Jeff "Skunk" Baxter

The first half is all about Ukraine/Russia/defense and the second half is all about Skunk's musical career. You may or may not know that Skunk has worked with the defense department for decades. As for his musical endeavors...hear the inside story on Steely Dan, the Doobie Brothers and more!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.
My guest today is guitarist extraordinaire Jeff Skunk Baxter. Jeff,
how you doing, I'm doing just find it. That's very
kind of you, the introduction. That was very kind. Thank you. Okay,
do most people in your intimate life refer to you
as Skunk or Jeff? They refer to me as Skunk.

(00:31):
It's my sort of rocket roll nickname. And for my
day job, even when I was at the White House,
President Bush called me sculpture. So and it's my call signs.
So when I get on the phone and people are
looking at me like I'm from flatted X and said, listen,
I need to talk to Nato Balls and bam bam.
So get him on the phone and they'll go, what

(00:53):
the hell are you talking about? Everybody has a call sign. So, yeah,
you have a new album, Speed of Heat. Sir? Why
record an album? Well, since I've been working on it
for about twelve years, there comes a time when everybody
must graduate from high school and you have to, you know,
stop what you're doing and put a period on it.
So I got to the point with my my music

(01:15):
production writer partner c J. Vanston, where after twelve years
we figured we got everything that we need. We'll take
it from there. Okay, I know c J emails me.
How do you know CJ? I met c J in
Chicago many years ago, about thirty years ago, when I
was flying to Chicago to do jingles. Uh. They had asked,

(01:39):
you know, for the different jingle houses. Um, sleeping on
the sofa at Universal Studios sounds in Chicago, because why
go to the hotel when you started seven am and
keep doing it until you drop. So I would spent
like a week in the studio, and many of the
sessions that I did there uh included c J as

(02:02):
the keyboard player, and we started to play together. We
had a really good time. And then one day, um
it was a Wednesday. I think it was the producer
of the jingle, who shall remain nameless, so I'll just
say his name was Bob Um came in and he
was really banked. Uh. It looked like being up for

(02:23):
about three or four days, which is fine. You know,
we're session sluts, you know, we do what we do.
And so Bobby walks in and goes, okay, guys, all right, um,
are you guys ready and say, sure, man, what do
you got? He said, well, here, here it is. So
he starts to hand out the music and it says
highat it has a key signature, at a time signature,

(02:48):
and sixty four bars. That's it. So he says, well,
you guys ready, And I looked at c J. And
he looked at me and said, yeah, what the hell,
who needs music? Give us a click? We know what
the key signature is. Let's go. And so we composed
on the fly the jingle, and afterwards we realized, hey,

(03:09):
if we could do this, maybe we ought to start
playing together. And I said to him, listen, if I
were do a solo project, I would love to do
it with you, because actually the proof is in the
eating of the pudding. As they say, there are two
cuts on the album, both instrumentals that we just wrote
as we played it. So there's this really wonderful magic

(03:33):
and and nonverbal communication sort of understanding in a higher
dimension when the two of us play together. So we
started recording together and we filled up twelve tracks and
again it's time. Okay. Needless to say, today's landscape is
very different from the seventies and eighties when you had

(03:54):
your most commercial success and it's hard to get notice
you don't make as much money on recordings. What are
your expectations or what are your feelings about that? That's
an interesting question. I guess if I was nineteen or
twenty three. You know, it's just like Steely Dana when
we did the first record. Oh yeah, man, it's gonna
be great. You know, Uh, that car on Sunset strip.

(04:16):
I'm gonna have one of those, you know, move out
of that crappy apartment in Hollywood. Now. The most important
thing to me it was actually making me what do
we call them records? Now? Well, you know there's still recordings.
I call them records. A record, you're making a record?
So are kk idea absolutely so? Uh to make to

(04:41):
do a recording of some of the stuff that I
would like to do because I've hat a session musician.
I counted the years. It's a little nuts. It's sixty
years so far of working in the studios as a
studio sausage. So it's time and I'm not planning. It
was more important to me actually to be a first

(05:03):
call studio guy that it was to be a rock star.
To me, you can either have a nice airplane or
you can be top gun. So I kind of move
towards the the ladder. But making a solo record, the
opportunity to actually play what I wanted, Um, that's was important.

(05:26):
That was really important, and doing it with c J
was even more fun. And you know Clint Black and uh,
Mike McDonald and um uh David Paige played the organ
solo on My Old School and Johnny Lange and I
mean it was gonna be an instrumental album. Then all
these guys said they wanted to work on the record.

(05:47):
I said, sure, why not, and here we are. So
it's half vocals, half instrumentals. But most importantly it has
a patchy on it, which was always my favorite instrument
it as a kid. Okay, it took twelve years. So
where did you record in a home studio? How did

(06:08):
you do it in? What were the gaps in between tracks?
The vast majority of it was at CJ's place. He
has a studio called the Treehouse. And it took twelve years.
Because I'm produced at albums, I'm doing tons of studio work.
I mean, I'm still going out in the road, you know,
with Julie and Lena are different folks, And uh CJ

(06:29):
is a busy guy too, so it really was it
was like getting together with your son to build a birdhouse.
Whenever you can find the time, you're go into the workshop,
and today we'll do this, and tomorrow we'll do this.
So it was, yeah, it was kind of like that
home craft. Okay, you mentioned a son and a treehouse.

(06:50):
Do you have any kids? I do. I have two
wonderful children, And how old are they today? My son
is forty five and my daughter is third e seven. Now,
my son Fender not my idea, a little a little
bit stower. What's the middle name Fender? Okay, so the
middle name is Fender. What's the first name Jeffrey? But

(07:11):
everybody calls him so if it wasn't your choice, it
was his mother's choice. Yes, And uh my my grandson
his middle name is Gibson. So I'm thinking if I
ever have a daughter, a granddaughter, I'll probably want to
name her Taylor Martin, which I think is a beautiful

(07:31):
name anyway, you know. And so I have that, and
I have my daughter. She has three children, and her
name is Faith. My son is a building contractor. He
was former Special Forces. Something's Ranger Battalion, Panama Haiti, etcetera, etcetera.
My daughter I brought into the dark Side when she

(07:53):
was eighteen, brought her into d C, hooked her up
at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, and she's been
moving downrange ever since. Okay, the life of the musician,
it tends to be itinerant. How was it having kids
being a musician? Did you have enough time or do
you wish you had more time? I certainly wished I
had more time. Um, and I didn't really get to

(08:14):
spend much time with him until later on. But they
bring me such joy. Uh, And it's probably I probably
appreciate it more now. Frankly, the older you get, the more,
at least in my experience, the little things drop away.
You begin to experience a lot more as you get older,

(08:37):
because you have enough experience to appreciate experience. So that
makes sense. I'm old too, so I completely understand it's
a wisdom. People who are not old don't understand. But
when you're in that park, it becomes obviously well. And
you tell it, tell your kids that they go, yeah, sure,
right right, and and now my daughter goes, oh yeah,

(08:58):
Now I get it, Yeah, okay, how many times you've
been married? Never been married? Okay, so the mother of
those two children, how long were you with her? Two
different mothers? I see, And I really don't want to
get too much into it because I don't want to.
I don't want to bring it too much personal stuff
into it. I mean, I don't you know, I got
nothing to hide. But I also don't want to when

(09:20):
you when you bring you know, personal stuff into it
you I don't know. I just I'm always careful about that.
People can say anything they want to buy me. But
let me just ask this. Being a musician, is it
hard to sustain relationships? I think so, But I can
only speak for myself. I know musicians that have been
married or have been living with someone for a bazillion years.

(09:43):
And then I know musicians who have never been married
or musicians who married later in life. So I probably
am not the go to person for expert advice. I'm
not a SMEE, a subject matter expert on on that. Um,
I've seen it every I've seen it all. Okay, let's

(10:04):
go right as we speak, there's the conflict in Ukraine
between Ukraine and Russia. As a defense expert. What do
you see there? My caveat, and I have to be
very careful. My caveat is I do not speak for
the US government, and any opinion that I have or
any observation that I make is purely, purely personal, and

(10:25):
I have to say that as a disclaimer. Um, so
you're asked to give me what do I think about
this situation? In Let me just ask you before we
get there. Since you gave that disclaimer, are you still
working for the government in the defense capacity? Yes? Okay,
So when I'm talking about Ukraine in Russia, let me
set it up. Certainly communism fell, Putin came in, turns

(10:50):
into autocracy. You know, he took property back after the Olympics.
We have never put a stop to it. Now he
is invaded Ukraine. Suddenly the Western country seemed to be
sending munitions. As an expert in this field, how does
it play out? Because you know, just yesterday they said, okay,

(11:12):
this is you know, all NATO attacking us and we
have the nuclear option. How do you see this conflict? Well,
a little bit of context. After the fall of the
Soviet Union, which was the combination of French Fies, blue
jeans Elvis Presley and misssile defense. The Soviet Union became

(11:34):
Russia and had this sort of regroup. Putin, I believe,
has a vision where he would like to go down
in history as the great Russian unifier who brought Russia
back to its golden era where its borders were the

(11:54):
same as at the end of World War Two. Install Uh,
create it a buffer zone what the Russians referred to
as the near strategic around Russia to protect him. And
you know he's done that. He thinks that without that
military that sort of land uh land soldier land warfare concept. Uh,

(12:22):
what's gonna happen? It's gonna get even uglier, I think,
And that's just my opinion. Uh. Mr Putin is a
ruthless killer. He has and the Russian way of fighting.
If you're familiar with Afghanistan, the use of and I

(12:44):
personnel minds that are designed to blow off the hands
and feet of young children, crushing babies underneath tank treads. Uh.
If you can get your head around another non Western
and Judeo Christian way of looking at warfare, then you
can begin to understand his doctrine and his war fighting doctrine.

(13:09):
You mentioned nuclear weapons. The Russians have stated their doctrine
of escalate to de escalate the possible use of nuclear
weapons and a conventional UH scenario mostly too, if they
feel that the near strategic, the area that's close to

(13:32):
them is threatened. UH. This, this kind of warfare is ruthless.
You saw it in Syria, you saw it in Georgia,
you saw it in Czech Death. There's nothing new here.
It's the same nastiness we have all that history, which

(13:55):
is ruthless. So let's talk about Ukraine specifically terms of Putin.
Can he end up with East Ukraine to clear victory
and leave it at that? Would that satisfy him? The
strategic messaging, the perception management, perception engineering, moving in terms
of their media, which is very controlled, the fact that

(14:17):
their vast majority of their population has no access to
any other media but state media, preparing them to say, oh, yeah,
don't you don't you remember we said that this is
really what we wanted. You know how that works? So
you read so it's very or well, and the Ministry

(14:38):
of truth will then begin to remind people of what
the truth is supposed to be, that he would what
he really wants. First of all, he wants access. He
wants to cut off the south of Ukraine. Who wants
to make sure that he has access to the water.
Number two, he wants to make sure that Ukraine is

(15:02):
a crippled orphan struggling for life for the rest of
its foreseeable future. He's killing everything he's and he is
destroying the infrastructure of the country. It again looks very
much like nineteen forty four, end of ninety three, beginning

(15:26):
of nineteen in Europe when the Russians invaded or return
the favor to Germany during World War Two. Utter complete devastation. Okay,
so if it's utter complete devastation, how should the West
handle putin? Well, that's an interesting question, and again I
have to be to be very careful. Let me step

(15:51):
back for a second. Um. In many of the war
games that I do of the time, I represent the
Red team, Red meaning the bad guys of all the
bad guys. The number one objective and the number one

(16:13):
uh the most important thing is regime preservation. Everything else
takes a second, takes second place, second fiddle. Preserving yourself
as the leader in an autocracy is the only goal.
Everything else is subsumed to that. Putin needs to stay

(16:36):
in power. The only way he can stay in power
is to constantly do a number of things amplify and
praise Russia's strength. You've noticed that the one word that
the Russian media uses in referring to Ukraine more than
any anything else is nazis Nazism. So what he's doing

(17:01):
is he's recalling the memory of the Great Patriotic War,
is how the Russians refer to World War Two and
ginning up that emotion that we're fighting Nazis. If you're
fighting anybody else, it's kind of hard to hate the Ukrainians.
Most of them speak Russian. So you have to create

(17:26):
an enemy, and then you have to conquer them, and
you have to show that you're conquering them, and you
have to show that you're ruthless. So Putin needs to
prove that he's a leader, proved that he's in control,
create whatever mythology that he needs to create, to say
to his people, I have accomplished what I've accomplished, See

(17:48):
what a great leader I am. That's the goal, and
of course, to cripple Ukraine to the point where maybe
it doesn't even become a part of NATO. He was
very upset about that one. Okay, so at first everybody
was there were sanctions on Russia, but the Western countries
relatively hands off. Just recently the United States government said

(18:11):
they'll ship material within seven days. Germany now is coming
down opposite even though they need fuel opposite Russia. Israel
is condemning Russia. Is this just all words, or are
we going to send them enough infrastructure, tanks, you know, missiles,
etcetera that they can defend themselves. Where is a foregoing

(18:33):
conclusion that Prutin will take what he wants. Well, again,
I'm not gonna I'm not gonna even speculate on US
or Western policy. But the fact that the Germans, in
some shape or form now they've backtracked a little bit,
but still in some shape or form, have said, in

(18:56):
spite of the fact that we rely on Russian uh
um fuel, mostly natural gas and some coal, we are
willing to take a stand against against Russian aggression. I
think Putin has made a big mistake because in his

(19:17):
own mind his the way the Russians conduct foreign policy
is much the same way the Chinese do. They they
live in a bilateral world. They don't like to live
in a multilateral world. To them, NATO is a multi
multilateral situation and problem each separate country. If you deal

(19:41):
with each separate country country in a bilateral way makes
it a lot easier. And then you can UH, in
typical Russian fashion, UH pit one ally against the other
and create discord and split the alliances. Hasn't really worked
that well. It worked many times before, but it hasn't

(20:04):
worked that well this time. So I believe he's made
a miscalculation on that level. The only problem is if
it gets to the point where it starts to look
bad for him, he's gonna have a couple of tough choices.
I don't think we'll see the nuclear option, but what
I I am very afraid of is the use of

(20:25):
weapons of mass destruction other than nuclear weapons, or what
we are seeing is massive conventional destruction of everything, people, buildings, infrastructure, everything,
to just lay waste to it completely, which is what

(20:47):
the Russians did in Germany during World War Two. If
we talk about Syria, we talked about poison gas. You
think that's an option they might use. What I think
about Syria, well, we talk about chemical warfare. I'm not
as worried about that as I am about the use
of things like barrel bombs in the Scriminate killing. They

(21:10):
found a number of flashettes embedded in buildings in certain
outside of certain cities in Ukraine. I don't know if
you're familiar with flashettes, no, no, can you explain what
those are? And also barrel bombs. A flashette is in
a sense kind of like a modern arrowhead. Uh. It

(21:31):
is made out of a very strong metal and when
it pierces something it's it leaves a very ugly wound.
It's like, um, if somebody loaded up a cannon with
a bunch of straightened fish hooks that were probably three
inches long and maybe half fininch wide by the thousands.

(21:55):
It's basically a scythe that cuts through everything. It's an
it's a complete anti personnel weapon. It's designed to maim
and kill on Uh. It's probably the modern version of
what grape shot was back in the Barrel bombs are

(22:18):
basically fifty five gallon drums full of explosives and whatever
else you might want to put in it, pass uh, metal, glass, whatever,
and you just roll them out of helicopters and you
roll them down on people and it kills everything without
a sixties seventy ft radius. Do you anticipate, as a

(22:41):
result of sanctions and as result of inferior tanks and morale,
that the Russians may end up with the depleted force
or do you believe they have enough resources they can
continue to fight for a very long time. I'm I
think they're gonna They're gonna have a problem recruiting their

(23:03):
Their military will never be all volunteer, and one of
the reasons find the low morale in the military. I mean,
I remember in UH back in the day, I think
it was Blenko flew a big into Japan out of
the camp Chat Peninsula, but it couldn't go above fifteen
thousand feet because the ground crew had drank all the

(23:24):
d I all hydraulic fluid. So that gives you an
idea about what it's like to be in the Russian
army um as far as um inferior tanks, Yes, and
no that that I there will come a time where

(23:45):
there will be decisions made by Putin and his inner
circle to change the the equipment, UH military hardware that
they apply to the conflict. As far as um, what
what will happen In. Right now, Russia is making more

(24:07):
money now from it from uh petroleum exports than they
were before the conflict. So right now he's not hurting
at all. It's actually doing much better. So the question
is how do you define winning? Just how I understand

(24:34):
because you're closer than I am. So you're saying, despite
all the sanctions and the fall of the ruble and
the banking restrictions, when even it all out, he's actually
doing better. Yeah, I just remember quickly. I was I
was giving the Wall Street Journal today and I saw
an article that spoke about his I think I was

(24:54):
in the Wall Street Journal that spoke about how he
was actually collecting more money than he was before, not
hurting sanctions notwithstanding the Russian people are not happy. But
so what? And do you think there's been talk of
Sweden in Finland joining NATO. Is that a possibility or

(25:15):
that's just gonna trigger more mayhem. I think it's a
possibility for a couple of reasons. One the obvious reason
is if they believe that Putin has miscalculated now, they
probably don't believe that he has learned a whole lot
from the situation. And we go back to the motivation,

(25:39):
regime preservation, etcetera, etcetera. That's not really gonna change. Uh.
And also NATO has become in some sense a de
facto trade organization. It's not just military, but there's a
lot of economic interaction between members of NATO, and so

(26:01):
for some it has become more than a military alliance.
It has become economic, social, educational, etcetera, etcetera. It's it's
it's grown a couple of facets to it. So it
makes good sense. So how does trying to fit into
all this? That's a rather broad question. That's like saying,

(26:24):
play me every solo you overplayed. Okay, let's attack it
from a different way. Certainly, under Clinton we moved towards globalization. Okay,
now there is talk that we're deglobalizing. Needless to say,
when Trump was president, he certainly pulled back. The world
was getting closer, and now people are talking about the

(26:46):
world pulling apart into its various Fiefdom's got a bad connotation.
But the EU, the United States, China, Russia, how do
you see globalization today? Right? Going back to tribal um
first of all, again to understand the Chinese government leadership philosophy,

(27:10):
first of all, Number one, they are the chosen people.
Number two, they have been humiliated in their own mind
for the past hundred years and it's time to pay
the piper. Number three, they feel that they should be

(27:31):
now the leader of the world, and it's interesting to
see how they're going about doing that. One way, of course,
is to replace the dollar as the world currency. And
I will bet you whatever it is you'd like to
bet um, you know, uh, dinner at the cheesecake factory,

(27:52):
whatever it is that they will be asking the Russians
to pay. The Russians will be asking the Russians they
will pay the Russians for their um um raw materials
in Chinese currency. And as soon as they do that,
the Iranians will do the same. They're they're pushing very

(28:15):
hard to replace that. So it's not just warfare or
conflict on a narrow level, it's conflict all across the board.
China is the only real winner in this game right now,
because they're gonna buy everything that Russia can dig out
of the ground. I remember a friend of mine on

(28:38):
the Joint chiefs of Staff asked me, said, skunk, I
want you to describe to me in very few words.
The Russia said, yes, sir, Russia is a nuclear armed
gas station run by the mafia with a little grocery
store that sells a couple of things. If that's all
you got, and you're being sanctioned by much of the world,

(29:03):
and you don't have to worry like the Chinese. One
of the reasons that the Chinese have been so active
in the South China Sea is they remember the the
Co East Asian Co Prosperity Sphere that Japan set up
in World War Two to try to protect the sea
lanes of communication and supply. China has done that. But

(29:26):
now you could build a railroad from Russia to China,
never have to put anything on a ship and protect
your ability to um access raw materials. And the Russians
will sell them everything they've got, and the and the
Chinese will buy everything they have. So who wins right now? Okay,

(29:49):
So let's talk about America. One thing, you know, it's
hard to move forward in America if you read about China.
Not only are they head in electric cars, they're buying
up all the rang materials around the world. In addition,
as we know, production goes where its cheapest. Presidentally production
is in China of chips, of computers, et cetera, mostly Taiwan,

(30:13):
mostly Taiwan. That begs two questions. Since China certainly clamped
down on Hong Kong and supposedly the next move is Taiwan.
Is that something that's imminent. If there's such a word
as imminence, then I would say the definition of imminence
in the Western world which is usually about a thirteen

(30:36):
week um economic cycle in business, and China which is
five or six hundred years, and in bits and pieces,
I would say from a Chinese point of view, it's imminent.
There's a couple of factors here. They the goal of

(30:57):
the Chinese government in the last fifty years has been
to reclaim three things Macau, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. They
got two out of three. J And Ping also has
to show something. The next party congress is coming up
very soon, and he wants to be um h King

(31:23):
or President or whatever acute label they want to put
on it for life. So he has to prove that
there's a reason for that and that people should agree
to that. So is the invasion of Taiwan imminent? In
a from a Chinese perspective, yes, whether from a Western perspective,

(31:46):
I don't think so. I don't think China is capable
of securing Taiwan. I think it would be a very
different battle. And this is just my opinion. I would
posit that there will be no massive attack like you
see in Ukraine. There will be a cyber attack. I

(32:08):
would call it a cyber siege that will shut Taiwan
down until people starve and then sue for piece. So
let's talk about warfare. You and me grew up in
the Vietnam era. We were told that America was the
greatest country in the world. We could win any war.
But needless to say, with guerilla warfare, hearts and minds,

(32:29):
we could not win. So for sixty odd years we've
had the nuclear option. So if you're fighting war today,
how important are missiles? We have this incredible defense budget.
Where should it be put? Missiles and nuclear weapons are
two different things. I think that's important to make the distinction.
Let me reframe the question. If you were in charge

(32:50):
of the defense budget, how would you allocate money today? Okay,
probably go out on a limb here. I would be
lots and lots of submarines, I watched Germany almost twice
when simply because they have the underwater advantage um as

(33:16):
far as and this is not meant to at all
reflect negatively on any of the services, but the Chinese
have built specific weapons to counter specific US weapons systems.
Give you any example, the DF and the DF are

(33:39):
anti ship missiles, but they're anti ship missiles that have
a range of They have the ability to take out
an aircraft carrier. Now, if you look at the range
of the typical aircraft on an aircraft carrier, it's a
lot less than that. So the idea Chinese strategy is

(34:03):
we will keep American carrier battle groups away from US
so they can no longer function. Now again I'm not
gonna I'm right on the edge here, but just because
carrier battle groups are big doesn't mean there are fat
targets all the time. And I'll just leave it at that.
In terms of the ability to prosecute the underwater domain,

(34:33):
the Chinese have built a lot of diesel submarines. Diesel
meaning non nuclear, and actually an air independent probulsion design
in a non nuclear submarine is quieter even than some
nuclear submarines. They don't have the range, but it doesn't

(34:54):
make any difference if you're fighting in the littorals or
if you're fighting in your near strategic In China, that
would be in the first style and chain or the
second island chain in the South China seat. So as
I watched the Chinese very specifically, very specifically designed their
weapons systems based on going to war with the United States,

(35:18):
missiles are excellent. I would build a lot of missiles.
I would build a lot of cruise missiles. I would
build a lot of hypersonic missiles. I would build a
lot of weapons that are autonomous, that are nonpiloted, that
are fast, that cover a vast spectrum from going very
slowly to going to mock ten. And I would I

(35:39):
would highly complicate my adversaries ability to intercept and prosecute
any kind of defensive capability against those kind of weapons.
Nuclear weapons. We already talked about that. Under Trump, there
was pulling back and an America first philosophy. If you

(36:05):
were running the country, what would your philosophy be Integrating
with the rest of the world. There are a lot
of things here, not only defense. There's economic issues, there's
climate issues. To what degree should we be integrated in
the rest of the world, or should we pull back. Well,
let's look at a little bit of history. What happened
after World War Two? Did the United States conquer anybody? No,

(36:31):
what they did was put in place the US dollar
as the world currency. Didn't have to shoot anybody, didn't
have to blow anything up. I mean, this is after
World War Two. The idea of becoming a world power
without killing everything in sight, unlike some of the other

(36:54):
adversaries that we could talk about back at World War two,
was kind of an interesting idea. The British did it
back in the sixteen seventeen and eighteen hundreds, but they
followed it on with military strength as well, you're I
mean England, the UK for many years was the world

(37:17):
economic power, but they backed it up with military might.
Same thing with the United States. After World War two.
Two things happened. One American became the the the the
what would you call it, the sort of centerpiece of
the world economy. And number two, they became the guaranteur

(37:40):
of of freedom against authoritarian regimes, and they guaranteed it
with nuclear weapons. The Russians had a seven to one
conventional advantage in Europe. Everybody in every military commander in
Germany was sitting there waiting for hundred hundreds of armored

(38:03):
Russian divisions pouring down the folded gap into Germany. The
only way to stop that would be with technical nuclear weapons.
Why did the Russians deploy the s S twenty because
they needed a tactical nuclear option? Why did they not?

(38:25):
Why did NATO deploy the Pershing too, to say to
the Russians, ain't gonna work, buddy. We are now in
your wheelhouse with tactical nuclear weapons, and you don't know
if we're gonna use them or not. So for a
long time, it was a bipolar world. China had really

(38:47):
not risen to any uh super strength as it is now.
They certainly had a large army, but their economy was
the size of O High for you know, a long time.
So for a long time everything was kind of imbalance.

(39:07):
You either on one side or the other. Everybody like dollars,
but you were either allied to Russia China wasn't really
a player in the alliance game at the time, or
you were aligned to the United States. Now it's interesting,
there's the third player, very powerful both economically and militarily.

(39:33):
I mean I I believe the Chinese thought about this.
It said, I think the formula is what the United
States did after World War Two. Let's manufacture everything, Let's
try to become the world currency. Let's become the dominant

(39:53):
military power and reach out and through alliances, not conquering
through the belt of road. Um uh concept bring people
into our fold looks to me. I would say it

(40:14):
passes the duck test. Walks like a duck, quacks like
a duck, probably a duck. It looks exactly like what
the United States did. So what do the United States
do going forward? Well, now you're asking me to talk
about policy, and that's always an interesting arena. The United
States has two main problems. One is China has infiltrated

(40:39):
the United States on all levels government, commercial, academic, and
it's very difficult once that adversary has gained this much
control to be able to deal with it. You have
to know. Let me say that if one were to
try to meliorate that, one would have to number one,

(41:07):
um unite the population to understand what the dangers are,
get their agreement that there is a problem, and get
their agreement on what the solutions might be. Before you
even discuss the solutions. You have to have support, can't
do anything unless people will let you do it. And

(41:31):
in a tripolar world, it's very different. Some would argue
that a tripolar world is easier because you ever have
you ever played risk? Uh? Yeah, So in a tripolar
or a quad quadripolar world, Uh, it's alliances, My the

(41:54):
the enemy, and my friend is my friend. It's a
little different game. The question is how do you play
that game with Russia and China, especially with Russia being
crippled in terms of its ability to relate to the
Western world and China reaching out and saying it's okay,

(42:15):
Well by everything you can dig out on the ground.
So how do you rally the American people? Well, I
guess I'm a bit of a patriot. I love my country.
I'm willing to put my life down for it. I
took an oath to defend the Constitution. I don't believe
that it is a zero sum game, which I believe

(42:41):
Russia and China believe. I think everybody could get along
just fine. The only problem is some people are just
nasty bastards. Putin is not Elon musk g is not

(43:03):
New gig Rich. There's a very different world here, you know, Uh,
Putin is not Jack Kennedy. They look at things very differently,
and they look at it as a zero sum game,
as the Russians always are fond of saying their version

(43:24):
of negotiation and what's mine is mine and what's yours
is negotiable. That is really another definition of a zero
sum game. So I'm answering your question with a question,
how do you educate your population instill in them a
need and a desire to protect the tenants of democracy, which,

(43:51):
by the way, all the words used in Constitution, declaration
of Independence, bill of rights refer to the individual, whereas
in an autocracy it's the state. If you believe that
the individual above all, whether it's a religious um mandate,

(44:11):
all freedom is flow from God or whatever you're theological
or philosophical point of view may be, that the individual
the importance and the existence of the individual, and the
right of the individual to be free, uh, and to

(44:32):
operate autonomous, autonomously in a system where people agree to
certain rules. If you think that's important, then that's what
America is. Now. We can get into woke arguments about
who's doing what, etcetera. And yeah, nobody's perfect, My God, please,

(44:53):
But why does everybody want to come to the United States?
Are there hundreds of thousands of people coming across the
borders of Russia, North Korea, Iran? I don't think so.
So there must be something about the United States the people.

(45:15):
It's philosophy, it's ideas, it's dreams, the way it looks
at things that appeals to people deep down. And I'll
give you an example. Uh, when we were up on
the Thai Burma border. This is about years ago. People

(45:37):
we had brought with us copies of the Declaration of Independence,
the Bill of Rights, and the Constitution that we're translated
into different languages among Korenean Wah, the languages of the
border people's up in Burma and up on western Thailand.
People were coming through the jungle two miles to get

(45:59):
their ends on those documents. What does that mean? Why
would a piece of paper be that important? Well? What
does that piece of paper resent represent? So the answer
to that, I believe is a dream that most everyone has.
I want to do what I need to do, I'd

(46:21):
like to do it in relative peace and tranquility. Raise
my children, pursue happiness. Let's see raising your children in
peace and tranquility and pursuing happiness. See much of that
in Russia, Yeah, North Korea. The Yeah, well, and listen,

(46:43):
I'm not trying to be a snot. I'm just saying
that that I think when maybe to use the words
that these truths we believe to be ourselves evident. Yeah, yeah,
so too. And I'm sorry it's it can be a
long time to get around to answering your question. But
the way that you bring together a group of people

(47:08):
is under a philosophy, and our philosophy, or our philosophy
in America is the philosophy of the individual subsumed. Uh,
where the state is subsumed to the individual, the individual
is more important than the state. Not in Russia, not
in China, not in North Korea, not the wrong, not

(47:30):
in any place I can think of other than the
Western world. Okay, just one question, uh, needle to say
America is divided. One half of the population, maybe a
little bit more than that, believes democracy is in danger
and autocracy is possible in the near future. Do you

(47:51):
believe that's a possibility. I believe it's a possibility, and
not necessarily because of present circumstances. I think and I've
gonna sound trite, but the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
And I'm gonna roll off a couple of um um

(48:16):
sort of maybe tried phrases. Absolute power crops. Absolutely the
whole idea of a democratic republic where the voice of
the people creates the government, was designed to try to
prevent that, again, the individual versus the state, because I

(48:42):
see a greater reliance or a greater desire to rely
on the government as opposed to the individual for things
like food and clothing, the basic necessities of life. When
that manifests itself, there is a danger that people we'll

(49:06):
give up their freedom of giving an example. Uh, And
I'm gonna take you back you're my age or around it.
I'm gonna go back to high school or in college.
When you read The Brothers karamats Off and you read
the chapter called the Grand Inquisitor, when Alexei was basically
telling an allegory about how Jesus Christ came to a

(49:31):
a town back in the ninth century and immediately was
arrested by the Grand Inquisitor and put in jail. And
so there's seven or eight pages of a dialogue between
Jesus Christ and the Grand Inquisitor Jesus Christ says, and
this is I'm not this is not theological, this is

(49:52):
just characters. Jesus Christ says. People want to be free,
they want to be able to operate, think freely, they
want to exercise free will and all the things that
were familiar with The Grand Inquisitor says, No, they want
three hots and a cot if they if I give

(50:13):
them what they need, they'll give up their freedoms. And
it was an interesting dialogue. And I would suggest that
anyone who would like to pursue the discussion that you
and I are having start with that. There are very
well um presented arguments on both sides. There are people

(50:35):
that will tell you that a democratic state that where
the individual is of of prime importance, will ultimately fail.
That's what the Chinese will tell you. The Chinese government
will tell you that. I don't believe that, but I've

(50:56):
heard people make excellent arguments to the contrary. That democracy
is a flawed Some people refer to the democratic process
as making sausage, which is never really a pretty process.
But as Winston Churchill said, with his American mother, you

(51:20):
can always rely on America to do the right thing
after they've exhausted every other possibility. But he said it
with love. He did not say it to be nasty
or in any of a detrimental way. He believed that
even though the system was a little rough, that you

(51:41):
get ultimately you get what you need. Okay, let's do
a one eight here and go back to music. I
could go on for hours about this, but people also
want to hear about your musical career. He referenced that
session in che Tago where the Stone leader passed out

(52:04):
staffs with nothing on them. Do you read music? I'm
not great at it. How did you learn how to
read music? I studied classical piano for eight years, and
then as I began to pursue a career in the
studio that's the studio musician, I began to study books
on reading music. And as my dad I used to say,

(52:27):
there's nothing like a hanging to focus your attention. Uh.
If you're in the studio and they put a piece
of music in front of you, you better be able
to read it or you're gonna learn real quick. Now.
Can I read music like Tommy Tedesco could? Or am
I reading like Tim may No? I'm not really great

(52:48):
at the fly ship, but I can certainly uh fulfill
the session. As a matter of fact, I remember I
remember a session with David Campbell, and I'm trying to
remember who the artist was. This was like years ago
where there were twenty five sheets of music. It would

(53:11):
say they wanted to do was a movie soundtrack and
they wanted to do all the guitar overdubs in one past.
So I said, okay, I'm in. And what they did
is that they taped all the pieces of music to
get all the sheets of music they used about I
don't know sixteen seventeen eighteen music stands. Put me on

(53:34):
a chair with wheels, and David slowly wheeled me down,
pasted all the charts until I got to the end
of it and was just reading it as we go. So, yes,
I can read music. Okay, let's go to the beginning.
Where did you grow up? Till I was nine years old?
I grew up in Washington, d C. What'd your parents

(53:55):
do for living there? Well, my mom was a housewife,
a good one. And did you ever seen Madman? I
haven't seen the whole series, but I've certainly seen it. Well,
that was my dad. Don Draper with without without the issues.
He was uh senior vice president of J Walter Thompson,
the largest advertising agency in the world. How many kids
in the family. Just okay, So where do you go

(54:16):
when you're nine? We moved to Mexico City, where he
took over all of the Latin American branch of Jay
Walter Thompson. So what was that like for you suddenly
being in Mexico? Awesome because here I am in a country.
I've got a couple of bucks to put together, and
not wealthy, but I have a couple of bucks to
put together. I'm living a country which really has no rules.

(54:39):
I can play strip bars and clubs. When I'm eleven twelve,
I could be in bands. I could do pretty much
whatever I want and also be exposed to a tremendous,
tremendously multifaceted and varied culture. It's a matter of fact,
I went to the America School for a year in

(55:00):
my dad's in no way, You're gonna go to the
British Academy run by the British Embassy because I wanted
you get an education. So one thing was interesting. You
studied four languages, English, French, Spanish, and Latin, and people
mostly concentrated on French. I would say English was pretty

(55:21):
close behind, but French at the time was the diplomatic language.
We're talking late fifties, early sixties. So the the multifaceted, multinational,
multicultural um melting pot that I was in was fascinating.

(55:42):
I really it was a It was a It was
a course in sociology that you would never be able
to take anywhere else unless you're living in a foreign country.
How long were you there about five years? Now you
end up going at Taft. How does that happen? Well,
my dad, after sending me to the Gregates Academy, that
British embassy school, he said, now you're going to get

(56:03):
an even better education. Okay, you're gonna go to boarding
school in Connecticut. So we went to Chot and Hodgkins
and Taft and Loomis and Kent, Phillips, Exeter and or
you know the usual suspects. And my gut feeling told

(56:24):
me that Taft was the place to go for a
couple of reasons. One there was a generalman there in
the name Mr Cunningham who somehow or other talking to him.
I felt that I could relate to what his vision
of that place was, because after all, I mean, you're
gonna go from Mexico City, where you could drive a

(56:47):
car at twall by putting a hundred paste note in
your wallet, handing into the traffic cop and and go,
thank you very much. I have a great day to
go into an all boys boarding school meeting locked up
for three months, so you kind of have to figure out.
You want to make sure if you're gonna be there,
it's not gonna be too ugly. So the people that
I met there, and the especially Mr Cunningham, made me

(57:10):
feel like I would be at home there. And I
am extremely grateful to everyone who was a teacher, headmaster,
anybody at TAFT, anybody ever came in contact with UM,
because the education I received there was incredible. When you

(57:32):
graduate from one of those schools, you've it's like graduating
after two years of college, and it's not teaching you
what to learn, it's teaching you how to learn. I
remember I remember my English teacher, Uh, great guy. He

(57:53):
was also by track coach. But we had to run
an essay on the Red Badge of Courage, so I
read it. I read the first page that I read
the last page. You know, I'm a little snot right.
So I read that, of course, and I wrote this
paper about Okay, red Badge of Courage j C. The

(58:13):
initials Jim Conkin really mean send for Jesus Christ. The
sun hung in the sky like a red way. It's
obviously the sacrament. I just went off on all of
this bullshit, handed it in and he called me in
as a as a professor will do, and he says,
you wrote this. I said, yes, I did, and I said, okay,

(58:39):
it is the most incredible pile of ship I have
ever read in my life. However, I'm gonna give you
an a once because it's an incredibly convincing pile of ship.
So I get. I used that to illustrate. It's not

(59:01):
just yeah I remember the Battle of Hastings ten sixty six, Yeah,
I remember. No, it's how do you learn? How do
you learn to survive? How do you learn to advance?
How do you learn to educate yourself? I am just
so lucky that I had that opportunity, and I was
still living in Mexico. I was commuting back and forth,

(59:24):
so I was going to New York City working in clubs.
They're working in music stores, you know, so it was
pretty cool. Let's let's slow down a little bit here. Okay,
when do you start taking classical piano? When I was five,
my mother taught me to read. It was an incredible gift.
And then my dad said, oh, so you could read,
and went yeah, like a little snot yeah, I could read.

(59:45):
I'm reading Huckleberry Fame with my mom. So he walks
into the library, grabs a copy of The Gathering Storm
by Wisdom Churchill, drops into my lapse and read that
it took me three years to get through it. But
that's why WinCE Churchill happens to be a someone that
I respect. But yes, my mom taught me to read
when I was five, and we always had a piano.
She played piano and I would bang on the keys

(01:00:08):
and I said, can I take pianolists? And she's sure?
And how did you become proficient in other instruments? When
we moved to Mexico, the guitar was kind of the
national instrument. Plus, my dad, who was not a musician,
had an incredibly deep record collection. A friend of his,

(01:00:29):
who was a disc jockey in Washington d seen him.
Al Ross would send him boxes full of records because
it was a jazz station and they didn't play a
lot of other records and even some jazz. That's when
I got turned onto the guitar player Howard Roberts, along
with West Montgomery and a bunch of other folks. But
so listening to my dad's records and then all of

(01:00:53):
a sudden, we're living in the rock and roll era,
where if you have a guitar and you know three chords,
you're happening. You can form a band. So my parents
gave me a guitar from my tenth birthday. I really
wanted a bicycle had pissed me off, so hung on

(01:01:15):
the wall for about six months. And then a friend
of mine named Kurt Bundy, who lived in the apartment downstairs,
started taking guitar lessons. Has said, I'll teach you some
chords so that I have somebody to play with. And
so I started playing, and I went, holy crap, this
is awesome. I mean, I just somehow or other, I

(01:01:39):
don't know, evoke in mind, meld, grocked it, whatever you know,
the term you want to use. I just fell in
love with it to the point where I had a
sixty point one great average because all I didn't was
play the guitar. But yeah, was that sixty capter in
Mexico pretty much the same everywhere. That's all I want
to do is play the guitar. Practiced eight hours a day.

(01:02:00):
So you say you were playing gigs at a young
age in Mexico, You're in the middle of Connecticut. You're
going to taft Are you playing in bands when you're
in high school? Oh? Yeah, I mean we made it
a great reputation by playing a rock version of the
school song and got any detention for three weeks, but
that established us as a rock band. The band that
we had a taft um And I remember after a

(01:02:27):
a visitation with a young lady from one of the
boarding schools, Mr Douglas, who was the other assistant head master, said, Baxtor,
you're grounded and your band is not going to play
anymore gigs. Well, nobody would go to the school dances,
so he had to relent. So the power of music.

(01:02:47):
And then my senior year, Mr Oscarson, who was the
dean of students and a wonderful man, because there was
a group of us that were the trouble Acres, and
so he figured it bring us all together into groups
who can keep an eye on us. And when we
formed this band, uh, the other girls school started asking

(01:03:12):
if we would play you know, Dobb's Ferry or St.
Margaret's or Emma Willard or and so the dean said yeah,
and he started booking the bands. And we came from
ten and so one of our one of the people
that we knew in town became our sort of road

(01:03:33):
guy and would take us to the shows. Mr Oskinson
would book the bands. And yeah, we were It was great.
It was really cool. I can't beat that. You know.
How did you end up working at Manny? That's a
slight uh mimsing omer that I have to correct. I
started working at Jimmy's. Uh. Mannis was a big part

(01:03:54):
of my life because I worked on street at Jimmie's
music shop and also ended up working at Dan Armstrong's
guitar shop. And when I was living in Mexico, Henry
Henry Goldrick, who was the guy that everybody knows when
you walk into the door, say you got fifty signs
you want to buy and get out of my store,
but you get forty offf and you walk in the door.

(01:04:17):
So Henry took a liking to me and kind of
kept me under his wing. He was like my second dad,
very special man. But I work the way. Wait, you're
working at Jimmy's and Dan Armstrong, how do you ultimately
meet him? Well, because I started working at Jimmy's because
I was standing outside the music store and Frank Scuolachi
Jimmy Sculaschi, the Squashi brothers owned it. Um was trying

(01:04:40):
to uh interact with a customer who didn't speak English.
And as you know, if someone doesn't speak English and
the only language that you know, the first thing you
do is to talk louder and slower. So there's Jimmy
going String's love Bell La Strings La Bella, and the

(01:05:04):
guys look at him like, okay, that's like when you
talk to a dog and they hear nip nip. So
I walked in and I translated for the gentleman, and
Jimmy said, you want a job. I said, yes, sir,
but I can only work on Christmas vacation, Easter vacation,
and in the summer because I go to I'm going

(01:05:26):
to school. He says, that's fine. So it was the
perfect job. So so I thought I was very happy
taking two Fender twin reaver rooms up six flights of
stairs in the middle of August for bucking a quarter
an hour. And I started because I had grown up
in Mexico and there was nobody to repair my guitars

(01:05:47):
or my amplifiers. I gained some fundamental knowledge in both
those areas and began repairing guitars at Jimmy's. And that's
when Dan Armstrong realized we're a noa trs coming out
of Jimmy's. So he said, I'll pay you five bucks
an hour, which was all fortune in nine four to
come and work for me. But at six o'clock every

(01:06:09):
night they would basically close off. Now there was Terminal Music,
Ben's Music, UM, uh Manny's, uh Charles Ponty. There were
a number of music stores, but the deal was that
each music store could only have one franchise or other

(01:06:32):
music stores cannot have uh dual franchisees. So at six
o'clock at night, myself and all the stock boys from
the different stores they would go okay. So Henry would
come out and uh Billy would come down from Terminal
and say, okay, I'll trade your two jazz masters at
a deluxe reverb for one Rickebacker uh twelve string it.

(01:06:55):
So anyway, that was all we were moving stuff all
over forty Street and then I met when I met
Henry because of that, he's still a liking to me
and we had become friends over the long term, and
we stayed friends way after you know, I left Taft
and way after until I became you know, even when

(01:07:16):
I became a successful musician. And I remember one day, Uh, Henry,
he said, I walked into the store and typically Henry,
I made. I don't know if you knew Henry, but
certainly been to me and he's an interacting with him, right,
so you know, so I walk in and uh, I said, Henry,

(01:07:37):
you got anything new? And he says, God, damnit, skunk
you you could endorse anything you want. I here. So
he handed me an ovation in classgow guitar which I
used on the album, and said take this and get
out of my store. But you know, Henry was gruff.
I mean it was that was that was his personality.
So the next day I came back and I said,
can I talk to you? And he always had time

(01:08:00):
for me. So we went upstairs and they said, what's
on your mind. I said, I've been offered this incredible
opportunity to serve my country, but I'm taking a lot
of grief from a number of my colleagues in the
music business. And he said, screw them. Do you believe

(01:08:23):
in this? I said, yes, Sir, I really do. I
was brought up on my father UH fifty five years
active military, twenty years reserved. I was brought up to
believe in some of the things that we talked about.
He said, will you do it? You go do it,
and if anybody gives you any ship, you tell him

(01:08:45):
come talk to me. And I thought, my god, not
only did I had I always loved this man, but
now I know that I had done the right thing.
And here's a guy that most people think of, some
gruff guy's gotta hell at you, get you the hell
out of his store with a couple of Tony herbs
and UH an offender Strato Castle. So I was very

(01:09:07):
lucky to have him, Dan Armstrong, and even to the
point Frank and Jimmy who took me under their wing.
Good people, good people. Dan Armstrong became famous for the
loose sight guitar. What was Dan Armstrong doing in the
middle sixties, Danny had the only guitar customizing shop that
I knew of pretty much in the United States. You

(01:09:30):
could bring your instrument into into Danny's place and have
something done to it, like okay. Uh. We invented the
coil fader for instant the ability to split the coils,
and a humbucker. Um. We invented a number of different
ways to wire and rewire electric guitars to produce different sounds,

(01:09:54):
different tones. Um. We would take dan electro guitars, spend
a b to time on them and release them as hybrids. Uh.
Nobody else was doing that, And so every guitar player
on the planet hung out at Danny's place. Bill Burkeo
was building amps across the hall, Danny was repairing guitars,

(01:10:18):
and it was great. I mean, you'd walk in and
there would be five or six guys playing my job.
As a little snot nose kid, Danny said, here's this guitar.
It's got four regular strings and to bass strings. You
are going to learn the cop chords and basslines at
the same time, and I'm gonna teach you how to

(01:10:38):
do it. Because me and Sam Brown and Eddie Deal
and all the seriously frightening bebop guitar players who were
hanging around at that place wanted somebody to accompany them
all the time. So okay, that was my first education
in a very different kind of guitar playing. Um, and
I'll tell you another great story, if you got a
minute under a Stegovia comes in his ramires Is. He's

(01:11:04):
broken one of the tuning pigs on one side of them,
and you have as you know, they're come in three.
So they really couldn't repair an at concert that night,
so he brought it in. So I ran across the
streets to Charles Ponti, who was also a music store,
but he was a violin and cello repair a guy,
and so I was hoping against hope that he would

(01:11:26):
have a set of classical guitar machines. And he did. Uh.
So I bought him, brought him back over, installed him
on this Ramires, strung it up, tuned it up, walked out,
and Mr Segovi was sitting patiently on the sofa. Meanwhile,
Mike Bluefield and Frank Zappa and a bunch of other
guys were all standing around a couple of amplifiers hang

(01:11:49):
out playing rock and just having a great time. And
you know, I saw this on a footlook of serenity
on on Andrews to go his face. I walked over
and said, in Spanish, here's your instrument, sir uh, let
me know if this is to your liking, and because
I had a tremendous amount of respect for this guy,
and tell me what you think. I said, guys, stand

(01:12:11):
by for one second. Just as a gentleman can make
sure his guitar is working, so he tunes it up.
He plays the first sixty four bars of the concerto
that on Quest by Rodrigo and I'm losing it. I
just can't, I mean, and the way he plays the

(01:12:31):
emotion anyway, it was. It was an incredible moment in
my life. And even the other players were just transfixed.
And then in Spanish you said, you tell those people
that you don't hang it around your neck like a
canoe paddle. You sit down, behold it against your body
because it is a part of you. It feeded through

(01:12:59):
Its connected to your spirit and your mind and your heart. Yep,
that's what I do. That makes perfect sense to me. Now.
There were times when I leaped around stage, but ultimately
I ended up being a sit down guitar player and
BB King. One time he said to me, Jesus kunk
if I after hear one of his knees had a
knee operation, that if I had only known, I used

(01:13:22):
to see you sit down and play all the time.
If I had known, I would have done this since
the day I was born. So anyway, it was a
wonderful experience working at Danny's, being on Street which is
now all disappeared, it's all gone. It was a unique
place in the world. Okay, you're there when the Beatles arrived,

(01:13:50):
what was your experience and was that positive or negative?
I would say it was all positive because along with
the Beatles came some really amazing bands that I thought
were amazing. The yard Birds, the Kicks. I thought Village Village,

(01:14:11):
Green Preservation Society was one of the greatest records I've
ever heard in my life. It's like pat sounds. The
Yardbirds were playing music with incredible guitar players playing writing
songs that had time changes, key changes, field groove changes.
That was amazing. So I thought number one, it was

(01:14:32):
a wonderful thing. Number two and I have no um
I never want to speak ill of pop pop pop music,
pop pop pop pop pop music, which Jerry Lee Lewis
used to refer to as the Bobbies. To all these
Bobbies Bobby b Bobby Bobby right al Bobby Bobby Bobby

(01:14:53):
um and used to make them crazy. Uh, the bridge said, hey,
have you ever heard Lightning Hopkins? Have you ever heard
Buddy Waters? And for many people, they've never heard of that.
So I believe they they gave America an education into

(01:15:14):
its roots music. So I thought it was fantastic, right,
no problem at all. Okay, you're working at Dan Armstrong's.
You reference Bloomfield, Zappa Yardbirds back in page Other than yourself,
who do you admire? Who's at the top of that pile?
I don't know. It's a it's a tough question. But
do I what's my favorite airplane? Well, that's my favorite

(01:15:39):
fire plane. Well it depends on the mission. Um, it
was my favorite guitar player, I would say, Um. Probably
overall for creativity would be Jeff Beck. You never know
where he's going. There's you never know what that. There
are other people who were in and lameless who are

(01:16:01):
masters of the obvious. Jeff Beck is not one of those.
Another guitar player I discovered playing in uh a little
club in Austin and sort of brought him to l A.
Was Eric Johnson. Wonderful guitar player, wonderful player, and again

(01:16:24):
not a master of the obvious melodic. That's one of
the reasons why I loved the Ventures so much, and
I joined their fan club when I was eleven years
old and then ended up finally playing with him and
producing him and melody. Hey, guys, what a concept. There's
a melody. Let's play the melody. So people who grow

(01:16:46):
up and there is not a guitar player that I've
ever met who doesn't have a tremendous amount of love
or at least respect for the Ventures because of that. Um,
guys like Eric Johnson are so lodic. So it's Jeff Beck.
They're they're melody guys, and I that's hopefully what I
aspire to is melodies, compositions within compositions. Now, Jeff Beck, please,

(01:17:13):
without a pick, what's your take on that? If he
wants to play with his nose? Um, there were outside
of the National Cathedral in Mexico City when I was
a kid, there was a guitar player with no arms
who played with his feet and he played pretty well.

(01:17:35):
So I guess I I see no efficacy and being
judgmental in terms of how one approaches the instrument. Okay,
so you're in TAFT, you graduate, you end up going
to be you? How do you end up going to
Boston University? I wanted to go to the School of
Public Communications. Uh, kind of following my dad's footsteps on

(01:17:59):
some level, um, and ended up at BU, at the
School of Public In the case, now, did you graduate
from BU? No? I joined a rock and roll band. Well,
I joined the Ultimate Spinish. Although I was playing bass
for Tim Buckley and playing gigs around town, doing a
lot of work at a place called Natural Sound, which

(01:18:22):
was all country music, and I was playing in the
combat zone either at the at the Intermission Lounge, which
if you ever saw the Blues Brothers, you know about
chicken wire and all that kind of stuff. And then
there was the Crazy Horse was just right next to it,
and I was just learning to play pedal steel, and
I was I love country music. Again. It was playing

(01:18:42):
a lot of the country and so for that I
started doing gigs and I realized I can make I
can make a lot of money and do what I
wanted to do, or wait four years and I just didn't.
I didn't want didn't wait. I don't want to wait.
So how long did you go to be you? And
what'd your father say when you dropped out? I went

(01:19:02):
for a year. My mother was apoplectic, and my father,
who as any good father would do, had planned out
my life for me if I wanted it, to graduate
from Boston University, to become a junior vice president in Kodak.
You moved to Rochester, You work your way through the corporation.

(01:19:24):
You probably do thirty years and end up as a
senior executive vice president. You retire um which if you
in my mind, that was beautiful that my father would
care enough about me to try to do something like that.
It's just incredible. I didn't resent it, far from it,
But like every other snot nose kids with a guitar,

(01:19:48):
I ended up playing in bands, making no money, you know,
basically you know the drill. And my father, although he
was supportive, there are times when he was disappointed. And
of course my mother, well, my god, if uh you know,

(01:20:08):
how what could she tell them the ladies at the
country club? You know what the son wasn't doing anything.
He's playing in bands. My mother came down to the
village to see us playing one of the clubs down there.
She walked down the middle of the street. She was
kind of afraid to be too close to the the clientele.
So and I get it. You know, this is not

(01:20:31):
putting my mother down. She was scared, she didn't. I mean,
come on, let's face it, walking down Bleaker Street in
nineteen are you kidding me? It's like the Star Wars
bar so. So were they supported financially and did they
ever get it? I never really had to rely on

(01:20:51):
them financially, And even when I was working in in
uh during the time I was going to TAFT, I
gave everything I made to them. It just made sense
to me, and they would give me an allowance. But
I thought, okay, you know whatever, my however, my work
ethic was, that's what made perfect sense to me. I

(01:21:15):
live here, I should help support I'm making money. Hey,
I'm making a buck on a quarter an hour for
eight hours a day in nineteen sixty not that so
Boston is a provincial town, not that there isn't a scene.
How long you in Boston and when and how to
decide to leave. I'm in Boston obviously from seven and

(01:21:39):
sixty eight to go to Boston University UM, and then
I stayed for about another two or three years. I
was doing session work in Boston. I had a guitar
shop with Dave Schuckter. We were building and repairing guitars. UM.

(01:22:00):
I was commuting to New York to do sessions down
in New York as well. Uh, there was a fair
amount of working in Boston. Wasn't huge, but it was
a fair amount. And I had already had friends in
the session scene in New York, so that worked out
UM pretty well. UM. And around nineteen seventy I was

(01:22:26):
working in the intermediate sound and there was a band
called The Beat Game and they were being produced by
a gentleman named Gary Katz, and these guys were all friends.
And there were different bands coming into intermedia, and there
was never really anything like a house guitar player or

(01:22:47):
a house piano player, but there were always bands that
needed players. So there were many instances where bands would
come in and say we need guitar player, or we
need guitar on this or something. So UM, there was
something that had to do with the beat game. I
think it was playing acoustic guitar while the other guitar
player was a great guitar player. Was they need an

(01:23:08):
acoustic in the track. And that's why I met Gary
Katz and Gary said, I have a production project in
New York with a woman named Linda Hoover I think
that was your stage named Linda Willingham, I think was
a regular name. And there are these two songwriters who
are writing all the material for the album called Walter

(01:23:31):
Becker and Donald Fagan. Would you be willing to come
down and play on this project? I said, yeah, sure,
you know I'm a sense of artist. Where's the chuck?
So yeah, I got on train, went down there and
did the project, and I was really impressed with the music,

(01:23:52):
and I said, you know, this songwriting is really spectacular,
at least I think. And I said, well, we've never
heard anybody play gus are like you do, especially on
our music. So maybe what we ought to do is
whoever whoever passes go first, call everybody else up and
we'll form a band. And so Becker and Fagan came

(01:24:16):
out to Los Angeles, got a publishing deal with ABC Records,
and then said to everybody Okay, we've passed. Go does
everybody go to l A? Okay? So we all went
to Los Angeles. Um I found various jobs playing around

(01:24:37):
Los Angeles. I was a guitar repairman, so I met
every guitar player in the substance scene, everybody in l A.
I ended up playing a lot of the Palomino Club,
the Playtime, and a lot of the country bars around
town playing pedal steel dough bro guitar. And one day
we were rehearsing in the office of the president of

(01:25:01):
ABC Records, um uh, Hard Stark and Jay Lasker, and
usually we would break the gear down in time when
they were before they show up in the morning. We
stay up all night. One night we cut we didn't
get out of there in time, and Jacobs say says,
what the hell is this? And Gary Katz says, well,

(01:25:27):
there's this band and they're playing in the material of
the guys that you signed to a publishing deal. I said, well,
all right, then I want to hear it. Jay was
one of those record guy record record guys, and so

(01:25:47):
we played for him and he went, I don't know
what the hell you guys are doing. I mean, because
we had slags like dr Udu's proto man. But I
think I like it. Okay, I'll give you a record deal.
And then Howard Start wrote me a check for a
thousand dollars, said, skunk, go get an apartment, bring your

(01:26:13):
girlfriend out, put somebody in the bank, and I went,
holy crop, Yeah, thank you, this is great. I mean
I made money with Ultimate Spinach and said, but this
was like the real deal. And that's kind of how
it all started. You know, let's go back a chapter.
You talked to the advent of wanting to be the

(01:26:33):
number one studio cat. So at this point in time,
do you want it to be first call? There's a
lot of guys, not a lot, but yes, I don't
want to sound like a complete dipshit. No, okay, you
wanted to be first call. So did you want to
be a studio rat or did you want to be
in a band? And when you were a studio rap
before you in a band, how did you get all

(01:26:56):
these gigs? Well, you got the gigs by other people,
uh recommending it. That's always how the studio was. Yeah,
but I know a lot of musicians, they're usually working
it too well, of course, So were you good at
working it. It must have been. I mean, of somebody,
would I would I go the extra mile? Sure? Would I?

(01:27:18):
Um work a little harder? Um? Would I say, hey,
can you make me a cassette? And I'm going to
go home and shed on this and I'll come back
in the morning and I'll nail it. You know again.
My dad always said, give a little more, it'll come back. Um.
So that's kind of, I guess, kind of the way

(01:27:40):
it was. I wanted to be a studio musician because
I felt that it was the top gun of the
music business. I like the idea of taking pride in
being a craftsman because I built guitars too, and I
worked with wood when I was a kid, especially in
mex Ico. The idea of to me playing the guitar

(01:28:05):
was a craft. I'm not bluewing it. I mean, it's
an art, it's all of that, but it's also a craft.
You're working with your hands. So I wanted to be
the best craftsman I could possibly be. And watching the
whole world around me, some of my friends actually die
from stupidity, whether it's drugs or whatever. It was. There

(01:28:28):
was something about the discipline and I think This came
from my father about being a studio musician, where if
you didn't show up on time, you're fired, and the
story there's a thousand people waiting for that gig. If
you don't play it right, if your mind is too

(01:28:51):
messed up, you're fired. So to me, there was a
to use, I guess a a military term. There was
a doctrine that I followed that I thought this would
be a good thing to do. It would be healthy.

(01:29:12):
Now that doesn't mean that ours weren't crappy, but it was.
It was a way to protect yourself against the the
Sila and Charybdis of rock and roll craziness and insanity.
So how did you decide to jump enjoying what became
steely Dan? Well, that's when you know. Gary said, Okay,

(01:29:34):
I think we got I think we passed. Go. So
you're willing to stop being a studio musician and be
in a band? No, I want to do both. And
I was doing that as well in Boston and in
New York. So I didn't see I didn't see a
geo spatial uh separation problem. So moving to La was

(01:29:56):
and my parents were gonna move to Los Angeles, so
I thought, Okay, at least I got a place of sleep,
and I will go and take a shot at this. Okay,
ABC was a second rate label. Steely Dan makes an
album there instantly a m hits. What was the experience
on the other side of the fence. Well, I must

(01:30:17):
I have to disagree with you a little bit. I'm
not gonna be a worthy or umbrage because it makes
me think of rain. But I don't think ABC was
a second rate label. They did very well with people
like Steve Barry in their A and R department, the grassroots, Hamilton, Joe,
Franklin Reynolds, and they did very well. I thought, I

(01:30:40):
thought they ran it. It was old school. I mean,
the cigar smoke was thick when you walked into Jay
Lasker's and Howard Stark's office. But they were old school
and I think they did a really good job. As
a matter of fact, when I joined, when I was
offered the opportunity to actually join the Doobie Brothers, even

(01:31:00):
though I was already playing with him, I went to
Howard and Jay and said, you guys, I have this
incredible opportunity to what's did I do? And Jay Lasker
literally reached into his desk, Strawer pulled out my contract
tort and half handed it to me and said, good luck.
You never lied to me kids, good luck. And that

(01:31:23):
is why I went to his bedside when he was
in his last days. Old school, but old school in
a way like Henry was old school. Those kind of
people I understood and had a tremendous amount of love,
affection and respect for so second rate label. I I

(01:31:48):
understand what you're saying. They were not a major, they
weren't our Cia, and they weren't Columbia, but they did
good and they did well by their artists. That was
Steely an instant hit. No. The first single that was
released was a song called Dallas and if you go
listen to it, it's a great song sung by the

(01:32:11):
drummer Jimmy Hotter. It's almost a country tune. I'm playing
a lot of pedal steel and Poco covered it, number
of their own bands covered it, But for some reason,
Becker and Fagan were frightened that between the name Steely
Dan and having all this pedal steel and that kind
of that they would be um button hooked or pigeonholed

(01:32:34):
as a country band. So they pulled that back then
released do It Again as the first single, and we
were we were gigging. I mean, we were playing under
the Ice House in Pasadena for five night. We were
you know, Fanny was opening for us to talk about

(01:32:55):
an incredible band, you know, talk about a band that
deserves much more respect and admiration than they ever got.
We were just we were gigging. We were playing local shows,
so it wasn't really an instant hit. It took a
little while, but I appreciate the compliment. Just to clarify,

(01:33:17):
I'm talking about the perception on the other side of
the fence. You know, there was no buzz on the
album upon release. In terms of reviews, there was no
FM play, and all of a sudden there were these
magic AM tracks. But in any event, let me go back,
what did you play on the album and what did
Anny Diaz play? Well, you have to I guess song
by song, but we split a lot of the guitar responsibilities.

(01:33:41):
We both played on every track. Uh, sometimes he played
a great solo undo It Again, Wow, and um my
solos were kind of well known, things like Ricky, don't
lose that number of my old school we all had
a tune it is to play. But we all played

(01:34:02):
together and I love playing with Danny. We were very
different players, and it was one of those lucky things
where are our playing just messed. It was a little
bit like when I joined the Doobies and the way
that Patrick Simmons and I played together. We came from

(01:34:23):
very different approaches to the instrument, but we all The
one thing about Danny and myself is that we grew
up in New York, and New York guitar players have
a certain etiquette. Um. As Joe Wallace used to say,
I don't want to be in institute. Wasn't where everybody
plays lead all the time, either do I. You make

(01:34:46):
room for other musicians, and by doing that you begin
to learn about your musical partners and your musical colleagues,
and eventually you get to the point um where you
become a better musician. I think without learning that etiquette,
I may may have not had the tools that I

(01:35:07):
needed to appreciate what was happening between myself and c
J now Danny Diaz. He ultimately left the business right
got into computers pretty much. Yeah, I believe that I
talked to Danny a couple of times we we got
a chance to talk about once in a while. I
believe he's a computer programmer, writes code. Um, I just

(01:35:28):
think that the experience and I'm not going to speak
for him, and I don't never speak for anybody. I
think for him the experience was different and maybe he
just saw things like that was great. And I get it.
I mean, I have my moments for I'm a rock
guitar player. I had my moments when I'm designing strategies
for space warfare. You know. Uh, I get that it's

(01:35:55):
good to be a colectic. But I think maybe he just,
you know, got to the point where I didn't want
to do it anymore. Many people consider the second Steely
Dan album, Countdown to Ecstasy, the best. I'm not in
agreement with that, but that seither here and We're there.

(01:36:18):
The album comes out, there don't appear to be any
hit singles on the radio, and suddenly Becker and Fagan say,
we don't want to go on the road anymore, So
what's your experience. Well, that didn't really happen to my
knowledge until after Pretzel Logic. Okay, then maybe I have
it wrong. No, we were still and we were gigging
a lot. Actually, Steely Dan played a lot of shows.

(01:36:41):
Somehow or other, this this myth arose that Steely Dan
didn't do any gigs. We worked hard. We opened for
the Doobie Brothers, we opened for James Gang, we opened
for um um Bert Cummings, we opened I mean we
we did a lot lot of shows. Um But I

(01:37:03):
think in the same way that I think Living All
the fault Line, Ultimately it was probably the best Doobie
Brothers album because and we can certainly have a discussion
about the transition from rock and bar band two, you know,
focusing um. The song raised Her Boy on Countdown Ectity.

(01:37:30):
To me epitomizes Steely Dan because that record seemed to
synthesize and and digest a lot of what Steely Dan
was becoming. And we'd had time to play on the road,
we'd had time to become a unit. So I wasn't

(01:37:52):
really worried about the hits. I mean, I'm doing fine.
You know, I'm doing four or five sessions to day.
I'm working my ass off, so and I'm playing in
Lenda Rostats band. I'm playing pedalist steel, so I'm you know,
I'm I'm digging my butt off and I'm out with
the Deobie Brothers playing, So I really wasn't. I guess

(01:38:13):
maybe I wasn't affected by that, but I think as
an albums, as a creative piece, the second Steely Dan
album shows a maturity of a group of musicians. So
how did it in with Steely Dan for you? I
was actually on the phone. I was out with the
Deobie Brothers playing um uh an outdoor festival in England,

(01:38:37):
and I had gotten into a conversation with with Donald
and Denny, and Danny had called and said, yeah, they
Walter and Donald just don't want to go on the
road anymore. They don't want to have a band, they
just want to So I talked to Donald and said, yeah,
we just um don't want to do it anymore. We

(01:39:01):
can't get the sound, we don't do it. And probably
they were doing very well with their publishing and so
you know, if you didn't really going on the road
could be challenging, um say the least. So I hung
up the phone. I was in uh net Worth, that

(01:39:21):
was it, the net Worth Music Festival, And I hid
up the phone and I turned to Pat Simmons and
I said well, I said for me and Steely Dan,
and he said, well, now you're in the Dubie Brothers. Okay, Okay, great,
there you go. Okay, let's go back to your conversation
with Henry. It seemed like you were saying you were
talking about going into the military. What happened there? Not

(01:39:44):
into the military. I did not join the military. I
was never in the military, and I don't want to again.
I want to be very very careful. I what I
do is I work for the Department of Defense and
a number of US government agencies on many different levels,
mostly having to do with unconventional warfare, space, UM perception management,

(01:40:14):
UM war gaming. But I'm not actually I was never
a member of the military. Okay. A couple of questions,
How did you get out of the draft? I showed
up at my draft board like everybody else? And did
you ever did you ever go to a draft physical? No,
because I filed as the CEO. But then I got

(01:40:35):
a number like two nine and it didn't become an issue. Okay.
So I show up at the well the experience, So
you show up at the Boston Navy Yard. Truth is
stranger than fiction. I've show up at the Boston Navy Yard.
So yeah, I got all your clothes off. You got
a little bag in your hand with all your little stuff,
and you go from desk to desk and they're checking

(01:40:56):
things off. Yep, this looks good. Yeah, this looks good. Yep.
You look good here, you look good here. Yep. So
you're going from desk to desk, and I'm thinking, okay,
in about three weeks, maybe a second lieutenant in Vietnam,
and that may be it for me. So it wasn't
a very pleasant experience. So the last guy at the

(01:41:20):
end of the hall, and I guess I'm being cinematic
about this, but the last guy, so you walked through
the door, big steel desk, sitting behind the desk, looks
down at my papers and says says, here you're a musician.
Said yes, sir, Well do you only think about stereo equipment?

(01:41:42):
And I'm thinking, okay, I have just moved into an
alternate universe. I'm gonna wake up in Way City. But
right now, okay, he says, do you have a minute.
So now this thing is really starting to now I
even more than I'm in a multidimensional universe, you know,

(01:42:05):
I'm I am living string theory. So I sit down
on the edge of his desk naked with my little
bag of stuff. He draws a picture of his living
room with the measurements, and I said okay, And I
asked the question. I said, is your wife want to
not see this uh stuff? And she said absolutely not.

(01:42:30):
He said, I want to see this crop. So I said, okay,
Here's what I would suggest in these corners. I would
build a m a curtain, put a set of curtains
in that our catacorners are to try, you know, the
other side of the triangle that the that the the

(01:42:52):
the room forms. Put in a pair of clip shorns,
because they'll create enough top end so they get through
the curve. But it will create enough high fidelity for you.
I would recommend that you buy a Macintosh to box
um I and probably a Dina kit to preamp Thorne's

(01:43:15):
turntable with a short cartridge. And I think you'll have
a wonderful stereo system that you really like. Meanwhile, the line,
it's like way back, I'm spending twenty minutes in there,
and then the guy says, okay, thank you for your time.

(01:43:35):
You know, if you came into the military, it would
probably ruin your career as a musician, checked off four
off and handing in my papers, and I thought, okay,
I'm just when am I gonna wake up out of this?
When when I pass back into you know, the the

(01:43:57):
universe that I'm familiar with. Never happened? That was it?
Well quite a story. So when did this conversation with
Henry take place? It was, well, after all of that,
well after all that, I mean, James Montgomery was my
roommate at Boston University. So that way with James Montgomery,
the Blues single, Oh yeah, we're we're being friends and

(01:44:18):
playing together for years. He was your roommate accidentally it
be you where you met each other and said, let's
room together. It was my roommate accidentally it be you
for a while, and we lived in the football arms.
So we go down to the commons room and get
musicians together and play. So um, there was a lot
of music going on and you know, again meeting a
lot of folks and and a lot of that stuff.

(01:44:41):
But the conversation with Henry came after I was after
I had written the first paper that I had written
about missile defense. About that I'm not going to go
into too much detail. I want to bore anybody about
adapting a Navy carrier battle group antire defense system to

(01:45:08):
do missile defense. And I wrote a paper. My dad said,
you got an idea, You're right down. So I had
an idea. I went to a friend of mine at
a propulsion laboratories to do some math for me, make
sure I had the radar stuff right. And so I
handed the paper to a congressman in Los Angeles who
I was doing a lot of work with because I
was a reserve officer with L A p D. And

(01:45:30):
I was helping him with some counter terrors and stuff.
And so he gives it to the vice chairman of
the Armed Services Committee. He said, well, there's a guy
from Boeing or Raytheon No, he's a guitar player for
the Doobie Brothers. And he goes, well, I want to
meet this guy. So I get a call, would you
be willing to accept the position on the House Arm

(01:45:52):
Services Committee UH to head up the Civilian Advisory Board
on Missile Defense. And we're going to classify the paper
that you wrote, and we're gonna give you a security clearance.
So of course, the next thing you know, you're taking
polygraphs and you're doing all this kind of stuff. But
this opportunity came up. And there's other opportunities that we
can cover in a later date about the counter terrorism stuff, etcetera, etcetera.

(01:46:13):
But when this happened, I was in New York and
I went I had mentioned it to a couple of
friends of mine, many of whom said, well, that's really stupid.
What do you want to do something like that for?
What are you a war guy? What do you you
know that that kind of attitude? So I thought, who

(01:46:34):
am I going to talk to about this? I know
how my dad feels, uh, And he was very very supportive.
But I thought, okay, who do I know? And that's
got a foot in both worlds. Gotta be Henry. So
I went to talk to Henry and he was not
at all um hesitant at all. I mean, he looked

(01:47:00):
me right in the eyes. He said, I've known you
since you were a kid. I think I know you
well enough. Do you really want my opinion? And I said, Henry,
I need your opinion please, And he said, you again,
what I told you before you go do it? Screw
those people. If you believe in this, you go do

(01:47:22):
it and tell him to call me. So. I don't
think anybody ever did, but you know, Henry, I mean,
so you switch to the Doobie Brothers when Tom Johnston
is still the front person for the band along with
Patrick Simmons, and tell me about the transition where Tom
ultimately falls out of the band and you bring Michael

(01:47:46):
McDonald in. Well, okay, So for a while we were
a three master at Schooner, three guitar players. Um, all
of us, by the way, we're big fans of Will
Be Great. I think that was probably the greatest American
rock and roll band ever, and they managed to synthesize
the interaction between three guitar players in a magic way,

(01:48:10):
no doubt about it. So the three guitar player thing
was very comfortable, especially because you could always have an
acoustic guitar as well. I mean, you could really fill
it out the way it should be. UM. So we
played a lot of shows and then we were playing
l s U Louisiana State University and Tom had had

(01:48:31):
some health problems before, but he couldn't go out on stage.
He his he has some serious and again I don't
tell tales out of school but he has some serious
um um digestive problems, stomach problems, and he was in

(01:48:54):
paint and he couldn't come out and perform. So um,
and I'm not going to get into again. I don't
tell tales out of school. There was certainly a number
of interesting conversations back in the dressing room, and we
all came to the conclusion, or some of us came

(01:49:15):
to the conclusion that we still wanted to do this.
So I went out on stage and said, they were
like fifty thou people there. I said, we can either
give you your money back or come back in ten
days and we'll put on a show for you. Well, nobody,
nobody wanted their money back. So right after that, I

(01:49:39):
got on the phone and I called Michael McDonald because
he and I had become friends through playing together and
Steely Dan and doing some writing together and playing together.
Said Michael, I'm sending you a one way ticket you
want to join the Doobie Brothers. And he said, okay,
I mean, you know, I later on we always we

(01:50:00):
we we lived that conversation, but it was yeah, sure,
why not? So he flew out. We rehearsed for ten days,
eight hours a day put on a show, got five encores,
And I guess sometimes you have to make a command

(01:50:20):
decision and sometimes you get the elevator and sometimes you
get the shaft. And this time I think it worked
out very well. Now, the Doobie Brothers have a new biography.
To be point blank about it, they give you some
ship about the end of your tenure with the Doobie Brothers.

(01:50:40):
I don't know if you've seen that book, but what
is your viewpoint of the end? They basically said, you
were playing what you wanted to didn't necessarily fit in
with the rest of the band, and to a degree,
we're incorrigible. What was your experience? Boy? What a compliment? Wow?
Thank you? Um incorrigible playing what I wanted to play?

(01:51:05):
Um gee? Okay UM. When I before we started the
Living on the fault Line album, I thought, okay because
Ted Templeman was a great producer, and I thought because

(01:51:29):
Michael's material was a little bit more, um, multifaceted than
the material that the Doobie Brothers were well known for.
I mean, Tom Johnson is a great songwriter. I am
This is not in any way, um uh, putting any
kind of bad spin on any of this. I thought, Okay,

(01:51:53):
what would happen if I made if I got everybody
in the band. What if what the Doobie but has
worked as a rhythm section for other artists Leo Sayer,
Carly Simon, Um hoit accident? What if they had to
show up at nine am as a rhythm section? Play

(01:52:15):
it right or you get fired well number one. I
had always felt that the Doobie Brothers as individuals were
extremely talented musicians each one and had not realized their
own potential. Not that it was my job to do that,
but I thought that they hadn't realized their own potential.

(01:52:38):
So they started. I said, let's let's do this. What
do you think? And there was a little bit of
ad I don't really want to do that, you know,
I don't want to get up, And I said okay, fine,
and Ted Templeman, I believe UM encouraged that idea. So
there you go, downbeat, nine am. Here we go. And

(01:53:02):
what stuck struck me is after about seven or eight
months of this, I remember Keith Canuteson, who was a
fabulous drummer, just pocket groove drummer, um listening back to
a track and saying I think I dropped the snare

(01:53:25):
drum beat in bar fifte and I went, BINGO, this
is great. This is the best of what Steely Dan
was about with the spirit of the Doobie Brothers and
pushed very hard a lot of the stuff on the

(01:53:45):
Living on the fault Line album. It's very different than
the Doobie Brothers, but I think it laid the foundation
for a minute by minute to be that kind of record.
UM play what I want, UM, Certainly I had ideas

(01:54:06):
and things that I felt, UM I wanted to do.
I unless I'm missing something, there was more agreement than
there was disagreement. Just to clarify, in that book, they
were talking at about the last last days of the
Doobie Brothers, not Living on the fall Line, not minute

(01:54:28):
by minute. Well it would be after a minute by
minute or about the same time. Yeah, So again I
take that as a huge compliment. UM. When I was
on stage sometimes I was where I wore headphones all
the time because I wanted to get a good mix.
I mean, I'm a studio guy. I'm sitting down with
headphones people three guys Hyatt Jingle Stadium. That's what I do.

(01:54:54):
And Tim McCormick, my my guitar check. They started to
play this game where they would write a piece of
a song title on a piece of paper, and since
I was sitting next to Michael, they put on the
piano right next to me, and in thirty seconds I
had to take that song and incorporated into a guitar song. So, uh,

(01:55:19):
rocking down the Highway, we want you to play bobble
spangles and peats and maybe the next night we want
you to do the Hallelujah chorus. Okay, great, I loved it.
To me, that's what it's all about, challenge, rising to

(01:55:42):
the occasion and playing something different. Not that the solos
that were originally in those songs weren't great. It's not
about that, but I think they're You have to stretch
out a little bit, and maybe that made some people
feel uncomfortable. So how does it end with you? In
the Doobie Brothers, we just parted ways. Um. I think
that Patrick Simmons had another vision of what he wanted

(01:56:05):
the band to be and it was kind of his baby. Um.
I know that they had sort of broken up, but
they came back together, and I think a lot of
that has to do with everybody in the band wanting
to continue, and Tommy was had gotten his health back,

(01:56:31):
So I guess it was another metamorphosis. I mean, I
said a long time ago when I did an interview
on MSNBC about my other work. To me, life is
a series of chapters, and I love them all, every
chapter that I've been involved in. The One thing that's

(01:56:54):
important to understand, I believe is that if you're a
change agent, if you're someone who was willing to try
to change, and let's face it, what end of whatever
anybody wants to say. Bringing Michael McDonald and the Dubie
Brothers was a change. Some would say radical someone, but

(01:57:16):
it was a change to have initiated that. There are
consequences change agents. If you're a change agent, you have
to be comfortable with knowing when it's time the change
is done. Everything's done, good, thank you. Plus I wanted
to produce records. I wanted to try some other things.

(01:57:39):
I'd already started producing records when I was still in
the band, and to me, maybe you know, as time passes,
I just remember the good stuff. I still I see
Tommy Johnson probably two or three times a year because

(01:58:00):
we do the St. Chud's Hospital um benefit that I
see him play great. Actually, I thought Tom Johnson was
and still is a fine human being because one time
he came and stayed at my house and he made
his bed and I know that sounds but no, No,
those little things I noticed. Whether it's like when you're

(01:58:22):
in the bathroom with a guy, does he wash his hands?
If he doesn't wash his hands, It's something you can
never forget. So ultimately you leave the Doobie Brothers. You
produce records, and you do a cornucopy of things. You
work in TV, you work in movies, you work in
advertising commercials. You write the theme from nine O two

(01:58:44):
one Oh So was there any plan? Was there? I
know you play with multiple people, but you've been in
bands for a while. Did you not want to be
in bands again? No? I live Living in Los Angeles
was like going to the Costco of music. Sometimes you
didn't even know what you want to buy. Oh yeah,

(01:59:07):
that those big truck tires. Maybe I'll buy a truck. Well,
buy the tires and then I'll buy the truck. Or
you know it. There's you have so much on There's
so much available, a pot pourri, a veritable supermarket, a
voritable bazaar of things to do. I wanted to try

(01:59:30):
it all because I wanted to challenge myself. I I'm
not a big fan of you know, I'm this guy,
and look at what I've done to me. It's what
did you do today? Um? Maybe again, that's the work
ethic that I learned from my father. But I saw

(01:59:51):
this opportunity and I wanted. I was curious, could I
do this? I already know what I can do. I
had a bucket list. I've tried off every box in
that bucket list musically except for a solo problem. This
is the last box. Okay, at this late date, how
much of your time has spent on music? How much

(02:00:13):
has spent on defence work? Right now up until this moment?
Probably half and half. Because I'm a member of a
couple of wonderful bands. One is called American vinyl Um.
The other guitar players former guitar player from Boston. The

(02:00:34):
drummer was James Brown's band, and I played with James
Brown for a little while. He and I became friends.
A keyboard player from the Whalers. I mean it's just
awesome band. I mean it's kind of a corporate band.
We do a lot of charities, especially for vets. You
want to hear the hinds. Just tell us when you
want to stop, when when you want us to stop.

(02:00:54):
There's a band called the Coalition of the Willing in Washington,
d C. We do a lot of embassy parties and
stuff again, fundraisers for vets charities. Myself Tony Blinkin. There's
a Secretary of State. Um uh uh. The drummer was

(02:01:16):
former ambassador of Japan. Um the bass player was a
former other secondary state from military affairs. I mean that
kind of band where you get together and there you
know it's it's it's more for fun and raise money.

(02:01:36):
And I played with different bands, you know when the
when the There's a band called uh six Wire that
I do some shows with. There are a lot of
fun band called Side Deal that down in Newport. Best
singers I've ever heard. So they say, would come and
play pedal steel? Of course I will, you know, so

(02:01:57):
I'd say maybe fifty fifty. We'll see what happens after
this first solo endeavor and see how that goes. So obviously,
if you're working, you're playing an instrument, But do you
play every day or only when you need to. I
pretty much play every day for a couple of reasons. One,

(02:02:18):
I like to play the guitar um. A lot of
times I'm either um, you know, out with the sidering iron,
out my workshop, trying something new. You gotta play it after,
you you know, reroute some of the electronics or something.
And there's a zen to it that brings me inner peace.

(02:02:44):
And in my day job, there are times when it
gets really really difficult. Um. As you know, we live
in a world that's not what I think any of us,
except for the most twisted individual would defined as optimum

(02:03:04):
people's behavior. I mean, it can get a little tough,
but playing the instrument does a couple of things. There's
this zen. There also is the connection that very few
people really understand. Um. A lot of people come up
to me. Quite a few folks have said, hey, I'd

(02:03:26):
really like to help you at what you do? You
know in your day job? What can I do? And
there are a few folks. Paul Reid Smith came with
an idea for an underwater acoustic detection system. Called up
my buddy over at the Nable Research Lab. Hey, nov
Adam O Carr, you gotta check this out. Now. He's

(02:03:47):
got a company called Digital Harmonic that's doing stuff for
the Navy and other folks. There's some very smart people
who do that, but most people want to help. And
I said, listen, you gotta understand. One of the reasons
why I got involved in Afghanistan is because the Taliban
was cutting the hands off musicians. Why were they doing that.

(02:04:09):
They were doing it because they're frightened that musicians have
the ability and the key to open people's hearts. And
you don't want that. If you are dogmatic and you
are rigid in New York beliefs, anything else is a threat,
so you try to eliminate it. So I tell every

(02:04:30):
musician that I know, every note that you play, every
word that you sing, you're fighting for freedom. You are
as much of a freedom fighter as anybody on this planet.
And so playing the guitar, I believe has a symmetry
and a synergy to all that. Because again, like I

(02:04:51):
said before, what brought down the Soviet Union, well, missile defense,
no doubt about it. They felt they were sure that
we could do it, and we we spent them out
of existence. But also I did the first one of
the first shows in Rush Soviet Union in kids knew
every word to every song and all our music was illegal.

(02:05:14):
What brought down the Soviet Union was French fires, blue
chains and Elvis Presley. Soft Power Joseph and I from
under Secretarity State who wrote a book called soft Power.
I actually wrote the blurb for his book. We'll tell
you that the power of culture is massive. Again. Why
would the Taliban want to cut your hands off because

(02:05:36):
they're scared to death of what you do? Okay, you
talk about doing all these gigs for charity. You talked
about Bicker and Fagan not having to go on the
road because of publishing royalties. How are you doing financially?
Life is good. I cannot complain. Um. I don't wear

(02:05:56):
a lot of I don't have any jewelry. I don't buy.
If I need a guitar, usually somebody will say, hey,
why don't you It's like Henry take this, get out
of my store. Um I life is good. I don't
have a very lavish lifestyle and I'm very comfortable. So yeah,

(02:06:21):
um I'm I hesitate to use the word blessed because
it has theological connotations to it, and lucky is a
a word that is overused and underdefined. I am fortunate.
I would say that I've accomplished much of what I
ever wanted to accomplish. Like I said, I've only got

(02:06:43):
one box left to check on my bucket list, and
it has brought me happiness, fulfillment, satisfaction, adventure, um uh, conflict,
all of the things that I think are important. Two

(02:07:05):
eventually get to the point where it used to be.
I used to hear people say that he who dies
with the most toys winds. No, he who dies with
the most stories wind because you can buy toys, you
can't buy experience. Okay, just to go one little left

(02:07:28):
field deed tour before we go. Most guitarists have a
lot of equipment. They have preferences. How many guitars and
he amps do you have and what are your preferences.
I don't have a lot, and I used to have
a bunch. I used to have like four guitars. And
one time John at Whistle and I were out the

(02:07:48):
Rainbow and John I was a wonderful friend. I really
miss him, um but we were sitting around and talking
about the guitars because he had he was trying to
out of place to store some of them, And I said, John,
what the hell are we doing? Why are we why

(02:08:09):
are we doing this? When we were children, we would
put our face up against the window at Manny's or
in Mexico City, I would go to Casaver Camper, Casla
Wagner and look at a Fender jazz Master that cost
almost a thousand dollars. So I'd have to make do
with something else. And so you want to own all
of these things. You want to you know, Um, I

(02:08:33):
guess it's it's residual. And I said, this is stupid.
We have all these instruments that are beautiful instruments and
nobody is playing them. Let's just get rid of them.
And he said, you're absolutely right. The hell with this,
Let's get rid of everything. So I probably have maybe

(02:08:53):
forty guitars, which may sound like a lot, but if
you do studio work, you really do need a good
toolbox of a number of different instruments to be able
to fulfill the needs of varied people who have varied
musical tastes and very musical styles. Um. Mostly I'm a

(02:09:13):
rolling guy. But with Roland for forty seven years now,
helping design instruments for them was involved in the guitar
synthesizing project from the beginning. Actually used the first prototype
guitar synthesizer on Bad Girls, Uh Donna Summersong, which I
had done just after I'd done Hot Stuff. Because I

(02:09:35):
didn't have any guitars. Everything was on the road. I
went down a guitar center, brought up Burns Bis Jr.
For bucks, bought a six pack of beer in a
deluxe river with me, went down and did Hot Stuff.
What the hell you know? Why not? Um? Again, it's
not the instrument. I think it's the player. Um. So
I don't have a lot of instruments. Uh. And I

(02:09:58):
think John and I came to the rough conclusion and
hopefully all those guitars are out there being played by
people who really appreciate it. So I don't have a
lot of equipment. Okay, Scunk, this has been wonderful. I
would love to go deeper into the defense story, but
I think we've run out of time for today. I
want to thank you so much for your time and
wish you good luck on your final bucket list item.

(02:10:21):
Thanks for doing this well, thank you very much for
even asking. It's let's take it as a pup thank
you very much. Until next time, this is Bob left
sex