husband's where the game.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
Is to keep the wife happy, happy wife, happy life.
That should be tattooed on every man's arm.
Speaker 4 (06:49):
And especially when we get into a corporate environment where
it's truly a team sport and you've got to please
almost everybody to keep that team alive, well and thriving.
Especially small business, you got to take care of your customers.
So I think that's where you see us as pleasers
in the enormity of our lives.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Yeah, you also say, and I love this as men
love forever, and I quote when it comes to old loves,
men prefer their memories their realities. This reason we call
it glory days. Yeah, I think it's very true.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
So let me ask you a question. Who was the
first girl you ever loved?
Speaker 2 (07:27):
I would say, was Karen Goldstein?
Speaker 3 (07:29):
And what is this? What great is this? Fifth grade?
Speaker 2 (07:32):
God, it's got to be And I actually think it's like, well,
at first there were a couple of redheaded twins, but
I never actually talked to them, but I love them.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
Okay, how old were you when that.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Happened, as in elementary school somewhere exactly.
Speaker 4 (07:46):
And this is my point that you still remember, you
still know their names.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
You could tell a story about the way they.
Speaker 4 (07:53):
Got into their mom's car or the ribbon they wore
that day. And that's my point is that we love
always once, we love, we love forever.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
We don't want to.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
Get back together because those those people would be our
age now, but we still love them, the little boy
and us still loves the little girl who we knew
wa back when.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
So what does the role of sex play for men,
because my wife always says, you know, men are very simple, right,
they only want a couple basic things, and one of
them is sex.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
So what do you think a section of sandwich.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
I think, or a good cigar?
Speaker 4 (08:25):
You know, one of those the three s's, sex, sandwiches
and cigar exactly.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
So what do you think that places for men in
their relationships?
Speaker 3 (08:35):
Well?
Speaker 4 (08:35):
Sex is everything, right, Sex is the and that's where
the fourteen year old boy really starts to raise his
hand and say, what about me?
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Exactly? What about me? My friend over here? What about me?
Speaker 3 (08:48):
Hey? I see everybody else is abby, But it is.
Speaker 4 (08:52):
It's a driving force in our lives that I believe
is part of our natural instinct, part of our aliveness.
Part of why we're here is to appropriate and have
more babies and keep the population going. But in a
refined society like we live in, we have to be
more cunning with the women in our lives to try
(09:13):
and get them to understand how important this is. And
it's the first thing we think about most days and
the last thing we think about most nights.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
It is a constant in our lives. It's no, it's
not a bad thing. It's just who we are.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
And as long as we can get to that a
couple of times, two, three times a week if possible, then.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
You're a lucky man. You're a lucky man.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Then you're you're lucky you this guy on your block.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
You know.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
It's interesting because I think that when women start to
understand that that is on men's minds a lot, it
makes relationships a lot easier. Now again, I think that
people just have to talk about it and what's the
right balance for them. But you have to understand it's
on men's minds.
Speaker 4 (09:55):
It's as much as any other natural thing that happens.
You have a mosquito bite, or your ear itches or whatever, you.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
Deal with it, and that's where it is. For men.
It is the best thing that happens.
Speaker 4 (10:10):
That day, should it happen to happen, And it's something
that as soon as it's over, we're thinking about the
next one.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
And it's not a bad thing. It's just a truth
about us.
Speaker 4 (10:22):
Is that is our fourteen year old boy raising his
hand going.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
Hello, Hello, I'm over here.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
You know, men have a bad rap for not naturally
being good communicators, and I believe that we are get communicators.
We just communicate differently from women.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
What do you think we communicate completely differently. We want
I think it's our instinct if there's a problem, fix
it us. Whether there's an essay I wrote about the
importance of duct tape because nothing fixes fast dupe.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (10:57):
So, and that's where we That's how we approach almost
everything that we do is let's let's fix it first,
and then we'll ask questions later about how how well
it's still working or anything else. But let's get this
problem fixed and move on. As far as our communication
styles and skills and that kind of thing, we are
(11:21):
just looking for solutions and we don't need the whole discussion.
You know what happened here, Just fix it. I don't
need to tell you why the car has a big
dent in the front.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
We're going to the We're going to the auto body shop.
Don't worry about it, right.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
I always say to my wife, you know, and this
is one thing I think she likes about me, is
that that I'm very solution oriented. Right, there's a problem,
I want to fix it, right, and let's move on
to whatever whatever. Think that's whatever's next.
Speaker 4 (11:48):
That's your fourteen year old boy going I got this,
but I felt.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
That at fourteen, I thought that being friends was a
lot easier than being keeping your friendships up when you're
sixty five, right, And I think there's a been a
lot written about how men, you know, don't keep as
they age. They kind of get isolated. They're just kind
of with their spouse or whatever it is, and they
don't keep up their male friends. And I've worked very
hard for the last ten years to cultivate a group
(12:14):
of like ten guys and we get together every year,
we go out, you know, whatever it is. Why is
that so hard for men?
Speaker 4 (12:21):
I think it's that's an excellent question because at a
certain point, you know, your friendship changes, right when you're
a kid, right, what is friendship? The basis of friendship
is time spent.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
That's it. Hey, what are you doing today? Nothing?
Speaker 4 (12:35):
Okay, good, let's do that together and that's your friendship.
You know, I got a sixteen year old who will
golf every day, is you know, with his pals or
do all that?
Speaker 3 (12:46):
As we get older, the basis.
Speaker 4 (12:49):
Of friendship changes because you don't want to just spend
a day with another guy. You'd you know him already
so well, So what we do in old friendships.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
As we do favors for each other.
Speaker 4 (13:02):
Like help your friends' kid get into a college, or
help your friends' daughter understand something that she doesn't quite understand.
So we're doing favors, and but listen, as we get older,
people move away.
Speaker 3 (13:15):
It's harder to communicate, and I wonder if we're just
less interested.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
I believe that. You know, the way that I've been
able to move to keep my friendships going is we
try to do a lot of parallel play what they
used to call when you're young, but now it's just sports. Right,
So I'll ride bikes together, hike together, play golf together,
whatever that is, and we're communicating, but we're not really
looking at each other, if that makes any sense exactly.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Yeah, you're just doing it. You're hanging.
Speaker 4 (13:39):
You're chilling with your mates, right, the same thing when
we were kids, and we're doing it now and doing
it now and trying to keep it interested. I love
the concept of the parallel play. I probably should have
written that in the book because.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
It's so true.
Speaker 4 (13:53):
You know, you watch four guys play golf, there there's
no The interaction is the competition.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
It's not that you're helping each other out, right.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
But we're shooting the ship while we're doing You don't
have the guys over the house in Arizona. Once theo
there's ten guys and we're sitting in the backyard. There's
a pool whatever it is. But while we're hanging out,
we're playing bags, right, we're playing cornhole, right, and we're
shooting the ship and drinking things like that. And is
it blast or we're going hiking or whatever it is.
We're very rare. We're never sitting around the table and
just talking. I would tell you that maybe we're eating.
Speaker 4 (14:24):
Right, but you're not going to invite four or five
friends over go he could have coffee and.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Talk exactly, exactly exactly.
Speaker 4 (14:31):
That is fundamental difference men and women. Women want to talk,
you know.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
It's it's so funny. One of my wife's friends, you know,
she'll get on the phone with her. She go, yah,
I got to call so and so, And I'm like,
that's an hour and a half.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
Right.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
I can't imagine being on the phone with anybody that's
not a business thing for an hour and a half.
Speaker 4 (14:50):
Yeah, and making sure you go through every topic and
discuss and how's the ants?
Speaker 3 (14:55):
And how's the kids?
Speaker 4 (14:56):
And know they this is why they're different than we
are and why they don't generally speaking, when women think
that we're simpletons because we don't want to have all
that discussion.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
We just want to get to it.
Speaker 4 (15:09):
Let's go play, let's go there, let's go when and
there's an urgency to us. There's this one essay I
wrote that men and women shouldn't shop together because it's
absolutely different.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
Right, we shop like assassins.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
That's right, exactly right.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
How many times have you left a store with just
one item? That's because that's all.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
You need, that's right, exactly, Or I.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
Ever leave the store with just one item?
Speaker 2 (15:34):
You know, it's funny because I think one of my
wife's favorite pastimes is shopping. She goes it's so much fun.
You know. I go out there, the music is nice,
people are nice to me, and I'm going I can't
think of anything that less do less than go shopping.
And I only go shopping with my wife like once
a year.
Speaker 4 (15:49):
That's it, right, yeah, because you're you're going to be
pulling out all the hair growing from your temples exactly
because and I say that, you know, for a woman
to walk through saxsofft Avenue is like Vincent van Go
walking by the river trying to imagine how he's going
to paint it, because it's a creative experience for them.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
Oh, this would look great in the living room, or
I would look great in these shoes or whatever. And
you're like, where's the glue or where's.
Speaker 4 (16:18):
I need a handle for my new mower. Boom by,
race to the cash register, hustle back to the car,
drive home where assassins their experiences.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
I remember, I remember that show called Defending the Caveman.
It was like a Broadway show, and there was a
great line in that show where the woman says to
the guy, says, listen, can you imagine this couch in
our living room? And the guy goes, I can't afford
this couch. How could I imagine in my living room?
Speaker 4 (16:50):
Exactly exactly, But she's imagining how this fits.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
Doesn't have to. She's just And that's why that's part
of our huge different difference, and one of the compromises
we have to make.
Speaker 4 (17:02):
To be together with each other is to realize, hey,
we're very different.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
I shop like a child.
Speaker 4 (17:09):
I want to hang with my friends if possible, I
want to wear an old an old bar shirt and
a pair of floppy, floppy shoes in the I mean,
if you look at a bunch of guys hanging out,
they are dressed exactly like they were all those years ago.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
It's funny you say that men and men are geniuses
and idiots. What do you mean by that?
Speaker 4 (17:31):
I've discovered this that a lot of men are great
at one or two things. I mean, really extraordinary, And
I use one of the examples. I use Albert Einstein.
This is a guy who figured out how the universe
is held together. He couldn't stand being married to his
wife and would leave notes around the house that said,
(17:51):
please leave me alone. Right, I have the list. I
have a photograph of the list that he left her.
Here are the things I want you to do for me.
And this is supposedly the smartest guy ever. He couldn't
handle being married. And I mentioned in the book a
friend of mine Crazy Story two PhD's one of the
(18:14):
most decorated surgeons in the history of medicine, who thought
his girlfriend was being unfaithful to him and asked me
to do him.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
A huge favor.
Speaker 4 (18:26):
And the favor was to leave to break into the
house she was staying in and leave a voice activated
tape recorder in her bedroom so he could have evidence
of her infidelity. This was the smartest guy who ever lived.
And I was I'm saying, hey, I won't say his name.
(18:49):
I said, Hey, let me just ask the question. Let's
say I go through with this insanity. How do we
get the tape recorder to give you the evidence that
you're looking for? She said, So you have to break
into the house again to retrieve it.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Really, there's a good idea. Well could go wrong?
Speaker 4 (19:07):
You have two PhDs and this is your plan. So
it's idiocy and genius wrapped up in the same guy,
which is I think a lot of us.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
So how do you think it's the best way from
Since men are different than women, like you know, men
are from Mars, women from Venus, what's the best way
for them to communicate with each other?
Speaker 4 (19:31):
I think if we can accept who the other person is. Right,
So if a woman realizes, hey, I need something done,
let me ask him really nicely and it gets done
and say, oh okay. And let's say the husband comes
home from work.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
And he's miserable.
Speaker 4 (19:46):
What would you do with the miserable fourteen year old,
You give him a soda and put him in front.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Of the TV.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Exactly.
Speaker 4 (19:55):
So, your husband comes home, he's incredibly upset, get him
a beer, put them in front of the TV wall,
get chips.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Watch sports, watch sports, Monday night football.
Speaker 4 (20:07):
Let me put ESPN is our first choss. You go
and I think, if we can, if we can appreciate
that the other that we are that different. And at
the same time, if the husband's could you know, the
wife gets home and she's really, really miserable, she needs
to talk to you, you have to shut up and
(20:27):
listen because that's what pleases her is to be able
to get this out and discuss.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
She doesn't want a beer in a TV show. That's us.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
I want to talk about it.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
It's a discussion.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
So you worked with a lot of men and women
artists when you were doing business them.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
Was it a lot different completely? So tell us about
that completely?
Speaker 4 (20:48):
Well, I think, first of all, the once you're dealing
with somebody's creativity, right, which is as.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
Close to their soul as.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
Anything, their instinct, because its creativity, especially songwriting.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
And music creation, is.
Speaker 4 (21:07):
Well that's the essence of that person. So on that level,
everybody's the same. But I had one writer who's had
a ton of hits. I brought her into the music business,
her news Antonina, and she's still having hits. And she
needed to call me with an idea as in its infancy.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
As it grew up. So she would go, Hey, can
you just listen to this?
Speaker 4 (21:30):
This is this verse I'm working on, and she would
sing a cappella a verse of a song and I go, okay, yeah, great,
keep it up, go bye.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
And hang up the phone.
Speaker 4 (21:40):
The guys would finish the whole thing and bring it
to me, which is an interesting thing that she wanted
approval step by step by step. I'm not saying every
woman wants this in their writing, but she wanted to
know that she had a teammate along with her the
whole way, and a guy would finish the the recording, mixed, master, polish,
(22:03):
and present the finish finish thing. So I guess that's
I don't know how that fits in philosophically, but that's
one of the biggest differences, you know.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
I don't know if you've watched the HBO doctormentary on
Billy Joel the Greatest, it's great. You really get an
insight to him and and who he was, all the
good stuff, all the warts and his songwriting and so
you know he always who am well a dear friend
of mine?
Speaker 4 (22:28):
Uh, produce, produce it. I can't say he's a dear
friend of mine. That's BS, which is another thing we do.
I just caught myself BS.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
You met him once on social media?
Speaker 3 (22:42):
Uh? He I wish he was a dear friend. Party guy.
Speaker 4 (22:46):
He's a guy I met once at a party, Not Jenny,
A little bit of than that Gary Getzman. So he's
the The movie Liquorice Pizza is about him, by the way,
and he's.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
The one who produced that thing.
Speaker 4 (22:57):
Uh what I love about There's one line that Billy
Joel said that was like so insightful and brilliant. He
said he's tired of the tyranny of the rhyme. The
tyranny of the rhyme. And I was like, wow, because
that's those are the handcuffs on every songwriter, every poet,
(23:21):
every author is getting the words to fit together and
sound right and and get your get your listener to
think and dream and feel the way you want them to.
And Billy Joel was just God, it's extraordinary what he's accomplished.
One my favorite thing started interrupting a one songwriter, Paul Simon,
(23:48):
Paul McCartney, now Bruce Springsteen, Billy Corgan, one guy saying hey,
I got this. I'll do the lyric and the melody
the rest of you. Dave Grohl, same thing. Dave writes
lyrics and melodies. He shares the songwriting credits with the band,
but it's all him.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
I thought it was interesting in that. Also, after he
came out with River Dreams, he basically says, I don't
have any more words to put to music, and so
he came out with a classical album and that was it. It's
amazing twenty five years ago. So I also found very interesting.
He never said again off topic. He never said that
I'm an alcoholic. He never really admitted that, even though
he went to recovery. It was almost like this is
(24:30):
who I am. Love it or leave me right. Yeah,
It's just it's part of who I am, and I'm
not gonna apologize for I am. Basically, I'm only gonna
do what I want to do. He said that many
times in the documentary.
Speaker 4 (24:41):
So one of the I got a chance to work
with bon Jovi for a number of years in Richie
Sembor and I became good pals. He was such a
he was the same genuine guy on stage, off stage,
driving to the stage, he was always just in kid.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
From New Jersey. Hey, hoy, you doing way, what's up?
Cheering with people on the way in.
Speaker 4 (25:05):
And I remember driving to a concert in a limousine
with m Paul McCartney told me to never drop names,
but uh, this was with some of the members of
Fleetwood Mac and they were so serious.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
With Stevie Nicks was so.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
She seems really serious.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
She was so she could give stairs.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
To Lindsay Buckingham. I don't know who else can you know?
Speaker 3 (25:28):
Yeah, well, we're driving through Deally. This was in Dallas.
Speaker 4 (25:32):
We're driving through Daley Plaza, right by the Frickin' book
Depository and you and she was so focused on being
Stevie Nicks. And I was like, Wow, that is some
serious shit going on here, and everybody else.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
Was like, oh yeah, that's where this was, That's where
this was.
Speaker 4 (25:50):
So maybe that's maybe that's the difference that the guys
are like, Hey, I'm going to step on stage and
I'm going.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
To be a rock star. But as soon as I
step off the stage, I'm back to being me.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Yeah. Absolutely. One last question I wanted to ask you
was You've worked with a lot of people, a lot
of you know, leaders, managers and things like that. And
I've always felt that for me, when I work for
a women manager, I always thought they were better than
men because I could, I could, they were better communicators.
I could figure out what they wanted versus it's hard
to figure out what the fourteen year old guy wants.
Speaker 4 (26:20):
It's so hard because he doesn't know, right, Sorry about
that helicopter. Yeah, the fourteen year old guy, he doesn't
know what he wants. He's you know, he wants the
best idea that day, right, And you've identified it's.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
Like our president. He's fourteen years old, maybe he's five,
but something like that, same kind of thing. Things change
every day every day.
Speaker 3 (26:41):
It's a brand. I'm a brand new person, a new episode.
Speaker 4 (26:45):
Wren and Stimpy, Yes, hey, here we are. But women
like to communicate more. They want to they want to
understand the nuances. And I one of my essays, I
say women have emotions and men have reactions because women
they feel things about everything. You know, paint color gets
an ooh or an uh or food or address, whereas
(27:09):
we're like, yeah, it's red, thank you, I see you later.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
We see the world.
Speaker 4 (27:15):
In a simpler way and they see it in a
more complex way. And you have to find the person
that you can be your best with.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
I always say that I'd probably live with just boxes
if I wasn't living with my wife, because I know
what I like as far as furniture, but I probably
never go and pick it out right exactly.
Speaker 4 (27:35):
And one of the things I mentioned that I think
is a critical piece for us and why we are
so different, is we come partmentalized.
Speaker 3 (27:42):
And there's a book a guy put out Cahol.
Speaker 4 (27:46):
I forget his name, but he says men are waffles
and women are spaghetti because in the waffles or all
those tiny little boxes, and that's that's who we are.
We are so weird can be.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
We can be twenty different people in a day. The
guy we are at work.
Speaker 4 (28:01):
The guy we are hanging out, the guy at the
band practice, the guy you know shooting into the CBS
to get a pen right, and those are are you
can have a fight with a coworker and then go play.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
Poker or basketball with them because it's a different box.
We are different the way the way we approach.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
Do you think that you know, you know early on,
like we're in high school or actually when in college
we have women as friends, right, But as you age,
do you think in your forties, fifties and sixties you
can have women as friends?
Speaker 3 (28:33):
Oh? I love my women friends. I do.
Speaker 4 (28:36):
I think that's one of the one of the joys
is when you realize you're not going to be able
to have sex with all the women.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
You know right or want to or even want to,
or might not even want to anymore, or you you
know that your ardor finally.
Speaker 4 (28:50):
Subsides a little bit. But I love my women friends.
Some of my best pals are the women in my life.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
That's great to hear. Well, I appreciate you being on
the show again. I gott ask you one question. How
did you get started on this topic for this book?
Speaker 4 (29:08):
Men explain, I'm, well, the fourteen year old and they said, hey,
I got a knife.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
We explained it.
Speaker 4 (29:15):
Why don't we share this with everybody because we know
so much?
Speaker 3 (29:19):
Yeah, I'm and during the book I.
Speaker 4 (29:23):
Reflect, I say, it feels like a fourteen year old
is writing this book. Oh wait, a second, a fourteen
year old is writing this book.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
So, and are you married or how many times?
Speaker 3 (29:33):
I have been married? Twice?
Speaker 4 (29:36):
I met my beautiful wife when her car ran out
of gas in a rainstorm and I stopped to help
a stranded.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Motor The hero the men as heroes.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
Oh my god, we are heroes.
Speaker 4 (29:47):
And that's fate and luck right because we had nobody
in common, nobody in each other's rolodex. Wow, and Fate
gave me five minutes to make a decision, pull the
car over, help this woman out, and we've been together
since that moment. By the way, this is twenty one
years old for you. My first wife is the aforementioned Antonina,
(30:11):
that amazing songwriter.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
That's amazing. Why am I not surprised?
Speaker 4 (30:16):
And she and I had two beautiful kids. I have
a wonderful son with my wife. Now. I mean, honestly,
I am the luckiest guy, the most fortunate man, And
I think my thankfulness to the world, despite living in
a cult and all the insanity that that was, I
am so thankful and so appreciative that I think I
(30:38):
wrote this book to make sure that all my brethren
understand how lucky we are and how fortunate we are
to have women in our lives who are willing to
be with us. I mean, think about it, it's who
would fall in love with one of us?
Speaker 3 (30:54):
It's crazy, you know.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
I'm going to get this book for everybody at Guy's weekend.
I think it's gonna be a good welcome gift.
Speaker 4 (31:01):
So you can put the you can zoom me in
and I will chat with all of you guys.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
It'll be hilarious. So thanks so much for being on
the show.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
I so appreciate you giving me the opportunity to talk
about this.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
And where can people catch up with you? Tom?
Speaker 3 (31:17):
All right, all the best, Thank you, all.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Right, thanks so much. I want to thank everyone for
joining this week's radio show. I got to thank our
incredible staff. Sarah Schaffran, are sound ender, Ethan Moltz. Remember
love everyone, trust a few, and pal your own canoe.
Have a profitable and passionate week.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
You can find Barry Moltz on the web at Barrymolts
dot com or more episodes of Small Business Radio at
small buz radioshow dot com.
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