George Drakoulias

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.
My guest today this producer, music supervisor, Jack of all trades,
George Riculius, Hollywood footnote. Good to have you here, George,
good to be here, Bob. Okay, So I noticed you
rolled up in a smart car. How did you? Uh?

(00:29):
Do you like that? That's my third one third one? Well,
why do you need to do what? You'd be surprised?
So what happened two thousand nine, I think, or two
thousand eight. I saw on the line it was coming
to America, coming to America, Smart reserve. Now, put a
hundred dollars down, build your dream smart car. So I
put I put my credit card down a hundred dollars.
I built a silver with a black trim, and I

(00:53):
got the upgrade, which is I think at that time
some kind of dials a hundred dollars or whatever. And
two years later I got a call Mr Kulius, your
smart cars here, like, excuse me. I'm like, what if
I don't like it? Like, it's all right, We'll give
your money back, you know. But they so they're Mercedes.
So I got it and I loved it. I absolutely

(01:14):
love it. It's great. It's like if you're driving around
and you're going out and like, hey give me a
ride home. You give me my drunk friend. Hey, man,
do you want to get in the in the hatchback?
And it's big. I mean, I'm a huge guy, you know,
stupid guy in a smart car. But and then um,
what else? So like if I go to set, like
I say, I go to the set, it's like, you know,
crew parking is always like a mile away. It was like,

(01:35):
I'll just park under like I can park under the
under the Winner bagel and like you know, like the
base camp is like I'll go in and just driving
and everybody loves it. The valets love it. It's funny
like this is the best car man, you know. And
they know there's a Ferrari in front of me, they
don't care. They get all excited about the smart car.
And as they got older, older, whatever they as, they
kept in proving them. They got them one with Gland.

(01:56):
Now I have leather um in side. It's really decked
out and it's roomy. I've driven to I've driven to
San Francisco. I mean, I wouldn't want to work much
farther than that. I wouldn't want to go across country
in it, okay, But when you're on the freeway, what's
it like? I love it. My wife hates it. She's like,
I'm like, it's just a it's a titanium roll cage.
And I've showed the videos on line of of a

(02:18):
smart guy going a hundred miles into a concrete you
know those divide and they bounce off and they come
around and one door is like fine, the other door
is kind of broken, and the people are still upright,
and said, look, we'll have an open cask at funeral.
We did, because if you're going a hundred miles and
now and you stop, that's going to all your organs.
But I said, but we'll have you know, we'll look good.

(02:38):
So I love it. That's fine, Okay. So it's kind
of like the black box on an airplane. I love it.
I absolutely love it. So there's no time obviously she
has a car, there's no time when you say, hey,
we won't go in the smart I'll take together car forgetting.
If she's not she wants to help with me, or
she's welcome to drive herself. We'll go to Santa Barbara.

(02:59):
We have friend has got to play up there. Well
that's about as partial driving it. But it's she's getting
used to it. It's safe, okay. And then how noisy
is it when you get to like sixty seven? Right,
it's a little bouncy, like you don't want to do
eight seventy five. It's fine on the freeway eighty five,
it start getting it starts getting a little weird if
you pass a big truck. But um, it's like I

(03:20):
think it's a turbo. It has an overdrive and you
trick them out even more. Mine is pretty stealth black
on black now, but I love it. And how about
so you're talking about parking on set? But generally is
it a great advantage you have a car that's awesome.
I mean, you know if any street ego too, it's
always like, oh there's I can't fit there. It's like, oh,
I can fit there. I think it's only eight feet long.

(03:40):
And so but now they're not going to import him anymore.
Oh no, all right, I read about electric, you know
the all electric one yet, but now they're not gonna
import electric either. No, you better make this one last.
I'm leasing it like an idiot. Okay, So I know
now you're working on movies. There anything else you do
now that I'm missing? Um, well, I'm running for city counting. Um,

(04:05):
I working on some movies. I still make a record.
It's made a record with this band called Stereophonics. Are
sure so you are still producing? Yeah? I mean someone's
stupid enough to hire me. You curse on this thing.
Say whatever you want to. You know the four stages
of your career? Oh, yes, I do. But tell my order.
You know, it's who's Georgia Culius? Gotta get Georgia Culius,

(04:25):
Jesus Christ always he's always booked. It's like a new
young hot George Culius. Who the fund is George? So
I'm at that stage again. I've get to reinvent myself
and hopefully some young band. If you're listening and you're
very hip hiring me? No, but it's fun. I mean,
but I get to make a lot of music for
the movies I'm working on. That's always fun. Um. I

(04:45):
get to like if I recorded like Vince Vaughan ever recorded,
Owen Wilson, Kristen uh Christ and wigg you know. So
that's that's always fun. Like when you get to use
your skill set and like work with that. Well, I'm
a little I thought you were, like when you're talking
about those people, if you're amusing supervisor say, I'm more
than a music So that's why I'm asking. So you're
recording them like singing tell us what tell us? The

(05:08):
four things you are? So I'm very handsome. Um so
with the movie like something, but it's not trying to
think of anything like so this TV show worked on
Escape ad anim or did you watch that with Ben Stiller?
I know, I just followed so close. It's greatly if
I gonna pick up on stuff that it's really a

(05:29):
lot of humanity, you'll love it. And they're wonderful and
the two mates are plotting with the person who's working
there the world. They both start, you know, getting on
with it and who British ocad who's wonderful and so
probably win an Emmy. I guess Emmy bait um. So
for example, there's a flashback sine that takes place like

(05:51):
an early night like mid nineties at the outside of
strip club and we want to use Wu Tang clan
ain't nothing to funk with and um, you didn't know this, Bob,
but they didn't really clear all the samples back in
the day. So it's like this gray it's this gray
area where they won't license it, but it's like an
open secret, you know. It's like this kind of thing
where well, we can't publishing cleared, but the master we

(06:12):
don't know. So I know Rizzle and they get to
call Rizzle like, let's let's remake this thing and so
we can use it. So like that kind of stuff
is always fun and that's exciting to do. Um. The
same thing happened on this movie Do Date, trying to
use check yourself before you wreck yourself. And again there's
another thing that was gray area ambiguous. So you getting
to remake stuff like that is always fun. Or in

(06:33):
Walter Middy, Christin Wig had a sing so I got
to record her and then it turns to I don't
feel so that it turns this big she's singing, um
uh what's a ground control the major tom and it
turns this big thing and so she's singing. She's a
great singer. Also she was she's also a great ukuleleleas um.
So that's always fun. Like if I'm working on the movie,
I get to create stuff. That's always fun. And then

(06:53):
on a movie. It's nice because I do know I'm
not the I'm not your average pickings. I'm not your
average bad about park right whatever, Yogi Bear, so I'll
be able to use me. But but you, uh, Yogi Bear,
didn't wait till noon? How about yourself? Now I find
myself getting up and just like sweating because it will

(07:14):
get into that in a minute. But um so, like
part of the thing is a directors like I don't know, man,
like I kind of trying to talk to a composer.
So I'm able to talk composer in musical terms and
kind of it's like, you know, like I don't know,
it's just not I'm like, okay, you want to just
change the bat here? But I try. Oh yeah, I
love it now excuse me. So that's always fun. So

(07:35):
that's when it's fun, you know, when I get to used.
In a perfect world, if you could be doing anything now,
what would you want to be doing? Nothing? Would you?
Let's be clear, nothing is not usually that happy right now.
I would know. I would think, I think I'd like
to make more I would like to make more records,
and I'd like to I'd like to make it more meaningful,
but I don't know what it means anymore, you know,

(07:57):
I mean it's kind of strange. Okay, wait, wait, mean
what would be more meaningful? The process? Just the thing
in the world I could have a Okay, well we
talked about it the gig. I remember we were Staples
Center and you say you used to have fights over records. Well, yeah,
that we were coming up. We'd like, you know, coming up.
It's like especially with rappers starting in you know, early

(08:18):
eighties in New York over rappers like the disc record
which was born, you know, and that kind of thing.
So you'd like no NPMD or you know, you know,
it's you know, we hated the West Coast for sure.
That was like those I'm saying. Yeah, you would get
into a fight like or it would be beatle Stones
or whatever that. I think it was the same. It
just carried on into hip hop or other stuff. So
you just have arguments, but they're friendly, no no guns usually, right. Um.

(08:43):
I was robbed a few times, like, uh, okay, let's
stop there. When were you robbed? Well, you get away
about at the roller rink at the Roxy. There's a
there's a great hip hop club called the Roxy, which
was a roller rink and a hip hop club. And
where is this Manhattan streets gone? I was living on
the West Coast, Okay eighteen Street in the West Side,

(09:03):
and um, I remember being online. There's two stories. One
was being online. This this is the mentality like hip
hop that being online. It's like you crushed, you know,
crushed it in trying to get in there. For those
who are not in the East Coast, online means in
line right, not on queuing up. I don't know you're
all to get into the club today is you know,
the internet? So you squished in and all of a sudden,

(09:26):
I feel something like somebody's hand in my pocket, like
I got like bubble gum in four bucks. I'm not
like you know, so for some reason I had a
pen like stads like you're like, hey, man, where you standing.
I'm like, your fucking hand in my pocket? What are
you doing? You know? Like this weird stuff like that.
But the best was, uh the like bud Wise is
super fessed. It was like Llo Clue, j Run dmc um,

(09:49):
Jaqueline Hide which is Andre Harrell was in this band
called Jack. I don't if you know that Jakol Hide
was hip hop, and um, you know, I was backstage
and we had this like for rabid hat, which was
very much very back in the day, and they're like,
where are you going. I'm like, why check out the crowd,
Like if that's a good idea, I'm like, it's okay,
you know down you know. So I was walking around
his Madison Square world and I'm working on the outer rotunda,

(10:10):
and um, I start heading into the inner thing and
I see these two guys kind of coming out and
one guy grabs my hat runs into the crowd, and
I chased him down because I like my I'm like,
and I caught him. I'm like, okay, cool, give my
hat back. He's like, it's my hat. Man. I'm like,
I'm like, I got you know, so mayhem and sues.
I'm holding one ear, this this two ear for a

(10:31):
rabbit hat. I'm holding it going back and forth, and
then it's like, all of a a sudden, bunch of guys
jump me and the same thing like start punching me up,
like like I elbow some hey man in order, like
what are you guys doing? You know? The hat rips,
I keep the ear. I go back and I remember
Rustles like with the hat man, I held up the
ear and I was like, okay, they gotta be there. Yeah, No,

(10:53):
I totally get him. You're the type of person someone
does you wrong. You don't get scared. You're gonna just
dive in. You're gonna lean in. Uh. I mean, I thought, like, Okay,
the gig is up being normal for like, hey, I
got you man, it's cool, just give my hat back.
What's this? You know that kind of thing. But it
was a different it was a different mentality back then.
I remember we had this um a Thursday nights. We

(11:13):
had this thing called The Spot at dancer Tria, which
is a really great club where we would go six
seven nights a week in the New York. It's really great. Okay,
let's also be clear what time would you go, you know,
not till twelve thirty one right now, and but we
this would start probably eleven. We had this thing called
the Spot. It was Death Jam Presents the Spot at
Dancer try It was the third floor. We'd have a

(11:35):
DJ and maybe a guest act like the BCS would
play there once or twice, or spoon, you know, like
Spoonty somebody would come and do a wrap and we
had this guy. Um, it was like god, oh, ship
was busy. Be was the the official MC. So we
just basically talk shit, Hey, what's your favorite restaurant? Is
it needed? Is it Burger Gat? You know, and then
you introduced DJ the act. Got a hundred dollars to

(11:57):
do that, just and then pick up girls. They get
re drinks. So I was responsible paying everybody. So I
usually paying them about two thirty three in the morning,
you know whatever, for the club and close. He's like,
hey man, he came to like one o'clock. Hey man,
I get my money. I'm like, well, happen going to
the office and that's it. I'll tell you what. Let
me go up there. Now see if I get paid.
I go up there, I cut back down. I'm like, okay,

(12:18):
here you go. Hundred dollars. He's like, I just go back.
So he comes up to me, he goes it starts.
He goes, hey man, I borrowed twenty dollars. And I
was in, I'm like, I don't know. Like I said,
I'll go upstairs. See if I get paid early and
get your money. Give hundred. This is this that makes
more sense. I give him hundred dollars, Like, hey man,
it's only eight dollars. I'm like, what I got and

(12:40):
it's a hundred? Can you let me ten? This is
a college, like like we gave you a hundred dollars.
Rick Potter pocketed most of the money and I put
like twenty dollars in my town my pants so I
could like get into a cab and go home. But um,
that was a lot of fun. I felt where we were.
But we just talked about but we're talking about really
is today as opposed to yesterday? Yeah? I guess. Um,

(13:03):
I don't know. I mean, maybe kids listen. I don't
have kids listen to this thing, but maybe they are
having more fun. I don't know if they are. I
can't imagine they are, to be honest, because you can't
sunk up, you know, everything's everybody's tracking everything you do,
where they're posting everything they do, so you can't do
something stupid and nobody know about it, or you can't
like venture out out of your comfort zone for a minute,
you know. So I feel tough. I don't have any kids,
so it's weird. I don't I'm not tracking it the

(13:25):
same way. I think you know that I don't have
a kid, you the same thing, you know. Yeah, so
it's it's hard to say. But then like my nephews fifteen, Um,
he's just out here. Music is not that important to him.
You know. I'm trying to get him like, hey, you
want to get you talking. You know, he plays Dungeon
Dragons kind of thing. I took him over a Bad
Robots meet JJ Abrams. That was, you know, that was like,
you know, it's like meking Hendrix for me or something

(13:45):
like that. Um, So, I don't know the kids who
are into music. I think it's uh, I think just
another thing that happens. It's just kind of the right
on their phone or whatever. It's just not I don't
have a penetrate, you know. So you're bay, So let's
talk about today's generation. You say today's generation music does
not have the priority that he used to. I don't

(14:06):
know if that's right. I mean I think it does,
but it's just different, you know, like you don't fight
about the band's kind of you know. I think it's
like I don't think you invest as much into the acts. Okay,
so if you talk to your fifteen year old nephew,
you'd rather play dungeons and dragons. But if you go
through some happening acts, does he know them? No, he
doesn't know them. And it was like made it's on

(14:28):
the pop stuff, you know, like maybe whatever the biggest
pop records are probably he knows. You know, he's not
going any deeper. Well, let's just go down this rabbit
hole a little bit deeper. Let's say, would you go
on record that today's music is not as good as
yester years? Different, you know different. I can't say it's

(14:48):
not as good. It's not as good to me, you
know that I'm talking about for you? Yeah? For me? Yeah, No,
I don't think that's not made for me. Right, I'm fifty.
I look at it totally differently because music represented something
different back then. That's I'm older than you are and
listening to the radio. The radio had its own hip
news whatever. That was the only outlet. There were no
video games, etcetera. And in your era, you know there was.

(15:11):
It was a little different. You have the dominance of
MTV and then everything else could perklate, so you know,
today there are many options. The other thing, I don't know.
A friend I mentioned this all the time. Friend of
mine wrote a book about Dwayne Allman. Dwyne Allman used
to take his guitar to the bathroom to practice. Almost
no one's practicing that much anymore, whether we make it so.
As I said, I don't want to make it a

(15:32):
guitar as opposed to a keyboard, as opposed to a
synthesize or whatever. But there's so many other options to
become famous and to half click that people are not
dedicated to music as much as they used to be. Yeah,
I don't. Yeah, that's that's I would say. That sums
it up. You know, it's just a different it's different. Okay,
but you've made rock records, so let's go deeper. As

(15:52):
I'm putting you on the record, is rock dead? It's
just changing. I think it's still. I think the metal
shows they'll do it. There's always post just post provescent
teenage boys who want to hear, you know, big beats
and go to these shows. So I think that's that's
always gonna make it regular rocket like straight up. I
think that's pretty much over. Is there any way to

(16:15):
be damned? I mean, I don't, I don't. I know,
it's a lot of records. I don't know if it permeated,
you know, right, well, metal historically waxes and wings kind
of like electronic music. But there's always a cult deep
into it. Someone's gonna buy a Ramon shirt, Someone's buying
a Misfit shirt, Someone's buying a motor Head shirt always.
You know, that's kind of does your perennials they come
back like weeds, you know. I certainly think that they've

(16:37):
sold more Ramons shirts than albums, absolutely, you know, but
that's the big thing. And I grew up in the
era we could tell somebody was hip how long their
hair was, and then once I had, you know, the
nerds were in their immediately cut all mind off. I
don't know, that's my personality. But at the same time,
the people putting the Ramons shirts on their babies are
the people who never listened to the Ramans when they

(16:59):
were happening. No, But my other like Nickel Tour or
whatever when I was a kid, Frankfurt's or a quarter
kind of thing was how if a band came through town,
you knew who went to the show, and it could
be any It could be an r M, or could
be like you know, good pavement. They have to be
necessarily the big metal band, but you'd see you'd be
a Tower Records something like with a I was at

(17:20):
that show, you know, like and like you had an
instant you found your gang, you know, I mean the
same way, and then you can kind of it was
like an instant thing. Now it's like I think there
aren't really at least I don't see it, even Kate.
I don't see Katy Perry teacher. I don't even see
anything like that. And if I see somebody wearing a
T shirt like Kenny Loggin's ironic, that's kind of cool.
And it's two ars and it was they bought at

(17:41):
vintage and it's some time and they got the stud
muffin thing to put the bedazzler. They've bedazzled it. And
now it's like you know there so it's all right.
You know, there's no like like usaid be how you
define yourself, you know. That's that's maybe we can talk
about that. You know, that's like you were in this gang,
you know, and you knew like who you knew who
you be for like, oh yeah, I was at that,
I went to the Pixie Show or whatever. You know. Well,

(18:04):
the other thing about it, I have a friend is
a big concert promoter, and he's a little bit younger
than you, not by much, and he says, I'm throwing
a party. When we used to go to those shows,
that was not a party. We were enthralled to the bands.
It was really about the music. Forget that there weren't
phones whatever. You know, people people are grazers now where
we were just wow, these are gods. How can we

(18:26):
get closer? It's interesting. I mean, I guess the concert
business little. When it's good, it's good, But I don't
think there's no I think the bands, who's probably the
last band that's gonna do Arenas, who's come through at
the latest? Maybe Musea, it's like the last band I
could still probably Arenas in rock and roll rather than

(18:47):
that Black Keys maybe depending on the burned it out
there coming back had a band fleet sells a lot,
but not quite arena. I mean, they don't have a
catalog to be an arena, you know, to come back
every year. They're not a c D see. You know.
It's like so it'll be it's interesting to see what
will happen. Um. But I think people just want to
go to events, Like you said, throwing the party they

(19:07):
don't care. It's more important to go to Randall's Island
than to see who's at Randall's Island. Right, Okay, But
since you're very knowledgeable on hip hop, do you believe
there's a scene or not a scene? What's different in
the hip hop? I do? I'm not to be honest,
it's a kind of I didn't leave hip hop man.
Hip hop left me. Um, I'm not as invested anymore.

(19:28):
A couple people I like, like Thundercat, I think it's
a great producer or whatever. Like those people are talent,
you know. And I've grated that Kanye you know, I
guess he's a genius because he says he's a genius.
But um, I don't know, you know, I feel like
there's nothing really Lahova. I'm still impressed with him, you know,
I'm impressed with his voice and impressed with his his
rhyming style. But um, I don't it was nice And

(19:54):
again that's like an whole guy. Oh crouchyo guy. But
the thing was the record. It was being heard and
it was as aspirational. And now it's like I got
my footwear brand, you know, It's like and now there's
so many other things involved with it. It doesn't feels
as pure anymore, you know. And right about what about
the beefs, Bill, I think they shut they should have

(20:18):
let should have a coke and a smile and shut
the funk up. I mean they getting paid, they get
like like there's no reason to be beat back. You know,
when they were twelve inches and you were in different
hoods and you were still living with your grandmother in
Queens and they're the ones living that was really you know,
that was still you know, I don't have any sorry
Drake whatever, Bill, millionaires don't you know in beefs don't
excite me. Well, the other thing, as you mentioned earlier,

(20:41):
they're more about the brand than the music. It's like
people want to be famous as opposed to be musicians.
It's just a stepping stone. It's about to see. Uh.
You know, I got an Instagram accountany about three thousand
followers whatever, I don't I don't don't post that much.
But um, I went to see Trapy Scott and um
what's his face? Little guy from Compton Kendrick and uh

(21:09):
and I posted like the Travy Scott came out of
this fire, this wing bird with the spinning fire and
I posted a small little video on my thing and
I had a fifty thou beauties because I tagged, you know,
I tag Travy Scott or whatever, and it was like
the next thing. He was like like, can this be right? So,
I mean the power they you know, they're very powerful people,
so I can understand. Okay, Musically, what do you think

(21:31):
about Kendrick. I think he's great, you know. I think
I think he's one of the you know, one of
the better ones for sure. And I think he's it's emotional,
it's you know, I think it's his aspirational. I think
he wants to take I think, whatever, there's a white guy,
but I think he wants to take his people somewhere.
You know. He's definitely of that. You know. I think
he's a leader, which is which is great. I think,
you know, sorry Ny, I think Conny is a clown.

(21:53):
I think Kendrick is a real leader, you know. Okay,
let's go back to one of your peaks, and not
that you don't have peaks mean in the future, but
you produced the first two Black Crows album, okay, and
the first one was Gigantic Kid. How did you end
up producing that um, that was that's a good story.
So I was working with Rick at def jam Rick

(22:17):
rub Ruben, and he made this movie called Tougher Than Leather.
If you have seen it, Have you seen Tougher than Leather?
Starting run dmc No, No, I didn't see it. It's
like bad. It's like a really it's like a black
exploitation film. You know, it's low budget exactly black exploitation. Um,
low budget. He's in it. He starts, he wrote, start,
he started, and directs it. Well. Actually, you know, there's

(22:39):
this Rick Rubin's series on Showtime and they show part
of that movie with Rick in it. I know he's
embarrassed by it. But you know it's completely racist, but
in the best way. You know, it's over the time. Everybody,
no one's spared. It's like it was like the era
of earlier Howard starting to makes fun of Jews, makes
fun of Blacks, makes fun Chinese people, Asians, everybody, no
one's spared. Everybason equally insulted. But I remember telling me

(23:03):
he sat next to day. He played for David. He
screened for David Geffen because they wanted he was looking
at a distribution and Geff's like you can't put this
movie out. It's like, what do you mean goes the
way you talk about the Jews? And there's one there's
only one line about Jewish people in the whole thing,
Like there's only one cut and that's the only thing
he saw. And Rick was like, he's how proud of it?
I think he's embarrassed And maybe we'll have to all
watch the documentary and the genius mind of Rick Rubin

(23:26):
to figure out if if he is embarrassed by that.
So he's making this movie. He kind of was pulling
away from Russell. He didn't really want to miss Simmons. Sorry,
Russell Simmons. He Um moved to l A, moved to
the into the Montreal, didn't come back and never went
back to New York. So I took a job at
A and M for a year because Steve Robowski signed

(23:49):
the def JAM deal to Colombia and now he was
the head of A and MIGHT, so he hired me
like a low you know, like a director of A
or whatever it was. I went out and so you know,
I want to try to see a couple of bands.
Um and then I was in. They sent me to
Atlanta see a band called bare Back I think it was,
and it kind of like a southern boogie band, and

(24:11):
I thought they were just gonna be playing in town
with so I was online at a Kentucky literally at
a Kentucky Fried Chicken at the Marriott Hotel where I
was staying in front of me had long hair. I'm like, hey,
there any other bands in this town. He's like, well,
this man called Mr. Crow's Gardener pretty good playing tonight
at the Peacock or somewhere whatever. It was like, okay, cool,
I'll check it out. After these guys, I found that
this band is playing about forty minutes outside of town,

(24:34):
like some dive bar. I take a cab out there.
The manager is also the lyric right it hands me
a loose leaf book with lyrics. I'm like, what this
like in the lyrics man, I'm like okay, you know,
and then I'm singing in the back of this club
and the band's playing. He's literally singing the songs to
me in my ear. I'm like, I gotta get out
of here, and he's like, okay, we've got the second set.
Come on me. Like so I meet the man, He's like, hey,

(24:54):
I'm let it stay for the second set. It's great.
I got back into cab, travel back into Atlanta, which
is like a half hour whatever. I get to the
club and they were over, Hey, what happened to the
Girl's Garden? Oh? They they finished. I'm like, okay, cool.
And I was living in New York at the time.
I got back to New York and I look in
the Voice and they were playing in New York the
next week, so I just happened to go and and

(25:15):
they were good. I mean, he was a presence. You know,
Chris was great, great, Chris Robinson great. He's you know,
he's a he was a front man. He had it
back then. He had the moves, you know, he had
the whole thing. As brother was kind of handsome and
like with like mysterious, you know. He's also he was
just this young guy. And uh. I watched that set
and it was kind of like dang, and everything's like

(25:35):
very up up up up. And at the end they
played Down the Streets by and the Stooges and they
played No More, No More by Aerosmith, Love That No More.
I'm like, dreamna that and I'm like okay. So I
met them, I said, h that's great. I said, let
me ask you something. I said, he played this whole

(25:57):
set in the last two songs you played had nothing
to do with the other stuff, and like what gives
And they're like, well, we're the most popular band in
Landa right now. We play a lot of colleges and
stuff like that, and this is what our audience is like.
But we like this, like oh interesting, okay. So we
stayed in touch, exchanging numbers, no email back then. And
then I remember men Peter manch our mutual friend, took

(26:19):
me to see to Monsters Rock in Dallas and I
had gotten this uh cassette. I know really, I had
a cassette and had a Sony Walkman with the extra
bass boom base on it. And I was listening to
the Faces record, Um, not as good as a wink,
And I said, that's a terrible record except for the hip.

(26:42):
That's not true Miss Judy's Farm. Like no, that was
compared to the second album. In the first album, Miss
Judy's Farm, it's pretty good and also good, Hey goodhead
a huge Rod Stewart film. I was just I mean,
I bought that album. I always still owned it. Well whatever,
so you're used to that So I'm listening to it

(27:04):
and I'm like, well, this is interesting. I'm gonna play
this for Chris Robinson. So I called him up like hey,
what are you. Hey man, I'm down Texas, blah blah
blah whatever. I'm gonna play something. So I played in
Miss Judi Farm in the song you don't like right. Well,
as I say, certainly that album have the right sound,
I just didn't think the material was the songs are right, yeah,
maybe in the B So I put and put the
ear you know, the ear phone to the speaker and

(27:26):
standing man, man, dude, dank, you know. I was playing
whatever here hello, Like right, what's up? Like, um, you
sent me that record? I'm like showing up wrong. So
I send him a copy and then we kept a
touch and then like a couple of months later, like hey,
so that was not the sound you saw it heard
in New York. Couple of months later, it's a couple

(27:47):
of months. Like a couple of months later, he's like, hey,
come down, we got a bunch of new songs. Um
come down and see us. So I went down. I
was like, oh, this is it's kind of rock now.
And then we made a demo at them, and I
was I wanted to sign him, and then I was like, well,
can we do development because they were doing these development
deals and they're like they're kind of tricky to get

(28:08):
out of, you know whatever, so they're kind of hemming
and hawing. I'm like, well, that's not fun. And then
Rick called me. He's like, hey, I'm not moving back
to New York. I'm saying in California. Come out. I'm
gonna start a new company. It's be more rock based.
Just get out here. I'm like, all right, So anything
you want to do. I said, well I found a
big He's do what the hell you want. I don't care,
you know, just come out here. So I moved out
here in my thirties, year eighty nine, and then I

(28:31):
told we signed the band. And I took about a
year to get the songs going, like back and forth.
I go there a couple of times. They said, we
sent a sets back and forth, and then I went
down there and then we made a record in uh
around this time in eighty nine. We're around the summer,
sometime in the summer at eighty nine, and it came
out first week of January. Thirty years was just insane. Okay,

(28:53):
did you know it was going to be such a monster.
I knew it was the best week we had to
you know, we had to offer. And then there was
there was them at that age, and we had one
guitar every everything. I think every every song starts with
the one guitar on the left speaker, because I thought
we knew how to do at that point. And then
I think the best thing was getting Chuck level to
come down and play the stone towards the stones in

(29:15):
the Almond Brothers everything, and that really took it to
another level. And I was like, well it's good, you know,
I said, I you know, if it doesn't want to
tack the copies, they can make it. We can make
another one and they can tour and get an opening
slot or something like that. And that they just was
sometimes it's just you know, who knows better be lucky
than good. I wish, but hard to hear. The loose

(29:41):
idea was to do that. That was I think it's
Chris's you know, Robin, and he's like, I said, we
should do something, you know. And then my idea was
to make it like walk this way basically basically rip
Buffa walked this way and then just turning it. You know,
but I think I was like, we should see some
Odo song. It was just, you know, we could be
listening to a lot of stuff, like we picked that one. Okay,
did you make a good amount of money from that record?

(30:03):
I worked for Rick Rubin. How much money you think
I made? Okay, let's go back to the least have
those things? Uh, it makes like a catalytic converter. I'm
not sure I get to joke about the catalytic. They
camp downright, tamp down what you can make, you know,
like or whatever. He's like a governor where they call
those things like some cars, like like rented cars. I

(30:25):
have to think, called a governor back and we let
you go over sixty five or something that I know
I did. Okay, I look, I did. Fine. You know
she'll ever get paid on it? Oh yeah I did.
Of course it didn't be today. No, I don't think so.
I mean, he's I don't know. Every now and then
a check shows up, he's moved. He's moved the label
four times, so who knows? You know. Okay, let's start

(30:45):
at the beginning. Where where was your born? And you know,
for the chechen Chong song. What's that? Do you know?
That chechen song? Song? Exit forty three? Long Island where
I grew up. You know, I grew up in Connecticut.
I'm not super Long Island. So my I was going, well,
let's see, Um, I was born in Valley Stream and
then we moved to Siuset when I was young. My dad,

(31:06):
Greek immigrant, came over when his fifteen didn't speak any language,
married my mom when he was eighteen maybe she was.
It's funny. We had our fiftieth anniversary. We did the math, like,
wait a minute, was seventeen my mom's seventeen was? You
got married? Like? But she turned eighteen shortly after, so
he was I think he was twenty maybe or night
he was like nineteen and they got married. Their children,
you know, getting married, might have an older brother's four

(31:27):
years old, four years older. Um, just the two of you,
just the two of us. So okay, So your mother
she Greek, yeah really, but she better through the network
he met yeah exactly, he met food, food church or whatever.
You know, somehow they knew and um, it's funny. I mean,

(31:48):
I find an interesting. Some people don't don't follow me
when I say this, but it's right. It's both my
grandfather's were born in America as a turn of the
century and taking back to Greece's infants. That makes and
no one knew and I my dad's dad died when
he was like three. He never really knew him. And
my mom's dad, I always asked him Babu was Greek
for grandfather, like boo, what happened? Goes I was a baby,

(32:09):
you know, one told me why. I don't know, like
he has no no one has any memory of why
they were he was he was he was born in Michigan,
and my other grandfather was born like in Massachusetts. And
then they went back, which is strange. Maybe they came
and they didn't thing that people went back. Not really,
it's so odd, you know, it's very odd. So my
dad technically wasn't I guess he was born in American

(32:30):
citizens He didn't go through Ellis Island, but he came
over on the boat a fifteen in the in the
fourth in the you know, in the four years, late
fifties whatever. Do you have a heavy Greek association personally? Uh? Yeah,
I mean it's kind of it's ingrained to you when
you're a kid. You know, it's it's um, it's interesting,
it's it's very much about the church, and it's not

(32:50):
necessary religion. It's just the church is like a social center,
you know, and that's what it is. And you know,
and my dad was a dyner owner of course, because
we're Greek, so you have a you have a whole
network of diner owners and and those are your friends.
And you know, I don't think my parents had many
other out you know, until maybe we had the neighbors
for Ferrars. They were Italians. I was okay, but outside

(33:10):
of like, didn't have any friends who were in Greek,
you know what I mean. He's like, not just by whatever, okay,
other than having these roots, are there anything you do
today that is Greek associated? Just eat? My mom sends
me spinash pie and I and I get a lot
of mileage out of that. Um this my secret man

(33:32):
camp where I go. Um, Bob we are came by.
We had dinner and I gave him a piece of
the spinach pie and he's like, I said, oh, Boab,
you gotta try this. My mom made it. He's eating
it now. You know, if you seem Bob, he has
like he looks at he's got that joant. He's like,
you know what, spinish pie is very flaky. He's got
a flake of Philo doll over his mouth. He's like,
did your mother really make this? Like yes, Bob, He's

(33:55):
like it's quite delicious. And I said, well you know
what you're tasting, Bob. He's like no, I said, that's love.
So you know, that's that's the thing. I mean, that's
why I'm so fat, because she just wants they just
forced food and they come out twice a year and
refrigerator becomes you know, like there's only a limit to
how much we can fit in your mom, I'll make

(34:16):
a room, I'll make room, and they still just want
to feed me. Is We were having Christmas dinner a
while back, like twenty years ago, and he's like yeah,
and they were talking, you know, we haven't talking, and
then yeah, Peter stopped eating and Peters my brother, Like
Peter stopped eating? What do you guys do? And my
mom was like, we took the plate. We took his plate,
we put in front of you. You You ate all the food,
you're happy, you know, Like I was three, How do

(34:38):
I know if I this stuff in my so that's
probably why that's the most Greek thing about me is
probably food and guilt. Now, your wife is not Greek. No,
she's what you call like Senny's non Greek or um
I guess. I remember we got married married twenty years
and um so we've been together for like nine before that.

(34:59):
And he said, you know, we should probably get married,
like sounds good. I said, I want a big church
wedding and she's like, shut up. You know she knows me.
I don't want to. I said, no, I want a
big church wedding. She's like, I don't understand. I said,
not for me. But if we don't get married in
the Greek church, your life is not going to be
you know, you you my mother will make you miserable
and you should live the day you'll regret it. So

(35:20):
we go down to the gi Me the Saint Sophia is.
It's great. They do a Greek festival, which is the
best thing. If you've been to a Greek festival. Well,
I've been to a Greek I've been to a Greek festival.
We're saying, Sophia. It's kind of like Normandy and uh Pico.
And there's a place called Papa Cristo's across the street.
You've been there. It's like a Greek restaurant and they
do boils and tyd of cheat. It's great and it's

(35:42):
the end of the summer. You should go. It's it's
a good festival. So we go down there and um
talking to the priest and telling him, you know whatever,
and my wife's Roman Cathy at least, that she's bad.
They've even baptized, Like, yeah, she's been baptized. He's like,
and he tries to upsell it right away. Have you
thought about the Greek religion and it's blah blah blah blah.
And my wife's great eight aunt is a litizable. So
this is Greek Orthodox is Greek Orthox, which is basically

(36:03):
because the right next to me in a high school,
Spiro had the us, he had the locker, and his
father was the priest at the Greek Orthodox church. Well,
that's what's nice is that it's so when they broke off,
I came up with the rules of It's it's pretty
much similar, except this too. Like the two main difference
of priests can marry, which means it's you're much more normal.
You can be much more normal. Um, the archbishop isn't

(36:27):
for the archbishop is the first among equals, they say,
So it's not like he's the only one who God talks.
It was like, if anything happens, we all looked at him,
he'll tell he'll take us all on the you know, Like,
so which is I think it's a nice sentiment. And
it's something to do with the Jewish calendar. We can't
have Easter till have to pass Over, because I guess
pass Over was the last last supper was a pass
over dinner. But um, so he's like tying upseller and
my great her great aunt is a littlebath seat you

(36:49):
know that is Seaton Hall University. Yeah, she's the first.
She's the first. I just changed the name. The guy
gave all the money. I think that's the one further
down she's But sister Mary Liveath Seaton was the first
American CANNONI st So I'm like, oh, her great auntswer
Mary of the seat, and you know it's like I
will table it. She can get married. It's fine, you like,

(37:11):
you know, mess with that. So let's stopped for one second.
You went Greek Orthodox? Are you a believer? I don't know.
So you okay, I'm not gonna push that, do you.
I mean, I don't know, I don't know what. I
don't know what's gonna happen, you know. Okay, so you
do get what Barry did the Greek Orthodox just to

(37:33):
make it so we could come home. There's this thing
called stefana, which is they put these have you been
to Greek weddings that three hours long? But they put
these crowns on your head and they go back and
forth everything three times, three times, and Stephanas these these
two crowns that they marry you with. Um As call
my mom in the car, like, okay, we just brought
some sides. You. Oh, we're getting married next week, but

(37:53):
no one's coming. I don't care. As long as you're
getting married at church, makes no difference to me. And
that was the end of it, you know. So so
they didn't even come out for the wedding thing on
the phone. Wedding we just got it was my brother
was on his way to Nagao for some reason for
the Winter Olympics, and her sister was in Texas, and
you just need you need someone to stand up for you.
There's just the four of us on a Thursday afternoon,
you know, getting married in the morning. In the morning

(38:14):
was empty when we left. So what did your brother do?
He's in advertising, he was, so I feel bad. So
you have kids, you have brothers, no two sisters, so
he's older. And then my dad went from restaurants apply
to this, I mean this is this is just for
meeting you. But he went from restaurants supplies to restaurants,

(38:35):
I mean only restaurants, a restaurants supply business. And my
mom's brother was his partner. And then my mom's brother
had midlife price, So you want to go to law
school at age forty or whatever. And he thought, well,
we'll just sell the business. And you know, my dad,
my dad was still a young man. He's like, I'm
not gonna retire. What are we gonna do? So my
brother got kind of he just finished college. He got
suckered into it, and he got trapped in a family business.

(38:56):
And while that was happening, is when I was out
moving in California, I was sending it. But he TV's
gotta have, you know, platinum records, and like, you know,
and I felt bad. He got stuck at the things.
So he's an AVERTI you work with Donnie Deutsch for
a long time. Um, he set up like a company
with this like urban um d Rush, this urban Donnie

(39:16):
Deutsch thing. And then well how did in with the
family business? Eventually my dad retired, so my my brother
came in for about he's stuck there about ten years
and then you know, and then my dad just kind
of got rid of it. But was there any money
when he sold it? Yeah? Absolutely? Okay, they had the
condo in Florida. We still have the building. They had
the condo in Florida with all the other Greek owners

(39:36):
in Fort Laura Dale, which they still have the house.
I grew up in Sais you know, so there's snowbirds
they call it. Okay, So your father owned a diner
until you were how old? Uh? Teenager? May just a
twelfth thirteen? And then he had this restaurant. How close
was the diner to your house? Up five minutes? Okay?
Did your mother work in the diner? So? How much

(39:58):
were you in the diner? I was I was just
to feel potatoes. I'd still put me in the back,
turn over a big like fifty gallon cauldron and give
me a stack of potatoes. I said, there peeled potatoes.
My dad was like, you know, he he left the
house at fourth three in the morning. It was a weird.
We'd always have dinners a family, because breakfast and lunch
was really in the dinner. It was. It wasn't like
a four hour kind of vibe. It was more like

(40:20):
a right next to the train station. So it's a
lot of breakfast, a lot of lunch, and then my
dad would come home, we'd have dinner as of family.
My mom would go and close up, and and then
my dad would fall We watched Courtravettie's father and he
fall asleep in the lazy boy and I had to
wake him up, and then it all started over again.
If we went out, like on a Sunday night U
to like a church dance, we'd go to the dinner,

(40:40):
he'd open it up and start making the muffins, you know,
at midnight whatever, and he sometimes he didn't sleep there.
It was like, you know, it's it's a blood business.
You know, it's a real restaurant business in general, but
it would be the type of thing that you kind
of owned the place. You'd go and say, hey, you
don't want a cheeseburger. My mom had no idea how
to shop for you know, forever, because she took everything
out of the wall again from the thing, and you

(41:01):
know we'd have to stay. You know, it's come home
another thing, like I come up from school. Hey, I
think I come home with Tim whatever, my friend, and
we're gonna do band practice in the basement. Whatever. He
got hungry man? All right, something small? All right, I'll
make you some steaks. You know. It's like you know
it didn't you know we had a deep fry in
our house. It's like, you know, so was that kind

(41:23):
of thing? Okay, So let's turn to music. Were you
a big music fan from growing up? Yeah? I loved it,
you know was um it's funny. Uh. I think I
told you I've met all Beatle I met all four Beatles.
I'll tell you that story, right, so, uh George Paul
and Ringo event later. You know, once I was out here.
But I met John as a kid at Walt Disney World. Again,

(41:45):
I was young. It was like seventy one, I want
to say, right when they were breaking up. I think
it's it's documented somewhere. How do you meet John Lennon
at Disney at the Polynesian Hotel, at the buffet of
what was she doing there? He was there with Julian,
there with Julian. I think I'm pretty sure it was Yoko.
Some people think maybe it's made paying I can't. I
have to do the research again. But that's where he was.

(42:06):
That's where he signed his disillusion papers for the Beatles.
But um so, my brother, like I said, my brothers
four years older than me, and I knew the Beatles
kind of from the cartoons, and I like the music
and whatever. But I'm online and all of sudden he's
all he's not, you know, on top of me. He's
like sausages. Like every time, every time I put some
on my plate, he was like, he's like pancake. I'm

(42:27):
like in the accent. It was just it was all
too much. Like I had never met a British person,
you know, when I was like five, maybe four, I
was four, maybe four or five whatever, like this guy
who he is whatever? Okay, maybe it's a little seven
of it. Okay, he's like, oh, potatoes, potatoes, potato, like
like like yeah, potatoes, you know, And I'm not gonna
lie to you. Always been a fat kid, So I

(42:49):
got back to the table and we're sitting like one
table over from them. My parents aren't just freaked out
because they were working. It didn't really you know, it
wasn't like as much of them. And my brother grabs,
He's like, what were you saying? Dude? What were you saying?
And I like, I don't know. I just started crying
at the table, like I lost my ship at the
table and just I was crying and like, what do
you say? What are you saying? Leave your brother lane?

(43:10):
What do you say? Like? Who is that guy? Like
my Dad's like who is this guy? You know? Like
and so then they had this man made lagoon. Will
you do these like power boats? And that was with
my dad in the power boat and lending comes like hey, sausages,
and my dad's like, who's your friend? So that was funny.
But music can ask if you remember four years old

(43:31):
he was sent I think I was six or seven? Okay?
Could he walk around freely? Yeah? It was like it
was I don't know. I guess he was who knows,
but man, I don't think anybody with him. But I
think my mom would get these um like Dick Clark
records and it and like twenty twenty fifties tracks aside,

(43:54):
and I would listen to those constantly Earth Angels and
she's just saying Earth Agel to me, and I got like,
I really had to Simon and Garfunkel when I was like, ah,
like Cecilia was a big one for me, and I
just loved it. And then I started playing drums. My
brother got a drum step for Christmas. Of course I
want to play drums. He but he was, you know,
fourteen and I was ten, and uh so he started lessons.

(44:15):
I started lessons. I started getting pretty good, and then
I'm on eleven and twelve. I'm like eleven, twelve year old,
and don't want to play with me in the junior
high band because I'm I'm still in grade school. So
that Christmas, I'm like, I want a bass guitar. I
had no idea what it was was I want a
bass guitar because I knew every band had a bass player,
and so they got me a bass player for I
think about six or seventh grade that Christmas, and by
January I was in four bands because oh, you play,

(44:37):
you gotta be in our band, man, you know. So
that's and then I turned over to bass, and then
I never looked back. No, you did you take piano
lessons as a kid, I took I just took drum
lessons and bass lessons. Basically I'm not taking I mean,
I can fake it pretty good. I can pick out
the notes. I can I can read a little bit,
but I'm not I'm not a highly skilled musician. So
when you're in a high school, you're playing in bands

(44:58):
and playing a couple of bands. And played Max when
I was sixteen, Maxes, Kansas City. Yeah, yeah, what what
kind of music were played? We were a silly pomp band.
It was kind of crazy. We played a biker night
at Max's and they loved it. They thought we were cute.
You know, you've been to Max's back. So they middle
of those long tables like those my ar lead singer
kind of walked out table like songs like they dreamer

(45:20):
dream like these little kids, and like they got to
kick out of it. Played Max's different lounge in the city,
my father's place, and I'll remember my father in Roslyn.
We played a bunch of un like the place called
Uncle Sam's. Also, rather that there was a competing place.
We played a bunch of these places when we were
still young, very young, we were I mean, we're okay.
We had one guy who was Phili Bono, sweet guy.

(45:43):
His dad was uh in charge. He had an air
freight company at the airport. If I mean that's all
I need okay, Oh yeah. He was in and he
was in summer camp for most of Phil's childhood. He
was away at summer camp um and he kind of
funded everything, Like we get we had a great gear,
we had a truck, we had like lighting things. So

(46:05):
we're very we're very pro. That's pretty serious. And was
there a dream we all thought were gonna, you know,
let's do it. He was. He was a songwriter, and
I kind of it's where I started, Like he was
a songwer. I kind of would range it and say, look,
we can't just be playing the same four songs, important
chords all the time. We gotta do something different. And
this is Petty became really influential to me. Like Dan

(46:26):
the Torpedoes wreck it came out and I was like,
I really studied that, and like we had a bridge.
We need to say something interesting, we need this. So
I started arranging these songs and that's what became that's
what led me to be want to be you know production. Okay,
so you're in the high school, you graduated from high
school and then what go to n y U, which
is okay, but why n y you? It's a good story. Again,

(46:48):
I might be boring you. But so I applied to
m y U because I had this music business program,
which is kind of a morphous and weird. It wasn't
the Clive Davis School. It was a it was a
dual major you can do. It was music and business.
I play to use l A because I wanted to
go to California. It was it's a dream. And you know,
you live out the East coast Boston University because it

(47:09):
was it wasn't music college town at a time, and
I think Syracuse and my brother went there and then
in the in the spring, whenever he finds out where
they're going, it's like, I got it to this this.
I got to see my guidance counselor, Mr McMahon. I said, hey, MGA,
what's happened? He goes goes. Oh, I didn't send anything.
You think I didn't send anything out? Where do you
want to go? I said, Well, at this point, I

(47:30):
guess y U you know because I've gone I've been
going to the city and playing in the city. He's like, okay,
you go at any whet you We'll go to the
Chinese restaurant, bring your mother, we'll talk about it. Pools
a public school by this gets this gets weird. I
go to his office. He goes, all right, we go
getting his Dodge Dart, late model Dodge Dart, no license
player like. Mr McMahon goes because don't worry. They know

(47:51):
who I am. You know who I am, right, George.
I'm like, hey, you'm Mr McMahon, my guy, that's counsel.
But you know right. I'm like, okay, goes through a
stop sign. He's like, they saw him. You don't worry
about it. Then starts telling me the story of falling down.
No Bruce like, I'm kind of following it. I'm like, okay,
he goes because you know who I am, right, he's Jesus.

(48:12):
He thinks he's Jesus. We get to the restaurant. I'm
umen parking a lot, ma'am. I see that someone with
the baby. I see the baby have nothing but happiness,
enjoying with this baby. Is that blah? Blah blah. See George,
I kne who I am. I'm white and freaking out.
My mom's already this Chinese restaurant called Moers, which is
a great Chinese restaurant in the the Woodberry Commons. We sit down, Sophie,
your son is this blah blah blah blah blah. He starts.

(48:34):
He starts giving a sermon. Basically, he has a glass
of wine. I call it, you know, I like, this
is my but and I was like, oh, he's such
a good boy. You know, we don't get him done with.
You get Sophie. I promise you're gonna George tell your
mother you you're on in respect them. Okay, great, I
don't need anything. Mom's eating the whole time. I take
my food to go. We get in the car and
my mom's like, you were very hungry. What happened? I go,

(48:55):
did you hear what the guy was saying? Oh, he's
out of his mind? But we're going to n y U.
You're head to say that we're in. A week later,
he gets committed. We got n y U. Somehow I
have no idea to the state. It's mystery because I
wanted to do like a short film about I think
it's like a really interesting film about guidance counsel of things.
He's Jesus and you get you. He gets committed. We
get a down Yu, and then the rest of decision
is another funny story when we get down why you?

(49:16):
But just it's funny that you said that this was today,
I'd be in therapy. We probably owned the land that
sizz the school district was not you know that we'd
have a huge settlement, you know, I mean like, and
I called my mother, She's like, I don't know. But
he got in YU, So I guess we got you that.
I get the n y U. And I see this guy,
Professor Broderick this September, you know, being later early September,

(49:37):
dog days of New York City. He's got a blue blaze.
He's like a jazz hipster. Let's say Mr Burns kind
of with gray hair, tall, like six four like Hi,
Professor Brodrick, George Culius, first year you know this music
busy program? He runs it. What should I take? He
looks at me. He opens like a steelcase test takes
out a a tall boy and a round taper back.

(49:58):
This is how long has it been sitting so it's
piss warm. I was up takes a few stive because
hey man, I don't know you had that take whatever
turns you on. So this is great. This is the
best school in the world. So for two years I
took like film class, like some biology for like for
med students, like I just picked these things. He gets
retired somehow, they call me to the teen's office, Mr

(50:20):
colis what we've been doing here for two years? Like
hey man, just taking what turns me on? Like well,
you have like three credit stores, this weird major that
doesn't really exist, and this and that. It was like
through the So they put me back on track, but
I didn't. I went four years, but I didn't graduate,
and I want my degree. If I've now that it's
the Clive Davis School of whatever. I talytically if you

(50:42):
were to go back, how much school they say you short?
I think probably about a year and a half or
something that, um it's funny. Uh. I had someone looking
up and they were like like, oh man, no problem, Like,
oh man, I think you got like a year and
a half. It's just too much and this and that.
So I haven't really and by the time to be Honest,
my third year school, I was already working, you know,

(51:03):
we were stopped really going to class, would be in
the studio four or five in the morning, and you know,
so it was but senior I was really coming at all.
So I don't blame them. It's not like, Okay, so
you're in there, you're in this program, when do you
meet your compatriots? Um? I went out with a girl
that Rick dated Reuben, and then he was the social

(51:24):
committee chairman, which meant they gave him a couple hundred
bucks every three months to throw a party. And he'd
get as much cheap grain alcohol you can get, and
I get like a like a hip hop DJ or
somebody to come down. And this was how long after
we're going to n y U. This is my junior year. Okay,
this is this is my junior year. And then um, yeah,

(51:45):
so he'd throw these parties and I just started helping him,
you know, d help him DJ and Karen Crates whatever,
and then he but he was hiring a DJ. He
wasn't DJJ. He was the DJ. And then he have
but then you have guests, you have guest people come
and scratch whatever, blah blah blah, so helping the crates
and talent whatever. And then so what year we in

(52:08):
eight five, eight four, I started eighty two and um,
and then he put out this record call It's Yours
A little bit slower You're coming. You're have a nexus
with him. At the time he's throwing these parties, he's
also starting to put out records. He had made one

(52:28):
record that he that that he with this guy called
Tela Rock and this DJ called Jazz J called It's Yours.
It had n't been out yet, and it went out
went out that summer. There was one of those things
you heard everywhere, wasn't on the radio, you know, was
that you heard every car, every every boom box. You know,
let's be clear. Is that because you know, if that
things don't happen by themselves. Was Rick working at that hard? No,

(52:51):
it was. It was a natural. It was a very natural.
It was a zeitgeist of hip hop at that moment.
It was a great beat. The this guy Tiler Rock
had an amazing voice, um, interesting lyrics. You know, it
was just it just took hold. It is magical. It's
one of those things that there was no you know,
no one's working at really he had it, So that's

(53:13):
what That was the first def Chan release, but def
Chan wasn't really a label yet. It was the def
Chaan release through Party Time, which was Mars Leavey. So
I never got exactly, you never got paid. And then
he met Rick Russell thought that was I thought Rick
was a black person. So he's like, I'm gonna meet
this guy Rick Ruben. They met each other. Now Russell
was doing what Russell was managing run the MC and producer.

(53:35):
He was a producer also and he was managing them,
and he was he's runs you know, he runs brother
so okay, but he's not going in why are you?
He lives at the FRAC City. He's older than us.
He was at City. He's a couple years older. I
think when the Queen's College was dropped out um they
started label and the first official release was it was

(53:55):
l L Cool j Um. So that's when I kind
of went all time. So I took it. You're dating
his ex girlfriend, you're helping him with the social parties.
How do you become all of a sudden invested in
all this ship. Yeah, it's all about the hang. That's
my masket. But not everybody knows he's gotta be cool

(54:19):
like you gotta be you know, you gotta be you
gotta be easy person to be around, and you gotta
have you gotta have input, and plus you had it
was a head of hands. Back then, Um, everything was.
There's no computers, so everything was manual. So if you
listen to these old records, these these first eight death
Jam records, and basically just a drum machine, a guy

(54:40):
yelling and some scratching. There's not much more music involved
than that. But if you wanted, if you want to,
if you just want the high hat to play, you
have physically mute everything else, so you need his hands
on the deck. So everything was like everything was manual
that It's hard to explain it, but it was. It
took a couple of people to work the desk because
all right, he comes break, you need to kick drum,

(55:01):
who's on kick drump, you're on kick drump? You know
who's on scrap that kind of thing, so you have
to and then you'd added pieces together and so it
was it was a more uh kind of like that.
And then the student I knew music, you know, so
that was like another thing, and you know, that's it
just became you just started running around them. You started
run around the best, the beasts and stuff like that,
and just go to the studio and help. Were you

(55:29):
a hip hop fan? I loved soul music. I loved
old black music, the blue stuff like that. So through that,
you know, that was like the new that was the
newest black music, you know, So you were a fan
of the music stuff we were doing and the stuff. Okay,
so now they start deaf jam. I mean, you're you're
an official employee. What I'm a I'm a I'm getting

(55:52):
I'm getting college credit. I'm not getting I think I'm
not getting paid, of course not. But I have three
or four jobs. Is the college radio promo guy? I
was ah, I did sales and I answered the phones
and stuff like that. When it was basically Rick Rick

(56:13):
dorm room. So and I had different people. I also
made different people to be those things. So when I
was calling up, I can't remember the names that I had,
like Donald Trump, Yeah, yeah, I'm John John whatever yeah,
um uh So I would call and then I would
also be responsible for getting for shipping labels. So you'd

(56:36):
make this Let's give you the quick story. So you
go to the studio, which this is another thing that
was I think I might have told you the story,
but it was very You knew kind of right away
where the record was working. You'd go to the studio,
make a record. You cut an ascetate, go to this guy, Um,
who's the guy boom boom boom gardener that we had

(56:57):
a guy in New York, Herbie Herbie Powers. Maybe this guy.
You get an a state smell like a bowling ball,
which is great. You just didn't smell it all day.
You go to the Roxy two in the morning, three
in the morning. I asked the guy to play. You
go to up to the d J booth. He played
this for us. He put it on. He's like, all right,
wait around, he'd wait around, he put it on. You're
sitting up on top, you're looking down the dance floor.
Record comes on and you watch and if people walked

(57:19):
off weren't interested, you knew this is not ready, this
is not a record we should put out. People like
looked up to the DJ booth went what's you know?
Because also the thing with Hippop, it's all about the
new which was interesting, which is fun. This is really
not what my personality is. But it's also about the
newest record, the newest thing, the freshest to flow. You know.
That was like it was very much and not knowing
what was coming next. So like play a record, they

(57:41):
look up, give you the you know, like give you
like put your hands in the kind of people get excited,
like all right, this record is ready to go. Let's
press it. Who's money were you using? So Rick Rick's
dad was the baby shoot king of Long Island Total
you know south Shore, you know, new money kind of
thing that does anything wrong, you know. I was saying,
it's like, um, so from that point, okay, we're gonna

(58:05):
make this thing. We had these labels. Labels were printed
in Brooklyn, but the pressing plant was in Jersey. So
I'd go to Brooklyn on the subway, get two boxes
of five thousand label whatever it's five thousand labels, take
them the Port Authority put him on a bus to
New Jersey and they'd go to the plant and then
the plant would send to test pressings back and I

(58:27):
go back to the Port Authority, wait for the wait
for the Union bus to come in. Take that and
then I would take it down. We'd give us to
DJs and stuff. Like that. And then we had we
had an official distributor in New York who was like,
because indies, they didn't pay you to you put the
next record out. So there was a there was a
there's a place what's that called. So we'd have one

(58:47):
official place in Long Island City that would handle all
the stuff and they would they would order directly from
the plant once we once the record without and but
then we get two boxes and sell it on the
sly to this woman uh Pearl on like eleventh Avenue
in the forties, and she would buy for cash and
she just go cash and my job was to go
drop him off there and you have to cash. But

(59:08):
back then it was all training hookers that area. It
wasn't like as hip as it is now. And so
I take a subway there or whatever. I walk over
with these two boxes and then I had like five
in all his money. I put it down my pants
and I treat myself to a cab to get home.
So that was the beginning. That was the first eight records.
There were these twelve inches and then uh Steve Bounci

(59:31):
signed def Jam as a label. So who signed Jeff
Steve Abowski? Oh, Steve Roboski d okay. He signed def
Jam as a label to Columbia and then they started.
They kind of took over the stuff, and then the
first album was Yellow Cool J Record Radio, which again
like you kind of know. So I'm coming out from

(59:51):
Black Rock. I've got a bunch of cassettes now, and
I'm walking down the street. I'm on Fifth Avenue. I
see these two kids who are carrying a boom box
that's twice there, black Rock the CBS, but black Rock
CBS building. And these two kids are like sharing a
boom box, this giant radio and the cover of the
cool Radio, which is basically the radio. And so I
see these two guys and they listen to something whatever.

(01:00:11):
I don't know what it is. I'm like, I'm like, hey, hand.
They look at me first, I think I'm weird. I'm
like hand in a cassette. It's a local J. They
look at it, they see the radio. They look back
up at me, like what's happening here? Exactly to look
at the thing. Took out their cassette, put this cassette in,
shut it, and I think rock the Bells is the

(01:00:31):
first track. L L cool J is hardest. Let me
hit play. They both looked down at the radio, they
looked at me, put the radio on their shoulder. Then
they were happy, and I remember I went back down.
I went back to the dorm room like l is
going to blow up, Like why do you say that? Said,
I just gave these two kids. They couldn't be like
they were like twelve fourteen, and they just put it

(01:00:52):
on it, said they It was the happiest of this.
And at this point Rob Botski was a club. He's
a director of Vice Spread Vice Prevor or whatever the
titles of Colombia. So that was the That was the
first album, the first Deep Channel album, and there was
I think it's the first rapt record to go gold,
maybe first album to go gold. Okay what came after?

(01:01:12):
And it was the best twelve inch which is pretty fun.
And then the BC's album Okay, how did the Beast?
You weren't the BC's on tour with Madonna before that
album because it was a single. They they've done these
two singles, um and she took them. I had to
say to her credit, you know, we'd see around and
she was cool. You know, she took them and she

(01:01:32):
was even when they want to get I mean he's
uh m c a. It was the greatest, you know, yeah,
I mean they would they would practice their routine. They
practice the routines at thet our dorm in the basement.
But I remember I went to see a show. It's like,
you know, I've been all around the world and this
is Madonna. This is like a virgin's over every girl's
thirteen fourteen in the audiences. Like I've been around all that,

(01:01:53):
I've been around this motherfucker. I can tell you right now.
There's no pussy like Boston like, and the kids are
hard five. It's like, you know, like get these people.
Like there's so many complaints, but she kept them, and that,
uh the best was the end of the tour was
at the Garden and I went out and got a
bunch of super soakers and during her set they ran

(01:02:14):
on and they were underwear and they hosed her down
with Then that was like a big That was a
big event. Okay, do you have any idea license to
It was gonna be so gigantic. Again, I think we're
just making me. You know, I was firstfully involved, but
I'm saying I think I sang on. It may played something,
but it was like, I think it was so happy.
We just make ourselves happy, like there was so it was.

(01:02:35):
I explained to it. It's such a like they were
like princes of the city, you know, and somehow just
by being in the court, you were like this thing
like everything was open to you. Everybody want to talk
to you. People come downtown. That's when downtown started coming
to these things. And you know, Lauren Hutton and try
to pick me up at some club one time, you know,
and I was a hundred pounds lighter and a lot cuter,
but you know, and it was just a moment. It

(01:02:56):
was a very magical moment. They could do no wrong.
You know, they were anointed whatever reason. It was still
it wasn't worldwide, but you just felt good about it.
But you had no idea it was gonna don't think
you never know, you know, you don't think it's gonna
be that crazy. Did you read Did you read the book?
Their book? I haven't read it. Yeah, I skimmed it.
The books. It's amazing. Get it on tape because they
tell a lot of the stories and they have just
with my nephew last time. He has the book and

(01:03:18):
the tape. Yeah, I listened It's Funny to a Treat
to Vegas, but I never drove the Vegas like I'm
gonna I'm gonna specifically go to the Vegas. I can
buy this book. Listen to it and you'll hear it.
It was a magical time and those I mean, they
really were blown up into a crazy world. It didn't
affect me as much. But okay, so what else were
you working on? There are desk just I mean that

(01:03:38):
we then then we had like some R and B
stuff that didn't Wressell started like doing some R and
P things, have one that recorded Orange Juice Jones the Rain,
so you and him, um and then it kind of
and then it just kind of got weird, like you know,
the PCs they were gonna make a second you know,
Rick and they started to have their thing. We're got
funny with the money, as I like to say, and

(01:03:59):
just Rick the movie it just kind of fell apart,
you know. Okay, so it fell apart. That's when you
go to work at A and M and they go
to Capital to Capital, they move out here, right, but
they name check you on the record. You are you
involved at all? Just you know what rhymes of orange Okay,

(01:04:20):
So going back to the story, you're at A and
M Now you moved to California, to California. I moved
to California in nine. Okay, Suddenly it was Death American
and it was all rock instead of hip hop. Right.
The first was Slayer, Right, I think it was Slayer,
and then the Crows, a band called Wilf Spain. Maybe. Yeah,

(01:04:42):
it was much more rock. What does that have to
say about you know, rude Rick, He's I think he
was really enamored with l A. He loved it. We
came out, he'd been out here before, like for business
or something. And then we came out in eighty six
to do this um soundtrack to Not the One Andrew

(01:05:03):
McCarthy and and Downey Reddy Stenella's book Less Than Zero.
So we camped out for about a six weeks at
the Montreal and we made a bunch of records during
the course of that, and then I think he was
really enamored with it. I think also he was making
Slayer and making Dance Egg he started making he started
really this really was from the island, more of a

(01:05:25):
rock kind of guy. I think he started making those
records and the seeing he was incredible. I don't know
when you were here, right, you know, walking up and
down Sunset handing out flyers. It was I mean, it
was incredible. I think he just loved it. You know,
he had a porno actress for a girlfriend. You know.
It was just he was just loving it. He loved
the California lifestyle, he loved driving. I think it reminded
him of um Long Island, which is what this is. Really,

(01:05:49):
It's right, that's why. Actually it's a giant it's it's
a suburb. It's like Sunset Boulevard is like Sunrise Highway,
Long Island. It's the same difference. It's just many more whatever.
You keep going and you hit little neighborhoods um So
I think he was enamored with it and hearing K
and NC was happening, so getting to hear the record
he was making on the radio at a Long Beach,
so I think he was he was just completely enamored

(01:06:11):
with it. He loved it. Okay, so you come out
here in eighty nine to help, but with the label,
how do you suddenly become a producer? You know, I
would we're working on the records back in the day,
you know, I was working on the records with him,
and I would always go to the studio UM and hung.
You know, you want to be something, you just call
yourself that boh okay. So when you were out here
with Rick and eight nine, how many people were working

(01:06:33):
for Deaf American? Uh? Just me and Rick. And then
it became that I think he hired We distributed through
Geffen and they hired Mark Theda, you know Mark. I
think Marked was the first hiring. And then maybe another
guy from a guy who used to work Kane A.
C To help with the radio stuff. And that was
like I had an office. UM, we had an off

(01:06:57):
as across the Geffen. There's a pizza place on top
of Corey Street that was our office. So I had
an office there. Rick never came into the office and
he basically worked out of the house. So there maybe
three to three people for a long time. Then it
kind of grew while then started getting bigger as more
so how long did you work with UM? Twelve thirteen years?

(01:07:19):
So how did it end? I don't know if it's over.
I guess it's I mean, I think he just keeps
he kept moving the label. I think he kind of
got less. He started becoming more of a superstar producer.
It's and I don't blame him, you know, it's much
more fun to make a record with Platinum Max and
and Mick Jagger and things like that, you know, And
I think kind of the label stuff wasn't as important

(01:07:42):
to him. And he just kept kept moving and it
kept getting smaller and smaller. And then you will you
do your own things or your wake up wake up
one days the Holy ship. There's no company left. No.
I was doing other stuff. I was like, Um, I
started working on movies Zoolander, there was the first movie,
or around with two thousand, two thousand one. Um, I

(01:08:03):
did a few record I did a couple records other people. Um,
you know this is okay. So if the record you produced,
what are some of the acts you produced other than
the Crows Jayhawks signed them to the label. A band
called Freewheelers the time of the label, the record with
Miriam McKee. Um uh, girl, Tiff Merritt, you know of

(01:08:25):
then a bunch of English bands. It's a band called
Reef did never really happened to have primal scream? Um,
coolest shaker, Um, my favorite is this guy Dan pen
you know he is of did a record in ninety
three or four at Muscle Shoals with the Muscles rhythm section,
and they were probably in my age. I thought they
were old man, you know, they're probably the early fifties

(01:08:47):
at the time. And that was probably that's that's that
was one of the things that it was one of
the best experience and one of the worst experiences that
it kind of ruined me, you know, I mean it's like, Wow,
these guys are great, and then I do this record
for two weeks down and Muscle shoulds. These guys who
were like amazingly listened to each other that you know
that And then and I go back, who was It
was Barry Beckett, David Hood, It was Hood and Roger

(01:09:09):
Roger Um uh, Jimmy Johnson guitar, Reggie Young spooner who
was amazing. Yeah, that was like the core group. Uh.
And then we cut do Right Women, which is one
of the most amazing songs I've ever We had eleven
people playing live at one time were like he Damn's
playing acous guitar and singing, and two guitar players, had

(01:09:31):
the bass drums, had a grand piano, electric piano and
an organ all one thing, and it's just it's have
you ever heard it? But it's the slowest, funkiest even
though it's dead slow, it's just still a groove there.
You can hear the air and it's like and it's
the only it's the only time I cried. I'm talking
about now I might cry again. It's the only time
I cried at work and how to leave the room.

(01:09:53):
I was like, this is just too much because it's
like these guys all came up together. They were telling
me the stories like they were teenagers. They didn't know,
they didn't know what a world exis, didn't making this
greatest music in the world. Wilson Pickett, reather Franklin, and
they all come back together to serve this guy Dan,
who was kind of like the arbor of cool. He
was a James Dean. He's the first guy to have
a song recorded by another round can we twitter? He
recorded like a song. He's just like, he's so badass

(01:10:15):
and he's the greatest. That's I love him. If you
ever get a chance to meet him, he's wonderful. But
um would they give you any respect? It's funny because um,
so I get down there, and uh, I got Joe
John Yqwen. So Joe my Cowen sends me down. He's
working at Sire at the time. He signs Dan. I'm
gonna signed Dan. I'm gonna We're gonna do this one off.

(01:10:36):
You go meet him. He lives in Nashville. I'm like,
happy to I got to Nashville. I go meet to Anne.
How you doing great? I just finished the second Crows record.
We do a little bit of like little dance kind
of he has he's great alt text, voice of the theater,
speakers in the basement, incredible. He's like, he's like, well,
he plays me what he's been doing, and he plays

(01:10:56):
me some demos. Yeah, I don't know. I'm Mackie got
a mat Like everybody's like, it's so funny down there.
He wants to just keep moving forward, you know, even
though and when it was the easiest thing. So you
play me a couple of cuts. I'm like, oh, he's
a good I said, you know. They go, well, yeah,
I gotta play Okay, what have you been doing? So
I played him I just finished second Crows record. I
played a couple of songs and I play of, um,
what's the one my devil My Angel Thorn on my Side.

(01:11:19):
That's the best song on the record. So I planned
that because I like, this is a good sounding at
least a good more devil my Angel. What the hell
is this guy talking about? I'm like, I don't know.
He goes, he goes, he goes, that's I played some
other thing goes. That's probably the best cut you play me,
But I just don't know. This is ugly music, man,
Like I played him like remedies, Like this is just

(01:11:39):
ugly music. What else you got? I finished the first
Jayhawks record. I played the song called Crowded in the Wings,
which is like a soul ballad like Crank. You know,
it's like it's got the thing, beautiful melody, beautiful story
about it, you know, Crowded in the wing, Crowded in
the wing, What the hell does that mean? I'm like, Oh,

(01:12:00):
the guy who's been standing on the side of the
stage all his life, you know, waiting to get it shot. Yeah,
I guess, but I don't understand this crowded in the Wing,
like he just kind of like this is going nowhere.
He's got a fifty seven Chevy Nomad station way again,
and like I'm gonna work at up Dan about fifteen
years now. It's nothing's happening. You can tell. I'm like,
all right, we have a nice time. I go Damn,
it's gonna be great. Your record is gonna be great. Um,

(01:12:23):
so thanks for seeing me. You can't I can't imagine
what it's been a thrill um. I'm really excited to
go to Muscle Souls tomorrow, and I'm like, I'll see you,
I'll see I'll see you down the road sometimes. What
do you mean going to most shoals? I said, Dan,
I don't get to this part of the world very often.
If I'm three hours from Muscle Souls, I'm going, right,
you know I'm going. He goes, all right, did you
ever read Garlics book Sweet Soul Music. It's a must.

(01:12:45):
But there's a whole Muscle Soult thing. He goes, all
I'll tell you what do you come here? You drive,
but we take my Cadillac. We'll go to Muscle Souls together.
Like sounds good to me, Bob. So it's like basically
it's like, uh, Chico and the Man, We're gonna go
this road trip. You know. It's like green bodn't seeing
green Book, but imagine like green books. So I got
him next to me and I start pumping him from

(01:13:06):
information even though I know the answers. So how did
you write this one? And he's like telling me the story.
You're like, oh, that's great, you know. And by the
time we hit the gas station for the first refill,
we stopped and he gets an RC coal and peanuts
he hands to me. He puts the peanuts in the colt, like,
because I don't know what about peanuts and co col
this is going to have a treat sensation with drinking
Coca cola and peanuts. And he's telling me the stories.

(01:13:28):
We pull them to Florence, which is it's Florence Muscial
Souls and Sheffield. We pull them through the first town
and there was a on the main drag. There was
a drug store which they used to write all the
songs that this guy docks somebody or whatever. I'm like,
I was at the drugs. He's like, yeah, that's a
drug store. I wrote more songs. And then I want
to know we're doing this And we finally get to
we get to Fame Fame Studios and Dan, what are

(01:13:50):
you doing here? As it going? Oh? Well, you know what,
thinking about maybe cutting a record, like, who's your friend, Oh,
George Rakolakas you know you know that black he's got
that Black crows Like, oh yeah, good record? Here he goes, yeah,
because so you're gonna cut Here's like we haven't decided yet,
you know, like he's at it all cool again, and
we had a must the whole sound same thing. We
drive back and then I started. Then after I could start,

(01:14:11):
he tells about the the echo chamber. He starts talking about.
Then you know, we're inside baseball and so you know,
I'm getting all the information I dropped on his house.
I said, Dan, this is the greatest day of my life.
Thank you so much. I can go. You know, nothing
else happens to me now I've lived it. Good luck
with the record. It's gonna be great. He's like, well, George,
if you can get down there on April. You know
we're gonna start April seven, and if you can get

(01:14:32):
down there, we'll do the record. You know. So I've said,
how of course I'm gonna be there. We did the
record like in two weeks. Everything was pretty much live.
He was he wanted to do all the vocals again.
But it just didn't work. He's like he he everybody
wanted to please him so bad. They all were playing
to him. We cut the record pretty fast. We mixed
it and um and then he how I knew we

(01:14:53):
respected He's that he mastered it in Nashville. He's like, George,
I think I might have made a mistake. I'm like,
what do you mean. He goes, I'm gonna send it
to you. Send him the record and it was all
squished and like, you have to hear it. I think
you'll like it. It's called right, it's very open. There's
a lot of dynamics, so it's a it's a very
interesting it's an older it's not a young person's record.
You know. I said, yeah, I think they stuck the

(01:15:13):
life out of the record. Dan. He goes, I said,
why don't you come out here. We'll do it out here.
So we drove. He drove out here, We cut it here,
and then it was you know, he he was happy,
and I remember reading saying that he was just he
felt that he could perform. He knew that everything was
really taken care of in the control room. That's how
I was. I was able to ease his mind I mean,
I wasn't gonna I wasn't gonna tell them kind of

(01:15:34):
what the player had to play. I tried to in
the beginning we were cutting something. I'm like, okay, great,
so listen, why don't you uh if he catches that thing, like, George,
you're gonna give me what you want. You gotta learn
the song a minute, him a minute. I'm like, all right, cool, cool, cool.
And this is engineer called Johnny Sandlin, who was the drummers.
He was a drummer in the Hourglass. Were all brothers.

(01:15:55):
And he's he's almost twice the size of me, drinking
uh a Mason joff of die Pepsi's drinking that all day.
And so we cut one thing and and David made
a mistake on the basis and I'm talking to okay, cool,
all right, second thing, and he's sitting next to me,
go alright, great, so we can do a second chorus
on the turnaround in and out okay and then boom baba,

(01:16:15):
dude down back in, stay in and then out for
the thing. Okay, cool, let's do it. I turned you know,
he goes hear this. I'm sorry, George, I really wasn't
paying attention. What was that It's the first day and
I'm like, I'm like, look, man, I'm from New York.
I eat fast, like I do it all fast, you know,
like like I gotta slow it down. So I just

(01:16:36):
kind of I had to like take the heat off.
And then I was also a younger kid, you know,
like so and then once I just kind of let
it happen. You know, there's a couple of happy accidents.
There's it's just great. And like I said, and then
when we cut, like we cut two right, how to
leave the thing? I came back in and like, well,
what any think of that? When I said, you guys
can play that all day and I'll sit here and
listen to it. You know, So that one was better

(01:16:57):
than the other. It was like a matter of just
like catching the other thing. Was that kind of Also, Hey, Jimmy,
has it got nice to meet you. He's got like
a Scheckter guitar and a roll in cor like these
kind of eighties and things like and then I see this, okay,
like what's the that's my greatge that's I played only
reason like does it tun not? Because like yeah, I said,
should we try to use it? He goes, well, I
could try, you know, like so like getting into the
kind of like get back to the more you know what,

(01:17:21):
more organic whatever reason, you know, kind of thing where
the more old school he kind of things, getting the
telecaster out, getting defender amps out. You know that that
was like the first day of kind of like pushing
it in that direction. And it was just this was easy.
Now did day have like the final product? Loved it?
You know, I think he really enjoyed it, but ultimately
the record didn't. It wasn't was it supposed to. It
wasn't supposed to be a I think it was supposed

(01:17:43):
to be like a cachet thing, and he was supposed
to get out there, and you know, he went out
and played some shows. He goes him Spooner play every
now and then if you have you should catch it.
They do like a two man thing. And then a
project like that. How much is it cost to make?
I maybe the whole thing was like fifteen rands of time.
It really made. But I don't know what they paid him.
I don't I don't even know what I got paid,
to be honest. You know, And you worked with Tom Petty,

(01:18:06):
work with Tom, so Rick got hired to do Tom's record.
Well we didn't get hired. They were talking about it
was the development stage, and he owed a record to
he owe the greatest hits and a new song to Universal,
which maybe in the fire and not who knows, but
I think they kept all their tapes in a different place.
But he's like, I have to go see Tom petty,

(01:18:26):
you gotta come with me kind of a thing because
he was thinking a little bit scared to be Tom Teddy.
It's fine, so rick Um, He's like, I really love
food Move Fever. Like you know, Tom has six seven
records before with this band, the Heart rerecord. He goes,
I don't care, Like, well, I think you should listen
to I'm not gonna listen to him. I mean again,

(01:18:47):
knew nothing of Tom's work. It's like, I love he
loved food Moing Fever. We played that endlessly in the
car constantly. I like Full Moon Fever. I bet Tom
likes Full Moon Fever two. So like, I don't know, man,
you better you did listen to some other stuff. So
he took me out to the valley and see Tom.
We go to his house and he was just the
coolest from from the even meet him any time, the

(01:19:08):
greatest from the get go, and um, you know I was.
I was kind of took a little while too, but
then you know, it's kind of a I've always been
a little bit of a wise a and he loved it.
You know, he's he had a great sense of humor
and he was so generous. So yeah, I worked with Well,
so Rick's going in, how do you end up doing
the record? Well, I wanted to do a record, couple down,

(01:19:30):
a couple of records down the road. Rick goes in
and I'm I'm basically I'm his Ed McMahon. I'm with
him the whole time. You know, they go every time
they go to the studio and there, you know, um,
there's a song called Girl and LSD that I make
that I kind of kind of nudgement to writing, Like
he started this thing like, oh you should just finish
that one, keep going, keep going. Um, and so I'm

(01:19:50):
just around, you know. And then when they started they
took they made it a lie of thing, the greatest
hits whatever that kind of and they start it's gonna
be a solo record, and they do most of it
in my Campbell's house. They cut a couple of things,
a cello whatever, um, and then I got like I
was doing another record for a minute, so I had
like or I was working on something else, so I
would get there a little later. And they started always
putting the song wild Flowers on wild Flowers every time

(01:20:12):
I pull in. That was whooping me up. And I'm like,
what why are you guys always like and they were
kind of punking me like they were just two it
so they knew. I was like, why isn't this one finished?
This is done, like, you know, well maybe we should
add you know, you know that I'd be out there
playing a click clock thing or I played something on it,
you know, but um so then yeah, so I stayed
close to Tom and uh and then he called because

(01:20:35):
they did this box set. The box set. Yeah, so
he called me. He's like, we gotta do this thing,
and you know, doing this box set when you go
through my archives and finished what's not you know, finished
a few things, clean up a few things. And that's
when I really bonded with him. And then um, he
was just I think they made another record and he
was just sitting around and Tony's manager dem was like,

(01:20:58):
go go up and see Tom, Like what's going on?
He goes, he should be making a record. I'm like okay.
He's like, let's just go out and see Tom. You
can't tell me. So I would go out to Malibu
and visit with him, and then you play me, like
what have you been doing? He's got a couple of songs,
like play me this one? He played me the last
DJ the song. I'm like, oh, that's great, and they're
gonna record. He goes, yeah, I'll get to it whatever
I said. Well, and I was obsessed with Boom and
Fever as well. It's like, how did you do those

(01:21:19):
things with Jeff? I remember? You tell me? And Mike
was there like like, well, we would do two guys
who play the guitar. Then we'd switched guitars, move around,
and we'd stack them and like why don't we try
to do that with this one? And then that's that
was we were off and running. That's what it became.
Them teaching me how they made the record became making
the record. Okay, so then how do you switch board

(01:21:41):
of movies? Um? So, being out here, all my friends
are directors mostly now bands break up, you know, it's
like one guy wants to be a chef. This guy
you know, this band breaks up. They hate each other.
And Ben Stiller, who I knew just from being in
kind of you know out here in l A. He's like,
I'm making this movie, you should do music. Like what
does that even mean? He goes, You'll figure it out.

(01:22:02):
I'm like, all right, so I just you hired me
to do the music for this movie zoo Lander. I
had no idea what I was doing. And it was
a comedy. I want to make it funny. And we
put some song and he loved it. We had a
great men The first thing they had this remember zoo Lander,
they have the walk off and so they're an editorial
and I send them beat It by Michael Jackson because

(01:22:23):
it's funny and it's you know, it's referenced whatever and ever.
This is great, so great, thanks, this is great, keep going,
you know whatever. And I got a call from the
studio did you get them beat It? And like yeah, why?
He goes, do you know what? I go no idea.
Why it's gonna be expensive? Like, well you can't have
blah blah blah, said is it funny? You know? I'm like, well,
then it's worth x amount of whatever it is. If

(01:22:45):
it's funny, it's funny, you know, it's it's worth it, right,
And like I'm like, well, if you think it's a problem,
maybe you guys, you know, maybe I'll tell Ben you
guys think it. Oh no, no, it's fine, it's fine,
just don't do it again. And then the next thing
there was like was call me like you know that
just completely stuff and that I thought would make us
laugh and have fun, you know, And that was that

(01:23:05):
was the beginning of it. And I've worked on all
his movies since. Okay, so what's your we look like
these days? I who knows, you know, Like like right now,
I'm working on a Nike commercial and it's changed directions
eight times. You know. I've been in the studio working
on pieces this and it's a minute spot and who
knows what's going to be um um. I'm working on

(01:23:29):
a couple of TV shows that are interesting. It's a
little remote because they're shooting in Canada. A lot of
it's done in posts. So I'll start seeing it. Excuse me,
I've seen a few episodes. Is I'll get up, have
breakfast and which way for the phone calls? You know?
I start making calls or whatever. Is okay, So if
you're working on a Nike commercial, what exactly are you

(01:23:50):
doing creating the music for this spot? Okay? So they're
not licensing something, so you're creating it from scratch. How
do you do that? Um? Well, it's again this things.
This is kind of boring, but it became It was
supposed to be one thing in it turns of another.
It supposed to be a girl drummer playing live and
this guy called the v digs, who is um so okay,

(01:24:13):
so the video has people playing in it. That was
the idea. They're gonna shoot. They're gonna shoot this girl
drummer and this guy kind of it's gonna be a
conversation between the drums and the and the vocalist and
with with clips from sports. It's the fourth of July spot.
And then it just kept changing until like, all right,
we're gonna use her, but we're not. We're gonna do
it live, but we're not gonna do that. We want
we do want music. We don't want to drum beat.

(01:24:34):
There's like, well, we'll just do a breakbeat and we'll
do something. So it's just they really put it through
the okay, though they have money, that's one thing, unlike music,
but they don't want to pay and nobody wants to
pay anything. That's other thing. It's it's so funny as
I am not complaining, but I make much less on
a movie now than I did when I first started

(01:24:55):
um and nobody wants to pay for anything. And what
happened was in order to get these movies made, this
is the first thing they do is they slice the
music budget and then it's like, we'll figure it out.
And then you get to the part we're supposed to
figure it out, it's like we want led zeppelind Well
guess what you you you you threw that away when
you you know, kind of a thing. So it's that's

(01:25:16):
the one thing that's that's that's a kind of a
drag is talking about like talking about money. It's boring.
It's just sport. It's like, we want this, but we
can't afford it. Every every conversation I get is hey man,
can you working to say? We really don't have any
It's like that's that's every no matter what it is,
come make my record. I don't have any money to
do this. I don't have money, so it's just what
do you think accounts for that. I think people don't

(01:25:37):
value music at the end of the day. I think
it's been devalued. Well, let's say you're you're working on
a movie. They just figure they can get it from
somewhere else or something else is good or what. It depends.
That's why I like to work with a good like events. Eventually,
if you stand your ground, you'll get what you know,
you'll get you want. And that's not to say that
I haven't worked on small movies with but we still

(01:25:58):
wind up getting it. We get the other people to comitulate,
you know. You say, hey, this is a special kind
of movie, and everybody's doing it for this, you know,
So that's all we have, you know. So it's just
different levels of it. Okay, So you say, okay, you
wake up, you're receiving phone calls, You're making phone calls.
Are you working it? Working in looking for gigs? I

(01:26:19):
don't really do that. Okay, So let's say your phone call,
let's just say the Nike commercial. So you've got a
certain number of calls from that. Will your other calls
be about the Nike commercial? Or there are certain people
you check in with it on a regular basis. My
friends and people, you know, like people that are in
music or film. People will talk talk every day, but
like the any there's a movie being finished now, this

(01:26:42):
Joker movie that Todd Phillips directed, I'll go to the
I'll go after this. I'll probably go to the sounds
that they started mixing. So I'll go and listen to
what they're doing. And but you didn't work on it,
yeah you did. Think it's been along, it's been in progress.
You know, it's went out the end. So the stuff
has been the score has been recorded, the music has
been picked. It's just a matter of mixing it for

(01:27:03):
the final for you know, they do it in reels,
you know, they makes it really so I'll go check
that out. Um I just got another episode of the
TV show. I'll watch that and see what's in there,
what they need. Um uh no, I do know the
No Bound Back movie. We're doing a soundtrack. We're doing
a four you got divorce ones, right, you'll love this one.

(01:27:24):
The new one is it's brutal. I'm not to and
I had to leave the it was like it's incredible,
it's really This new one is great. Um So we're
doing a record for that. We're also doing ahead of it.
We're doing a forty five vinyl like special. Brandy Newman
did the score. That was amazing working with Randy Newman. UM,
So I'll make a call about that. It's got the
mastering from that, I'll checking on the artwork. UM. Let

(01:27:50):
me ask you to what degree are you busy with
work in a regular week. It's always something, you know.
I'm trying to say. It's seven o'clock at night, eight
o'clock at night, you're parking yourself in front of HBO,
or you still work. I'm watching The Eleventh Hour with
Brian Williams, having dinner in my underwear out of a bowl.
Probably I don't go as now as much, that's sure,

(01:28:11):
and and just I'll be I'll maybe listen to music
after I've had the time. Okay, are you not going
out as much because there's not as much to hear
or because you think it's a function of your age
where you are little? Both? I think, I mean, how
much is I don't know if there's much of a
scene right now. I don't think there is either. But
you know, I discussed this with a lot of people okay,
so you're heavily into the political thing. It's it's it's weird.

(01:28:34):
It's kind of ruined my life. It's all t I
mean totally, it's it's it's you know. I just remember,
like just after Trump got elected, I was with you know,
people who run the live business. They don't want to
talk about music. They wanted to talk about politics. It'sact
I don't even care about. It's just it's just so whatever,
he's terrible. I don't know. Maybe. I mean, I'm sure
all you listening to Sneak easterile so we're not again.

(01:28:54):
But it's just it's this thing you can't turn away from.
It's worse than a car wreck. You know. It's funny.
I went, I went especially. I made a record in
England during the election, specifically want to be out of
the country. I voted earlier. I was about I went
to bed over there Hillary Clinton's head great, no problem.
I get up in the middle night to go to
the bathroom. I'm like, it's gonna check in. You know.

(01:29:16):
It's like four in the morning now and five in
the morning there, and I see it. I'm like, this
is not good. You know, It's like, oh, God, and
I'm like, well, how bad it be? And it's worse,
and I think anybody thought, and you wake up every
morning it's like what do this asshole say? Oh? God?
And now you're addicted to it and I don't know
if it's making me feel better or worse, but like
if I do love, I love Nicole Wallace, I love

(01:29:37):
Chris Matthews, you know, and I love Brian That. Those
are probably three shows I want or listen listen to. No,
it's too it's I don't. It's too exhausting. I don't
know what the hell she's talking about. It takes too
longer to get to the point, you know. I love
I love all the reports like it's so funny. I
love all the reporters. Now I love Ashley Parker a
big crush. Uh uh, Casey, you know what's the case?

(01:30:01):
All the I just it's okay, do you check out
the competition. I'll watch Fox for a few minutes and
then I'm just like, I feel like you're taking crazy pills,
you know. I mean, it's just Hannay's evil. I think
it just doesn't like And I started thinking like, well,
maybe am I wrong? Am I can No? No, no, no,
I waxed away. I check in on the satellite. You know,
I'm serious. You can listen to all those stations on

(01:30:23):
a regular basis. Is there any hope for music impacting
the political scene? I don't think so, then why not?
I just don't think people are gonna rally behind the
song on the way they used to do. Do you
mean no, I don't, but I have many Differently, when
we went through the Iraq War, music had a chance.
I think the main problem now, which people this is,
you know, there's a lot of stuff in the entertainment

(01:30:45):
business that people in it I don't want to admit. Okay,
It's like, if you look at the chart, they say
how big. This first came up to with Randy Phillips
was running a g and he was going on about
jay z uh you know, New York state of mind.
You know what I said, that doesn't mean ship in
l A, you know. And then they're not even playing it.
So now you have the I don't want to even

(01:31:06):
judge these records, but the biggest records they don't have
the mind share of the sixties or the MTV era,
So unless and the type of music they're making is
not universal. I mean, this is what I find fascinating.
The last album wasn't that good, But the only person
with universality was Adell. Okay, but no one else is
making those records. This is a big leg Why did

(01:31:28):
somebody else go there? She'd be on you know, she'd
be on the cabin and she'd be on those kind
of if we had variety shows, she'd be like, it'll
be one of those things, and everybody was Your mother
would see it, your grandmother and say, you'd see it.
It's I think there's the the part of everything being
just poured out. Now there's no focus, you know, so
it's hard to break through. I guess to what did

(01:31:56):
we are you watching other than for work? To what
you're watching? Television movies? So the HBO stuff, Game of Thrones,
you know, the euphoria. Not really loved Saul, Better Call
Saul right fast? I love it. I like, I would
rather watch Better Call saulve than Breaking Bad. It's a
slower burner. It's like a real weird it's like a

(01:32:16):
weird energy and and Mike's great. I mean, all the
all the perfulent people are really interesting. Um. Yeah, I'm
watching some TV you know that not my wife likes Maizel.
I haven't really sat down with that. First season was better,
but there's an episode in the cat Skills in the
second that's fantastic. Um Uh, you know we have every channel.

(01:32:37):
We have HBO, Netflix, Just to be clear, because I
used to believe. I remember I was reading the Only
Times once and it was some you know, Live aid
or something, and the critic they said, I don't have
that channel. So you know, this is your business. So
I made a big deal about always having every channel.
And you know, so you have the Amazon, you have everything.

(01:32:57):
Someone says Hulu, Okay, I had a free subscription to watch,
to show whatever. But it's almost like an insult. It's
not the ten dollars a month, but it's like it's
like death by Ducks. I don't have Spotify. I have
a family plan. I think the I think the iPhone thing,
the Apple whatever, the Apple Music, I think it's terrible.

(01:33:19):
The interface is just okay, just a little. Why do
you think Apple Music is terrible? I don't understand. Do
I own this? Am I listening to it? Am I
looking for? Is it a radio? I couldn't agree more.
I mean, this is this is this is where they left.
I mean, I have all the services. And the interesting
thing about Amazon is two things. One you can use
Alex on your phone and too. They say they create

(01:33:39):
the playlist on the fly. However, I don't find there
are too many revelations there. These are I like for
the high quality. Okay, these are early. They keep changing
the high quality name, but it's HQ. If you have title,
they're using that new Uh you know what is it?
The new high level m Q and q A. Ostening depends. Okay,

(01:34:05):
So I have these really good gentle x that they
sent me. I mean, I get the big rig there
too that I can run via Sonos. You're you're listening
at home. But if I'm listening at home, if I'm listening,
I don't do a lot of hiking. Okay at night
and I'm listening on my I don't want to give
anything away because now I'll be killed. But where I

(01:34:27):
normally hiked the about fifteen years ago, we were talking,
we knew the rangers, and he ever any crime here
and he goes just boyfriend and girlfriend once and where
I am listen every case. It's really weird because occasionally
when it's really fucking hot, like over a hundred degrees.
I've had a couple of experiences with a homeless people
all right, start climbing up and they're on the trail,

(01:34:49):
and it's like this is weird. Okay, but but that's
when I listen. Okay, I listened sendaiserst never gonna listen
to beats. I had a pair of Bluetooth sand Heisers.
It also be the magnets went out and I just
threw them away. I had for like six years. But
the Bluetooth sound is just not as good. Yeah, I

(01:35:12):
heard these um ribbon headphones someone's making. Okay, that's for
the home though, Yeah, I mean for the home I got.
They just updated them. But I have the Senderiser HD
eight hundreds, which you know they said we're the best.
I've got some odd disease which having a unique sound.
I got two pairs of those. I think those are great.

(01:35:32):
I mean what I listened to, it's it's I mean,
I have got an A D system. I got some
old j b L. I haven't an A D integrated.
I got the old j b L S two, but
I got another set of speakers because keep it honest.
But when I listened to most I have this like
audio engine, Bluetooth player and just you know, I just

(01:35:54):
take a little take a little j B L flip whatever.
It's just it's odd, you know, because I don't want
to try not listen on the puter, at least listen
off the computer. But most people just I almost brought
those audio engranes. How are they cool? It looks cool,
it sounds good, it's good, it sounds pretty solid. You know,
how about how how expensive of the ones who watch
your bucks? I don't know. So it was a gift,
I think. And then uh and I'll just you know,

(01:36:14):
I'll be in the shower, turn on whatever. And I like.
I like the convenience of this. I think I don't
think people know what a good record sounds like anymore.
So he's pointing to the phone from the phone, but
I don't think people know what a good record really
sounds like anymore. It doesn't I don't thin get that
matters it. I don't think it's you wouldn't know. And
if you did, if you had a really good like
say Dampen record, if you listen to Dampai record at

(01:36:35):
home and you're teenager, you keep reaching for the volume
button and down wait because it has dynamics, you know,
nothing really, and where are you on the vinyl thing?
I got a bunch of it, I know, listen to it,
to be honest, you know, I got it. I got
all my vinyl, and I got a couple of turntables.
They're right there. I rarely listened to it. But the

(01:36:56):
reason you're bringing up, you know, I don't I think
unless you were cutting logue, it makes no sense to me.
But if it was an analog original master, but I
remember a c d C the original c D which
was pretty good, and the second CD on Epic really good,
and I got a lot of power. You know, you
can't turn it up halfway and if you creep cranking

(01:37:18):
the c D your ears bleed, but you crate the
vinal you can feel it like the show. But I mean,
I'm really I think it's like the whole final thing
is like Civil War reenactment. I don't get it whatsoever. Well,
they said c D are back. Did you see that
they take a censer back. It's like really crazy because uh,
you know, I've gotten rid of a you know, I

(01:37:39):
had you know, a ten thousand of d C d s.
A lot of them were you know, CD singles that
never made it. But I have probably two or three
thousand CDs left, and yeah, so do you. I mean
the vinals worth something. The c ds you keep owning
them or you just throw them away, you know, I have.

(01:38:00):
I haven't bought one in a long time. But I
think that's also why I'm not as connected it sounds,
but not as it sounds important to me these new
things that come down the pike, because I don't really
have the same relationship. You know, I'm not holding in
my hand. I'm not reading about it. I'm not I'm
not well. The difference was when we had to buy
it and I don't want to. You know, the future
is here. It's like those guys in Nashville is that

(01:38:20):
you couldn't afford everything, and if you bought it, you
played it to death. Man. That's true. Whereas now you know,
i'll hear something he goes, oh, you know, that's kind
of good, But unless it's revelatory, I'm onto the next thing. Yeah.
As like I said, they only have you don't have.
You don't have a tactile relationship with it, so it's
not it's not as important, you know. But as I say,
I'm dealing with some of this now, you know, trying
to get rid of some stuff to to move to

(01:38:42):
another location. And on one hand, I could throw out everything.
You're of that age. I just wish everything was virtual.
It's like, okay, the DVD the DVDs you haven't watched,
so that's plex plex. You can load stuff off the plex.
What's les. I got a friend I want his name,

(01:39:02):
is obsessed with plex. It's um, it's a service. It's
like your own. When you talking about a home only,
are you talking about the cloud? It's home only? But yeah,
I know it's it's it's it's your own server. Yeah, yeah,
of course. I mean there's a number of companies wherever
you wanted. So he's at about ten tho movies on there.

(01:39:23):
He's just Adam and Costello, shorts, Laurel and Hardy, uh
you know, uh, some buddies. You know. That's the problem
I have. And I don't know. I don't know what
would be like a teenager risk you have. I have
no time. It's like I used to enjoy alphabetizing my
albums whatever, and it's like, you know the amount of
time you never I'm busy seven. I'm not complaining about it,

(01:39:47):
but I just wanted to be able to on demand, okay,
because like you know, I'm sitting there with like twenty
DVDs sub documentaries and I say, okay, well I can
only play this at because otherwise computers don't have a
DVD player. And I know the problem is they go
from service to service. If I knew they were a

(01:40:08):
hundred percent available, I would toss something. But then of
course there's an other thing. Well how many years have
I owned this and not watched it? I mean, Jim
Garrett know he blew everything out, which I can't imagine,
because you know there's certain ship that is never going
to hit the services. But the thing you learned, like
when this thing with the Universal fire, you don't have

(01:40:28):
a hard copy of something something some day maybe gone,
you know, may not be may not exist anymore. What
what did we learn during the Napster era? Somebody it's
like eBay when it's occasionally and I'm afraid of throwing
out and somebody said, you go on eBay. Everything you're
looking for somebody is selling it. And the other thing

(01:40:49):
what we know in the fire, which is a tragedy.
Those are all the masters. The music itself is never
gonna disappear. How many steps from the real thing is
something else? That's true? Oh yeah, But but just making
records for example, Now, so I make a record and
I use this, I'm on pro Tools eleven. We're up
to now. But say I made a record on protal six.

(01:41:14):
It's a fucking hassle get that drive or you gotta drive.
It's a different It's not a FireWire, it's a thunderbolt.
It's it's like I've been going through that recently myself,
because yeah, it's like, how may we're freaking a daters.
I have to get well, you know, it's like I
wanted to connect Thunderbolt two and Thunderbolt three hard drives.
You gotta buy two connectors, and I end up being
on the phone, which you don't. I always think that

(01:41:34):
there was a problem, which I didn't expect whatsoever. And
then my girlfriend's got a FireWire drive Thunderbolt to computer
and wants to get into a hard drive. But in
order to transfer from one hard drive to another, how
many adapters you need? It's just crazy, that's the thing.
At least with a master tape it's you always have
a tape machine. You can always clean the head and
put it on and it will play a thing. I'm

(01:41:54):
not saying that it's not a tragedy. We shouldn't keep
the masters. What I'm saying is the music is not
going to disappear. Well, we can sit here and bs
about all these topics, but before we start, I want
to hear about your things. So I saw I didn't
ever knew you played at all when I saw you
on this picture. You're playing with dway, So is your thing?
Are you failed? Is that what it was? We say
we were like a singer songwriter. No no, no, no,

(01:42:16):
I'm older than you. Okay. So in the early sixties
there was always the folks scene. Okay, everybody had a
ninline guitar in the house. You took lessons from somebody
in the neighborhoods he can say, you know the the
not even that toplicated d whatever, you know whatever. And
then the Beatles hit, Beatles hit. Everybody got an electric guitar,

(01:42:39):
I mean everybody. So I had a cheap, no name
electric guitar, didn't have an amp for like a year.
My father found an ad in the paper. He bought
a Gibson to Bam for like twenty dollars. If I
only had that amp today exactly. So the way I
tell the story, because you started laying in bands and

(01:43:01):
you start to get up tight because they say, okay,
I'm gonna do this, we do that. Then I was
at my friend's house, who was really talented, because now
we're gonna change key, and I said I'm out, okay,
But then I got a Gibson s J. Uh. You know,
you went to Manny's whatever, and it would like you
go there with the money in your pocket and then

(01:43:22):
you know they want to sell it instantly. I saved
this money all summer, but I ended up going to
you know, Manny's and cmatch. But this guy to this
place way downtown Silver and Horland, and I got this
Gibson s J. Really sounded good. The only problem with
my mother put in the fucking crawl space and it
has some uh what mold on it, and the people

(01:43:43):
first the people give them. Of course it's a seventy
or sixty. Yeah, I know, I knew some people gives them,
but then those people gives them with somebody trouble, they're
not there anymore and it wasn't a priority. Okay, but
I played that like the beginning of college, just for on.
Then I never played again. So no, no, no, no,

(01:44:04):
I never had a dream. Well, the law school thing
was a different thing. So I went to college very
different from you, and that I just knew I had
to go to college. I didn't want to study any
of these particular subjects, okay, And I went and exactly
and I went to the wrong school because of very
conservative academically. But there were good things as Middlebury College

(01:44:26):
and Vermont. This is a dark pre internet, you know,
one fuzzy TV station. I went from seventy seventy four.
But the people were prep school people such that I
could I learned what real rich people were, early rich
people then and how they because I grew up in
the melting Pets, you know, suburbs, I never knew anybody

(01:44:47):
like that. And I was the guy who had the
most records, okay, by far, I would live to read
Rolling Stone. Oh yeah, that would be a big thing,
because you know, I remember first they would all fit
on a shelf in one of the rooms we had.
The shelf was bound, you know, but oh yeah, I
mean I had more records anybody on campus. You know,
by when you're in college. By time you're in college,

(01:45:09):
how many hundreds of records is that? But I either
wanted to like right for Rolling Stone, or be a
professional skier. Okay, so I went to professional skier route,
and I only went to law school. I signed up
for the l s A T when I was in
college and my friends came to my front to I said,
we're going to Montreal. You're not going to take that test.

(01:45:30):
And I said, you're right, And I didn't take it.
But then I was in l A and I broke
my leg before the ski season. Professional skier though Sean
Claude at the time. First I just wanted to go
skiing the most guaranteed snows, little Cottonwood Can in Utah,
which was out in snowboard. So I went there. Little

(01:45:51):
did I know that was the epicenter of freestyle skiing.
This was in the renegade days, supposed to being in
the Olympics. So I that up skiing with all those people.
I mean, you know, the world champion, all those people.
The next year, Okay, I'm gonna do that. What I
did not realize because I could ski better than the
you know, on an everyday basis in the world champion,

(01:46:13):
the people who are true athletes. This is really the golfers,
among other things. They turn it up when the pressure
is on, and the amateur you freeze a little bit.
And then I said, it's gonna take me like two
years to get past this. Got the world's worst case
of mononucleosis. And so I started to go to law school.
Hated it. Southwestern and Los Angeles fully accredited, but not Harvard.

(01:46:37):
So I was gonna drop out to go skiing. It
happened to be until two thousand eleven and twelfth, the
worst year you can look. They the worst year in
the history of snow in Utah. So I called my buddies,
they're leaving. Okay, well you're leaving, you know, for Christmas.
That's unheard of. And then I fell in with some girl.
That was my first real relationship. I never wanted to

(01:46:58):
practice law, and if I went to law school for
three years, I'm gona take the goddamn bar. So I
took the bar. This is okay. So because I spent
a couple of years in Utah in the bar, passage
rate when I took was incredibly low, like twenty eight
percent in New York. The worst California is the hardest.

(01:47:19):
So I decided that, oh yeah, that was happening while
I was there. So, um, in any event, you take
the because I said, I gotta pass the bar. I
went to law school. You take the bar, and you
don't find that you take in July. You don't find
out until Thanksgiving. So in the interim, I got a

(01:47:39):
job with the lawyer. I did pass the bar, and
I worked a little bit, and then I ended up.
I mean, I think I could go on and on,
and then I was the only guy I want to
be in the music business who was working in the
movie business. Now everybody else had dreams of reverse. I
was working for a law from the guy ultimately was famous.
He made a certain amount of number of movies, but

(01:48:00):
he was famous for something else. He represented George Foreman
with a grill, and he made money, but he was
a sole practitioner, so he would literally do everything. I mean,
it started off. I don't know if you know your
rock history, but Cosa Blanca Records a kid, Okay, so
Cosa Blocker Records. There was a California law issue because

(01:48:22):
they were the manager the record label right right, Well
that's not what they called it. But there was a
law ironically started with Jefferson Starship where you couldn't be
the age in the manner, so we represented people who
had songs on the Bad Girls album. So there was
a lot to argue about. And then I went to
work for an independent movie producer and we put this

(01:48:44):
band Wasp in one of our movies, and I, let's
go back in the eighties, making a movie was a
really big deal. Today you can make them. They literally
make movies on an iPhone, and I learned not to
make movies. For for a million dollars, you could make
the movie, and most other people were not. So I

(01:49:05):
worked for this guy, Charles Band. While I was there,
the biggest thing we did was well, this isn't the biggest,
but Jawnson three D came out with the Universal and
we made a storm called an album called Metal Storm
in three D. That followed that into the theaters, which
wasn't good. But Charlie called me one night goes what
kind of music can be licensed chief that people really addicted?

(01:49:26):
I said metal and then it wasn't in there. And
then we had a record with the me Moore's husband's group,
because before I got there, Charlie had made a movie
called Um Parasite and three D. That was Demean Moore's
first movie. But we put this movie. Yes, But after
I left, he was more he directs, sometimes produced sometimes

(01:49:50):
and he did he produced re Animator and three D,
which is really kind of a classic. And then when
you know, I ended up working for this company, these
these guys, it's basically Sanctuary Music. They've changed a couple
of times the name and but no, that's the interesting thing.
It was not a legal job. It's running the office.
We were in a house above the Rainbow on Weatherly

(01:50:12):
that Peter Sellers bought but never lived in because he died.
And it was Iron Maiden in Wasp. Don't forget what
was the guy's name, Ron Smollen exactly, Rod Smote and
his partner Randy Taylor. Not that Duran Duran one. They
could only be in the US ninety days, right right.

(01:50:33):
So I remember we we had a very rich deal
with Capitol Records, and we had enough money that I
started the video. Okay, the video's budget was fort K.
I was in about eighteen K, so I called Capital
for the check. And he says, uh, Gary Culpepper says,
we only cut checks on Thursdays. You only cut checks

(01:50:56):
on Thursdays. So you know, I call Odd who's in
the Bahamas, and I said, you know what should I
do this? Well, this is why we hired you. You know,
you call back and go, okay, I'm eighteen in. Either
you cut the check or I'll bill you for the
eight team. So they cut the check. You know, we
had a lot of power, but ultimately I lost my
job over a creative issue. Uh. Well, this is the

(01:51:18):
type of thing. I can't believe I'm going on about this,
but this is nothing. Okay, you know I was Linda Perry.
I went through some of this. Otherwise I could go
on for a whole day. I'm trying not to repeat myself,
but um, we have this being lost. They wanted to
produce themselves, Okay, they ended up using how come I
can see this guy's name suddenly Metal not Metal Blake?

(01:51:42):
Oh no, no, no, that was the other one, the
guy who found all the guitars. Now he was living
in Sebastany. What party exactly? Good friend of mine. What's
Mike Party doing today? He's a member of the oh,
I read that. I read that he sold he sold
it to Red One whatever. He sold the orchard. He

(01:52:04):
lives in Vegas. I talked to him last night and
get him on the phone right now. He's not up.
He's still a vampire. He doesn't get up till any
of them he wanted. He wanted to produce the record,
and they didn't want. He knew that they hired Varney,
they could boss them around. It was a good experience
with Varney. Varney was a nice guy. The only problem, well,
the two tracks we cut. One of them was the

(01:52:27):
one that the PMRC cut went down on the animal
fuck like a beast. So the problem was he had
this engineer. He really didn't know what he was doing.
So the mixes were just fucking terrible. So at the time,
the A and R guy at the Capital was Carter. Okay,

(01:52:48):
who was what is he these days? He's dead? Okay?
John Carter was famous for right he was writing the
He wrote the Lyricture in sze Pepperins ultimately brought Tina
Turner back, but that was after So I say, you know, Carter,
can I come up and play you this? You know
these mixes? So I go up I blame him the
mix on a cassette, turns it off in the middle,

(01:53:09):
and he goes, I passed on this band three times.
It was signed above me, do whatever the funk you want? Okay,
How am I going to deal with Blackie? Okay? Is
the lead Blackie Lawless, who is wasp Because I told him,
he said I left part of the story. He would
only remix the record if Carter said to Okay, And

(01:53:32):
Carter said that. So I'm figuring out what I'm gonna say.
But I get back in my office. Blackie comes back.
I knew I love chocolate chip cookies, came with a
big bag of Mrs Fields and said, I'll do it whatever.
So we got this guy, Dwayne Baron, who was famous
at that point because he had engineered and mixed the
Quiet Riot records, and he the engineer, but didn't mix

(01:53:52):
the No More Tears Azzi record. I don't know where
he is today, but he now made the record listenable.
The problem with bands is they have a vision of
what they're gonna do. Okay, so suddenly it's gonna be
a different single. So I said, no, it's got to
be this single, okay, And ultimately Rod was in town

(01:54:16):
and he goes, we got we gotta do this, you
gotta do that? Goes, well, you know what difference does
it make? It? The first album only sells a hundred thousand.
That was the stiff, which I had the opposite thing,
and I was supposed to fly to UH to the
u K. And the Andy Taylor came back and said

(01:54:36):
it's not working out because I was standing in the
it really fucked what uh? I wanted a song called
love Machine? Do you know that record? Okay? They wanted
to go with something I want to know? But no,
I don't need no doctors on that record. No, No,
that's later. Do you think of the humble Pie version

(01:54:59):
I was, you know, after the first record, I was done.
I want to be something that's that exactly. That's the record,
That's what that's all you wanted. No, that's not the one.
Okay though that was the first. That was the first thing. Look,
but if you go back to that record and go
to love Machine, this is four okay. So the nature

(01:55:24):
of those jobs, I say, I could go on for hours.
I'm trying to make it very short just to edify you,
is that you can't spend a dollar you're working around
the clock and the other thing. You know, it's sort
of big. I said, the guys were going to the airport, okay,
Andy and Rod and said, you got any got any money?
I haven't even go to the airport that need like
they go, you gotta need company money. This well, you know,

(01:55:47):
I like a lot of money in the bank account.
He goes, well you should have some money. They whip
off four thousand dollars cash and I go, what am
I supposed to do with this? And they said put
it in your pocket. Good And then you find you
need it because nobody has any credit card. Well, we
want to rent a skeleton. They require a thousand dollar deposit. Okay,

(01:56:09):
here's a thousand. So I was you know, I had
worked on movies, I you know, worked as a music supervisor,
did some other ship. But eventually the money ran out,
and then I started the newsletter. When was that you
monetize the news letter from Yes, let's okay. What happens

(01:56:30):
is when I would read the stuff. When I went
to Middlebury, there was one professor who wrote see stories badly,
and when I read my ship, it was like screen
time for hitlo. Okay, So I never wrote another thing.
But when you're ten years later, you're working, you get
all these bios. The buyers were just horrific. So the

(01:56:50):
bios um I would have to rewrite them. And then
I ran out of money and I went to a
job counselor and they said, here's you have to write
these six essays brag about yourself. And I wrote the
six essays and uh, I got back in touch on
Let be a writer. So you send stuff to magazines,
Go wait a second, this is just like the music business.

(01:57:11):
You got to know the people. So I'm reading Billboard
one night. It's terrible now, but it was terrible. Then
in between the Timothy White made it someone Okay, I
said this is terrible. I could do a better job
than this. So I started the newsletter and I said,
I have a target number of people that if they

(01:57:32):
do if they subscribe, I will continue doing it. I
was really doing is an advertisement for myself to get
into the job. What I did not expect is generally speaking,
only the most successful people subscribe. The heads of all
the labels, they could hear something contrary, and at the
time it was all tips. I gotta do stuff, not
tips about records. Nineties were very bleak. Just no, that's

(01:57:56):
what I was doing. First. It was the full time
effort to write it more times to day. I know,
it's like you know, but the right the dark ages. Uh,
you know, you had to print it, you had to
put it in the envelopes, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. But um,
then the year I got very into the Internet because

(01:58:16):
I had a free subscription to a well when it
was right right even before that. And then of course
we're friendly with Geiger. What we're friendly with at this
then because he's you know, he's a big proponent early
days adopter. Let's not talk. I mean, I'm good with
Geiger and he's great at w M E. But that's
a whole different job. But I have some artist direct stock.

(01:58:40):
How much it? And then did you put into artist
direct stock? I want to talk about. Okay, without obviously
crashed soon after went public. Uh but when Napster happened,
I was I was a lawyer. I knew what was
going on, and I was totally Internet savvy. So that's
what happened there. But now you know, have to tell me,
you know, but how does this news letter generate? Well?

(01:59:00):
At this point. I charge for the newsletter and then email.
It's free, right, But what I found is, and I
don't have enough time, and I want to board the
audience with how I decided to make it free by
being free. I was at the cutting edge of everything. Accidentally. Okay,
I had this book. I go to this conference and

(01:59:22):
Aspen first year, they sent an email contact list and
it's like, also, did you get an interstant response? Then
I had this David Geffen book, The Operator, a weekend
before anybody, and I wrote about it, and then I
got the response. And then I had a directory which
had some email addresses from my subscriber list. Said it

(01:59:42):
all of a sudden, you're experiencing, you know, virality. Remember
Jefferson Holt, who was the manager. He starts email and go, well,
it's fine, how did you get it? Well, I got
it from Mark Williams. Well, Mark Williams wasn't a subscriber either.
So that's when I started experience virality and this result
of being free. This was before everybody said give it

(02:00:03):
away for free. I was hearing from people all over
the world and became, you know, an interesting thing. And
of course music was a canary in the coal mine
for this digital disruption for fifteen years we figured it out.
They still think, you know, and then in the movie
business they're going to counteract it somehow. But also I
grew up in the era where music was everything, and

(02:00:26):
music right now the politics is the thing. But they
don't want to they don't want to own that. Well music, music, okay,
whatever it is, it's really about the politics thing. But
as far as I'll give you more detail because I
want to bore the audience at another time. But I
love that you asked me. But we have to. We've

(02:00:46):
come to the end of the feeling we've known. George,
thanks so much for being on and tell these great stories.
Hope it was boring either. Until next time. This is
Bob Left

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Bob Lefsetz

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