John Ondrasik

John Ondrasik, aka "Five for Fighting," recently returned from a performance of his song "OK" in Tel Aviv. We talk about this as well as John's songs about Afghanistan and Ukraine as well as his hits "Superman" and "100 Years" and how he made it. John is erudite and articulate, you'll want to listen to this.

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 John Drastic, otherwise known as five
for Fighting. John. Why five for Fighting?

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Well? When EMI Records back in the day wanted to
launch my record, it was the age of lilleth Fair
boy band's grunge music. The male singer songwriter was dead
and they said, John, we need a band name. As
a hockey fan, I had just been to a hockey
game and there are a couple of fights by a
guy named Marty McSorley, who was Wayne Gretzky's bodyguard. And

(00:46):
in hockey, of course, if you get in a fight,
you get five minutes for fighting a penalty. And so
when the record company said we need a band name,
I sarcastically said, well, how about five for Fighting, expecting
them to hate it, Bob, and of course I said,
we love it, and here I am twenty years later.
Five for Fighting sounds like I should be opening for Metallica.

(01:07):
But I do get a hockey ticket whenever I tend
to want one, so it has had some fringe benefits.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
Okay, we have the example of Johnny Cougar, John Mellen
camp Or ultimately evolved into using his own name. Is
this something that you would like to achieve?

Speaker 2 (01:27):
I think it's way too late for that, And, you know,
to be honest with you, it's been kind of nice
because it's really been about the music. There's certainly, I
think a disconnect between some of the songs and the
five for Fighting brand and the fact that it's not
a band, it's a guy. It probably cost the record
company a million records, but it's allowed me to kind
of just kind of slip under the radar, and frankly,

(01:49):
as a huge sports fan, I've also been able to
play you know, Monday night football, all Star games, you know,
outdoor hockey games, you know baseball, you know, championship games.
And that doesn't happen with John and Rassic. I think
Fire for Fighting sounds a little more, you know, you know, cliche,
to give you some some umph to it. So I'll

(02:12):
take the name and we'll let someone else sell the records.

Speaker 1 (02:16):
Okay, recently you performed in Israel. How did that happen?

Speaker 2 (02:22):
Boy? It's a long story, really, well tell it.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
We're all here.

Speaker 2 (02:28):
It really started a few years ago. I wrote a
song about the withdrawal from Afghanistan, a song called Blood
in my Hands. It was very critical of the withdrawal,
and it resonated with our Afghan veterans who felt gutted,
shamed that we abandoned their allies that we swore to protect,

(02:53):
and it became resonant with many folks in the military
and internationally. I ended up getting emails from people trapped
in Afghanistan to the point where I were working with
many of these NGOs evacuating people and getting people out.
One called Save our Allies got sixteen thousand people out
in nine days. And I saw the value of music

(03:19):
in that effort. And then I said, I hope I
never have to do this again. Well, then Ukraine comes
putin invade Ukraine. I write a song called come one Man,
Save the World, kind of to stand for the Ukrainian people.
I go to Ukraine. I film a song with Ukrainian
orchestra and a blown up airport, and again that song
resonates in a way that I think was significant, and

(03:40):
I was, Okay, God, I hope I never have to
do this again. And then October seventh, I think, like
all of us, we were horrified, we were disgusted, we
were angry. Reminded me a lot of nine to eleven.
The atrocity has seen some of the images we just
can never have imagined. But what really got me was
the cultural aftermath, the collapse of so many of our

(04:04):
moral institutions. The mayor of New York City gave a speech,
I think it was October ninth, and the speech was basically,
something's really broken in America when we have thousands of
people in Times Square celebrating the raping of women, the
beheading of babies, the killing of children in front of
their parents, uploading it to Facebook for the world to see,

(04:26):
and that people are out there celebrating that something's really broken.
And so I had this sense of a song is there?
A song is there? And then we saw the media
very quickly become Hamas propagandists. Of course, we saw our
college campuses inflamed. We saw the Rashida Talibs of the
world basically spouting Hamas propaganda. Couldn't even say that beheadings

(04:50):
of babies were bad. And so I wrote the song
okay with the theme were not Okay? And I made
a video to it and it was it's just a
documentary video. It was just images from October seventh, but
it was more than that. Over the lyrics Evils on
the march, I had putin next to Hamas, next to

(05:11):
Iran Frankly, next to the un who has also been
an ally of Hamas in this and that video went
viral and Israel ended up sharing it on their social media.
And when that happened, I got a very small sense
of what it's like to be Jewish. I'm not Jewish.
You don't have to be Jewish to condemn Hamas, you
just have to be saying. But when Israel shared that video,

(05:35):
I experienced the vitriol. I experience the death threats. I
experienced what Jewish people are going through every day. And
when that happened, I got connected with many of the
Jewish organizations Stand with Us, the American Jewish Committee, the Adel,
and I started speaking to some college groups and I
started talking about this and playing my song, and it

(05:56):
really I got thousands of emails from people in Israel,
thousands of emails from Jewish people around the world, and
I started doing press and media. And when I was
out on my tour last month, I had a week
off and I'd been asked by folks to go to Israel,
so I did. I went to Israel initially to meet
with Israeli artists because of course the American and international

(06:22):
artists have been deathly silent on Israel and October seventh,
so I was working with them on some projects. I
met with some troops. I talked to some hostage families,
which was just as you can imagine excruciating. But I
wasn't planning on this. But on Friday, they said, you know,
we have this hostage rally in Hostage Square every Saturday night.

(06:46):
They've been doing it since October seventh. Hostage family speak,
thousands of people come, it's aired on television. It's very
as you can imagine, moving, sad experience. And they asked
me to play my song Superman, and they asked me
to play this song Okay, which I did. It was
the most surreal experience I could tell you about. I've

(07:08):
never had a Gigbob where before the gig there's an announcement
that says an event of missile attack, please lay down,
put your hands over your head. And the crazy thing
was nobody left, not one Israeli left. I played my songs,
I cried with the hostage families. Three hours later I

(07:30):
ran launched their first drones their attack on Israel. So
quite a interesting twenty four hours.

Speaker 1 (07:37):
Okay, let's unpack all this because from when you started
in the last century, the game is completely changed. So Afghanistan,
you are motivated to write a song. Today, as we speak,
two rappers are having a rap war. Most people have

(07:58):
never even heard these songs, might even have heard the
name of the acts. So you write a song, how
do you get it heard in the twenty first century
internet streaming world.

Speaker 2 (08:09):
It's a good question, because, of course we sent Blood
on My Hands to four hundred music media outlets. One
of them covered it because it did not fit their
political worldview. So I go on television, I go on

(08:29):
Fox News, I go on sometimes CNN. I go on podcasts,
but went a little bit slower.

Speaker 1 (08:36):
One thing to be on podcasts with people like me.
It's another thing to be on CNN in Fox Fox
you know, as you say, might align with the view
of the song.

Speaker 2 (08:45):
How did that happen? People saw it, People saw it,
Senators started tweeting it. I have some relationships in media
and they started calling and asking me to come on.
And it was very interesting because Blood on my Hands,
because it was critical of the administration, was kind of
embraced by the right and shunned by the left, which

(09:07):
includes the music press. My Ukraine song was different. It
actually debuted on Good Morning America the video that we shot,
and many of the mainstream media basically accepted that song
and appreciated that song because that's a song that kind
of appeals more to the left, and frankly, some on
the right did not like that song. So I have

(09:29):
relationships in the media. It's a fascinating thing that, you know,
you being kind of an icon on this business, to
have three songs that have had millions of impressions and
around the world without once spin on the radio. So
you know, I think the messages are resonating, frankly, because
very few artists are even talking about the subjects.

Speaker 1 (09:52):
Okay, let's move on to the Ukraine from Afghanistan. How
long after the attack did you write and go on
Good Morning America?

Speaker 2 (10:04):
So basically I wrote the song literally in twenty four hours,
because as you remember, at the outset of the war,
the mercenaries were hunting Zelenski. We didn't think he even
came out and said I probably won't be alive at
the end of the week, So I wrote can One
Man Save of the World? I recorded it, I put
it out piano vocal, which I've never done, expecting him

(10:26):
to basically not survive, but of course he did, and
the song resonated. And the plan really was to go
to Poland because Poland has been so amazing taking four
million refugees, so I wanted to shine the light on Poland.
So I reached out to a friend who had relationships
in Poland and she said, this is a great idea,
let me call you back. And a few weeks later

(10:48):
she called me back and said, how would you like
to go to Ukraine and perform the song with the
Ukrainian Orchestra? And this is not a woman who jokes around.
I'm like, do they even exist? Does the orchestra exist?
And she said, they're scattered around Ukraine. We can get
them into ki for two days. A million things have
to happen, but be prepared, you know, right, an arrangement.

(11:11):
So I was driving around the country touring with my
string quartet and in the back of the van we
were scoring out the an orchestra arrangement for can One
Man Save the World? And then my last show, I
got an email with a plane ticket to Krakau the
next morning. I had a very long talk with my

(11:31):
wife that night, but she let me go and two
days later, after playing trains and automobiles getting to Kiev,
we were allowed to play and what is hollow ground
in Ukraine. Typically when you go to Ukraine you play
in the subways because when Russia launches missiles and the

(11:52):
air raids go off, everybody runs in the subways. But
we were able to perform at the Antonoff Airport, which
basically is the hang or for the symbol of Ukrainian independence,
which is an airplane. It's called the Maria. It's the
largest cargo plane in the world. It's the symbol that's
on their army patch. And at the outset of the war,
Putin sent his troops to the Antonoff Airport and blew

(12:14):
it up. He basically blew the nose cone off, so
it's this wreckage of a plane. And we were able
to put the orchestra and myself in front of this
plane and perform. And a little antidote that really kind
of brought it home for me. As we were running takes,
I noticed that out of the corner of my eye
an entourage of military folks coming over. It turned out

(12:36):
it was the general who had approved us shooting there.
He's kind of their schwartz cough. He's kind of very
well known. He's the face of the war. And through
a translator, he said, you know, thank you for coming.
You know, President Zelensky's glad you're here. And then he
said something I'll never forget. He said, let me hear
the song. And you could see the orchestra kind of

(12:57):
sit up in their seats and because very emotional, and
they started playing with this vigor and passion. What I
found out later is every member of that orchestra had
either had a family member killed, missing, or on the
front lines. So to play this song in front of
this general was a big deal for them. And if

(13:18):
you see the Kimbo Man Say of the World video,
this is the take. And at the end of the performance,
I was in tears. Some of his Rambo guards were
like putting on stunglasses because they were in tears. And
there was this silence that probably was four or five
seconds but felt like a week. But you could really
feel the weight of that moment, these people fighting for
their survival. The seventy two year old violin player teaching

(13:43):
me curse words to yell at Putin. And I realized
it later, Bob, that they didn't know any of the words,
they didn't know the lyrics. It was just music, the
universal nature of music that brought us together and were
able to have this American from thousands of miles away
singing with these people under siege. And I wish every

(14:05):
American could have stood in my shoes. I think we
would have a different sense of the of how fortunate
we are to have the freedoms we do have.

Speaker 1 (14:16):
Okay, one of the obvious questions you mentioned your wife
in discussing whether you could go, did you have any
sense of fear there?

Speaker 2 (14:25):
I did. I did. I wrote letters to my family.
They didn't even know it in case I didn't come back.
I mean, certainly, you know the odds are with you
when you go, but it is a war zone and
people are getting killed, and unlike Israel, there was no

(14:45):
iron dome to protect us. So yeah, I didn't sleep
much there. When we finally got back to Poland after
five days, I think I slept for thirty hours. Because
you're always anxious and you're scared and you also get
a sense of the fortitude of the Ukrainian people, of
Israeli people who basically every day they have to ask

(15:09):
is this my last day? Because they're being attacked relentlessly.
So yeah, I was certainly anxious. We had one air
raid that kind of drove us to the basements. But yeah,
it's a war zone. I mean, I'm human, and I
think if you're not a little scared, something's probably wrong

(15:30):
with you.

Speaker 1 (15:31):
Okay, you took a stance with Afghanistan. Needless to say,
we pulled out. Ukrainian war is still going on. Was
just recently the government said we're going to give funds
and weapons to Ukraine. Having been there, being a student
of the situation, what would you tell people about the

(15:54):
war in Ukraine?

Speaker 2 (15:57):
I would say that I understand. Also people say, well,
are we waste the money? Is their corruption? There is?
There's corruption there. Frankly, if you want to get something done,
it's probably easier to do it with the mob than
the government. At the same time, the cost I think
of abandoning Ukraine to Putin could be catastrophic. Certainly he

(16:24):
would not stop there, and certainly if he moves into Poland,
it's a NATO country, and then we have American soldiers
fighting this war, so I think we have to stop him. Unfortunately,
I think the administration has been giving just enough to
Ukraine to kind of maybe not have them lose right now.
But the fact that I think many of our republicans,

(16:47):
some of my I rode with some Republicans on a
train from Leviv to Kiev and some of them were
not open to funding Ukraine for political reasons. I thought
that was a huge mistake, and I'm very glad that
the House came to their senses and funded Ukraine. There
is waste, and we need to have people on the ground,

(17:09):
But a lot of the expense that those funding goes
to is to American companies actually making warheads, making missiles,
making military supplies for Ukraine. So it just doesn't they
don't write a check for sixty billion dollars to Ukraine.
But I understand that because I did see the waste,

(17:30):
and I think if we had a little more savvy
we would have people on there. I saw miles of
trucks outside of the border, and I'm like, what are
in those trucks? And I think we really need people
on the ground. To hold some accountability. But I think
a lot of times in politics, you know, for political reasons,
people write at check and they say, Okay, we've done

(17:51):
our job. No, you just started to do your job.
But I do think the consequence of allowing Putin to
take Ukraine could be catastrophic geopolitically for US and and
and Frankly, I think one reason why we had October
seventh was because when you abandon your citizens to the Taliban,
when you basically tell Putin that, well, a little invasion's okay.

(18:15):
I think the bad actors Iran Hamas they sense weakness.
And I'm sure Putin greenlit October seventh because what was
his goal? To take the focus off Ukraine, which it
has done. So I understand the concerns about Ukraine, but
in my opinion, to allow Putin to to take Ukraine

(18:38):
and to basically annihilate Ukrainians would be historically catastrophic.

Speaker 1 (18:50):
Now, your wife, who you've been married to for decades,
has a Jewish last name. I don't know to what
degree she was brought up or considers yourself a practicing Jew.
But did that inform your take on October seventh?

Speaker 2 (19:05):
No, it didn't it's to me, this is not a
Jewish thing. A lot of people say, why are you
doing this, You're not Jewish, and I'm like, well, when
we were rescuing Muslims from Afghanistan, people didn't say why
are you Muslim? Why are you doing this? I just
think it's the right thing to do. I was just

(19:26):
frankly shocked, and to this day, I'm ashamed of our
industry where so many folks who've made their kind of
brand is caring about human rights, standing up for good
and all that is good, have been deathly silent on
October seventh. I mean, of course, we all remember the

(19:47):
concert for New York. I was a little kid and
I was honored to play my little song. But every
icon in music was on that stage in Madison Square Garden,
condemning Osama bin Laden, supporting America, supporting New York. October seventh,
nothing nothing, So for me, this is not about Jewish, Christian, atheist, Martian.

(20:15):
This is about those who want to destroy civilization against
those who want to save it. Because at the end
of the day, and that's what my song's about. It's
not about Israel Palestine. It's about good versus evil. It
really is. And so for me, it's not about Jewish,

(20:35):
it's about sanity. And for me, yes, my wife has
she's a Berkowitz, she's not a practicing Jewish person. But yeah,
to me, it's as simple as that. It's it's just
doing the right thing.

Speaker 1 (20:52):
Okay, where were you and how did you find out
about the October seventh invasion slash massacre.

Speaker 2 (21:01):
I was at home like everybody else, and I kind
of heard what was going on, and we didn't see
some of the images, you know, for hours, but I
kept saying, like, where's the idea? Half where like everybody else,
where's where's the good guys? How is this happening? And

(21:22):
you know, certainly the Nova concert was was kind of
one of the first things that kind of we saw.
And I again, I was six to sick to my stomach.
I was you know, I was horrified. And as the
days went by and you heard the stories and it
just you just didn't understand. Number one, how could this evil?
How could this evil happen? And number two how Israel

(21:46):
allowed it to happen? And when I was in Israel,
I asked many kind of leaders that question, and they
just shake their heads because there is no good answer
for that.

Speaker 1 (21:56):
Okay, getting a little bit deeper into the conflict, which,
as you say, is to place Ukraine in the news
and is upfront and center because of the protests. What
would you say to the Jews, never mind the non
Jews who say put all the blame on Net and Yahoo.

(22:17):
Got to get rid of net Yah.

Speaker 2 (22:21):
I think there's a time for politics, but that's probably
not now. I think Israel needs to get rid of
Hamas because the cycle has been going on and on
for decades. Hamask commits atrocities, they run back their high

(22:43):
they commit they take terrorists, they use human shields to
guarantee that as many Palaestinian civilizations are killed, the world
comes down on Israel, pressures them to where they stop,
and then the whole thing starts over. So again, I think,
to me, it's not so much about the politicians, the

(23:04):
net and Yahoo. You love him, you hate him. There'll
be a time for reckoning. I think for net and
Yahoo because he was in charge when the massive failure
to protect his own people on October seventh occurred. But
I think right now, when I talk to folks in Israel,
certainly many of the hostage families are angry with him,

(23:24):
and you understand that. I mean, they just want their
loved ones home. But I think right now it's really
about taking out Hamas and then the chips will probably
fall soon after that.

Speaker 1 (23:37):
Let's be specific. As we were recording this, Israel has
entered Rafa. Our US government says we are not going
to help them with materiel. What's your take on that.

Speaker 2 (23:53):
I think it's disgusting by our government. Some of the
statements that come out from our administration have been despicable.
In the beginning, I think President Biden his rhetoric was
very good. We're going to stand with Israel shoulder to shoulder.
But when you hear things from Anthony Blincoln statements such

(24:14):
as if Israel doesn't change their ways, they may become indistinguishable,
indistinguishable from Hamas, that is disgusting. He knows better. This
is a guy who called Afghanistan an incredible success. This
is a guy who presided over when America accidentally droned

(24:36):
and killed ten Afghans, and he's calling out Israel after
the mistake of killing the human Aid workers. So I
think to withhold armaments from Israel at this point, I
just don't understand it. I don't understand it morally, I
don't understand it politically. I haven't understood it from day
one now. As far as moving into Rafa on the border,

(25:00):
that doesn't surprise me because many folks I talk to
and Israel assumed that that would probably be the first step,
because the lifeblood of Hamas or the tunnels from Egypt
into Gaza. So I think what Israel will do, and
I think you'll probably see over the next few days
when they start kind of going down and extivating hundreds

(25:21):
of tunnels under the border there, so they'll cut off
the life blood of Hamas and hopefully, you know, they'll
try to move as many civilians as possible. But it's
going to be terrible. All war is terrible. But this
is kind of what I was told what happened, and
it seems to be playing out that way.

Speaker 1 (25:43):
And what do you say to the people who say,
thirty odd thousand people have perished, The war has to stop.

Speaker 2 (25:53):
Nobody likes war. I care about a Palestinian child as
much as an Israeli child, as much as an Afghan child,
the Ukrainian child, an American child. But I would have
to ask some of these people who use the ceasefire argument,

(26:13):
certain we all would love a ceasefire and spout the
thirty thousand Palestinians killed. I think, first of all, that
number is given to you by Hamas. It includes hama's members.
And the fact that many in the media parrot the
Hamas propaganda is a huge problem. The AP, the BBC,
sky News, they're not journalists, they are Hamas propagandists. The

(26:36):
fact that President Biden used that number in his State
of the Union, it's very unfortunate. Hamas is very good
at propaganda. Because there's many people who don't like Israel.
I haven't I didn't expect I didn't. I always thought
that anti Semitism was some crazy people on the right
and some crazy people on the left. But there's a

(26:59):
lot of anti Semitism out there. And I would just
say to the ceasefire people and the people who claim
to care about Palestinians. In my mind, if you truly
cared about Palestinians, would you not be saying release the hostages.
Would you not be saying lay down your weapons and

(27:20):
not one more civilian will die? Would you not be
saying stop using Palestinian children? And women as human shields
and trying to create as many Palestinian deaths as possible.
Would you not be saying, how come the Arab nations
Egypt will not take one refugee? Would you not be

(27:40):
calling out Hamas as the agent of Palestinian death? And
if you don't understand the death culture of Hamas where
they train children at five years old to kill Jewish people.
Only hope for Palestinians truly is to free Gaza from Hamas.

(28:06):
There's no hope. And what people don't like to talk
about too is the IDF numbers. By a objective people,
the civilian to combatant casualty rate is basically one to one,
which has never happened in history. Israel does more than
any army to protect to protect civilians. If you cared

(28:29):
about Palestinians, these crazy folks on their campuses, why weren't
you protesting when Syria killed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.
So at the end of the day, I think many
of the ceasefire folks they have a good heart. They
just wanted to stop and I understand that. But what
it's not doing, what the ceasefire will not do, is

(28:53):
stop this from happening again, and I never hear let
me say that again. I rarely hear people calling for
a ceasefire make those arguments about releasing the hostages and
all these other things I'm talking about. So that's what
I would say to people. If you truly care about
the Palestinian people, Hamas has to go. If you care

(29:16):
about gay people, Hummas has to go, because they kill them.
If these kids were protesting in Gaza and calling out
the government there, they would be dead. Unfortunately, that narrative
doesn't seem to stick with many people, especially in the
music business. But that's my opinion.

Speaker 1 (29:36):
Okay, we have all these pro Palestinian encampments and rallies
and protests on college campuses. Now, as a writer in
the Free Press pointed out, if they were sporting or
using Confederate flags, they would be uh stopped immediately. If
they were protesting and saying things about black people, they

(29:59):
would stopped immediately. Why do you think these people are
protesting and why do you think they've been allowed to protest?
In addition, you have both the administrations of these schools
and many Democrats afraid to stand up to these people.

Speaker 2 (30:18):
I gave a speech at UCLA last week basically saying
the same thing that if twelve hundred Muslims are massacred
and there were Muslim hostages and Muslim women were raped,
and we had five Muslim American hostages as we speak,
and our university set up students and faculties set up
illegal accountments on their campuses calling for death to all Muslims,

(30:43):
attacking Muslims at UCLA literally creating checkpoints where students are asked,
what is your religion? And if they say, in this case, Muslim,
they would be banned from moving across campus. If that
was happening, it wouldn't be happening because we know that
the administrations would stop that in two seconds. I think

(31:05):
there's a few reasons why this has grown on some
of our college campuses. Let's be honest. It's in our
supposed elite Ivy League campuses and the coastal campuses. This
is not happening in the SEC. This is not happening
in Florida. But many of those institutions for decades have
been teaching this oppressor versus a press e kind of

(31:30):
Marxist woke dogma, and many of those students ten for
fifteen years ago. Are now presidents of MIT, presidents of Harvard,
presidents of UCLA, running the New York Times, running business.
So this whole woke ideology. I was talking to Naton Seransky,

(31:52):
the freedom fighter in Israel, the iconic Naton Seranski, and
he said, you know, twenty years ago, somebody asked me
what is the biggest threat to freedom in the Western world?
And he said, twenty years ago American academic institutions. And
I think we've seen that. You know, Katar has funded
three billion dollars to the northwesterns, to NYU, to Colombia

(32:15):
to basically kind of teach this anti Semitic you know,
oppressor versus a press e dogma. So between the faculty
who believes this, between the president's and administration who appease this,
and the radicals who have kind of come into these
college campuses to indoctrinate these kids, to brainwash them. I

(32:36):
don't think we should be surprised. The difference between UCLA
and NYU and Colombia and MIT is the administrations are
so cowardly afraid to basically enforce their own codes of conduct.
They negotiate with the students and they kind of they
kind of allow them to run rabid versus some of

(32:57):
the schools in the South where and to the encampments,
you know, taken out, these students are suspended and sanity rains.
But I think this has been coming for a long time.
We've just kind of turned over the rock and it's
clear for everybody to see now.

Speaker 1 (33:13):
No one is a strict party member, but and the
continuum of left to right, Republican or Democrat generally speaking,
where would you put yourself?

Speaker 2 (33:24):
I would say I'm a centrist. Maybe I lean a
little right, you know, on financial and foreign policy issues,
and I lean a little left on social issues. But
I've always kind of been a misfit toy. I really
don't fit into either party. And certain times the left

(33:46):
is mad at me, and certain times the right is
mad at me, And so be it. I think that's
what America is all about. I think over the last
ten to fifteen years we become very polarized that the
left has moved further left, some on the right has
moved farther right. I don't think if you kind of
woke up from a coma after fifteen years, you probably

(34:07):
wouldn't recognize the Democratic left and you wouldn't recognize the
Republican right. The center has kind of been washed out.
And you know the theme of my song, you know
we are not okay. I think that applies to our
politics right now too. We've become so tribal and the media,
I think has become so tribal, and I think that's
one reason we're here and we are struggling. Certain things

(34:30):
like supporting Israel should not be political, and you know
what it's really not. If you look at the polls, No,
eighty percent of Americans support Israel. If they support Israel
going into Rafa, you wouldn't know that by the media
and by the college campuses. But at the same time
you know that that's the so called silent majority. But

(34:51):
the problem is if you're silent long enough, that silent
majority becomes a silent minority. So that's why I think
it's very important for people to speak up. The first
lyric of my song Okay is this is a time
for choosing, and I think we have to choose. We
can't put our heads in the sand anymore. We're losing
a generation of children. And I just wish more artists

(35:14):
would say that. And that's the thing that really breaks
my heart.

Speaker 1 (35:20):
Okay, in the sixties, it was believed that music could
change the world. Graham Nash literally had a song where
you sang that, having had this experience with these three
spiky political songs, to what degree do you believe that
music can have an impact?

Speaker 2 (35:40):
Look? I saw it at a very young age and
a very surreal experience when Superman became one of the
songs that recognized the heroes of nine to eleven, became
a song for the firefighters who ran into those buildings,
and I saw how music can provide solid in ways

(36:02):
nothing else can. How, you know, we talk about fame,
fortune charts, how many tickets can you sell? Celebrity? That
night at the concert for New York, I think changed me.
And it wasn't my performance. It was watching the Who
blow the roof off Madison Square Garden and watching two
twenty thousand people who'd been down at ground zero crying

(36:24):
and singing and screaming and been able to release, you know,
to get the thousands of emails from Israelis who feel
abandoned by the arts because they have been and they say,
we thought we were crazy. Why is nobody speaking enough
for us? We've marched for civil rights, we've done all
the right things, and we get hit with these atrocities,

(36:46):
and even Jewish artists can't say release the hostages. So
I think again, I just wish, to be honest with you,
I wish I had a bigger platform. I wish some
of the more artists had written this song. They should
have written this song, and then I think we'd be
in a better place, because nothing, nothing moves the needle

(37:09):
more than the arts, especially for the kids. The kids
don't watch the news. The kids don't care about speeches
by politicians. What do they care about. They care about music.
That's how you cross borders, that's how you change Live
Sun City Live Aid concert for New York, go down
the list. That's who we're supposed to be, but that's
not who we are now. And I think the shame

(37:33):
is a historical shame on the music business that will
never be washed clean. But there's still time. There's a
few folks David Draymond from Disturbed, he's been very brave
out there. There's been some a few folks in Hollywood,
Deborah Messing, Patricia Heaton who've been very vocal fighting the
good fight. But man. The music industry has a lot,

(37:56):
a lot.

Speaker 1 (37:56):
You know.

Speaker 2 (37:57):
The last image of my video is Martin Luther King
with his statement silence in the face of evil is complicity,
and the music business is complicit.

Speaker 1 (38:09):
So with over a number of years these big political
moments in your career, standing up for what you think
is right and writing and performing these songs, has it
helped your career or hurt your career? I know that's
not why you did it, but with hindsight.

Speaker 2 (38:30):
I think I think it's probably the margins and probably
hurt more than helped. Certainly, you never know because nobody says, well,
I'm not going to license your song because I hate
that you criticize the administration over Afghanistan. They just don't
license your song. And I have there are folks in
the music industry that used to take my call that

(38:50):
won't take my call. I'm also you know, look, I mean,
I'm going to be sixty years old. I've had my run,
and I'm on the backside of my career, and I
think a lot of folks are very I know for
a fact that there are folks unhappy with me within
the music industry. On the other hand, there are some
folks who are very grateful. I hear from music executives

(39:13):
who are Jewish and some who are not, who sometimes
are in tears because they also are very frustrated and
upset by the fact that the music industry has remained silent.
There's a group out here called the Creative Coalition for
Peace with many music executives, managers, you know, the Scooter
Braun folks like that, who who have been speaking up

(39:34):
and in my mind, fighting the good fight. But yeah,
I mean, at this point in my career, to be
honest with you, it's you know, I really don't even
think about it. You know, when you talk to hostage families,
you look them in the eye and you hear their stories.
Like anybody who doesn't buy a ticket, or buy a record,

(39:54):
or you know, license a song of mine, It seems
so silly and trivial. But I don't think it's had
a huge impact either way.

Speaker 1 (40:00):
Really, Okay, talking about your fellow artists, why do you
think they will not go on record? And what would
you tell them?

Speaker 2 (40:20):
I would tell them this. I understand that you're scared.
I understand that you're scared for your families. I understand
that you don't want your concerts protested. I understand that
because I'm living some of that. But I'd also say
to you is the same arguments were used in nineteen

(40:43):
thirty eight. Good people were quiet when they should have
spoken out. You don't have to love Israel. You don't
have to. You could it's not even about Israel. But
how hard is it to say, release the hostages Hamas
is evil and stand for good against what is happening,

(41:06):
to support Jewish people in their time of need. That
should not be a political calculation. It should be a
moral calculation. And if it was any other group, like
you said, Bob, pretty much all of the artists that
we know who like to get out on their soapboxes,
we'll be out there screaming, you know, speaking for Muslim,

(41:31):
speaking for African Americans, speaking for gain inlisting people as
they should be. But for some reason, because it's Jewish people,
we have to ask ourselves and really look in our
hearts and look in the mirror and say who are we?
Are we the people we thought we were? And if
we are, shouldn't we should we not be speaking out

(41:53):
standing up, using our platforms, moving the needle. Whether you
care about Israeli Palestinian people are not. It's the best
thing for them, and it's the best thing for us,
because the Jewish people are always on the front tip
of the spear, and the people trying to bring the
world down are not going to stop there. They're going

(42:14):
to come for all of us, all of us who
value freedom, democracy, and us songwriters the ability to write
and say what we want to say.

Speaker 1 (42:25):
Okay, I found out about your song via a large
piece prominently placed in the Wall Street Journal. I'm interested
in how that happened, but I'm more interested since that
was published, what effect have you felt.

Speaker 2 (42:44):
Yeah, it was surreal, I'll tell you that much. It's
certainly given me a bigger platform. People have reached out
to me, and people have found the song. They have
found the Hasta Square performance. More recently, they have found
the speech at UCLA. So I think it has given

(43:05):
me a little more capital to basically spread my message.
I'm a big fan of the Wall Street Journal. It
was very surreal seeing myself on that page. When Matthew
Hennessy reached out to me. He actually reached out to
me a month or so ago, and and we were
going to talk early. But when he found out I
was going to Israel. He wanted to wait to see

(43:26):
what happened, and I'm glad he did. He flew to Seattle.
He flew across the country to Seattle, and we sat
in a hotel room and talked for three hours. But
you know, the whole lone Voice for Israel thing has resonated,
and I think it has. It has. It has annoyed
some people in the music business. I know for a
fact it has, because I've heard about that it has.

(43:47):
It has some people put some people on notes. So again,
hopefully you know some of these these articles and some
of these speeches, and in our conversation here this is
we'll reach more people in the music business in this
two hours with you than seven months of press. I
hope folks that are listening to this podcast are open

(44:09):
minded enough to maybe think twice and maybe join some
of these efforts I'm doing collaborating with international artists, Ukrainian artists,
Iranian artists. Is rarely artists to really speak for freedom,
human rights, because that is who we are as an industry.
And I think there's still time to speak for that

(44:33):
because if we don't, as I said, history will judge us,
and right now, it's not a good judgment.

Speaker 1 (44:39):
You referenced earlier some of the blowback. This is something
I experience every day. But what has it been, like
everybody's reachable on social media, etc. What has been the
character and volume of the negative feedback?

Speaker 2 (44:55):
You know, it's mostly just social media, probably many of
its are bots, and you know, you'll never be okay again.
And I know where you live, and you know, kind
of just the the typical victory all you get on
social media. You know, I've had a few emails from
from people that are kind of off the rocker, but

(45:20):
so far I haven't had like what modis Modist Yahu
has had or Michael Rappinport just had to have his
show's canceled. I haven't experienced kind of mobs showing up
at my shows, you know, trying to shut us down.
So we'll see what happens. I'm going to start doing
some concert tours on on campuses and speaking on campus
and supporting the Jewish kids. And I do think the

(45:43):
tides turning a little bit. You see you see students
standing up to the mobs, you see Americans. Just the
response to my UCLA speech has been overwhelming. So I
think a lot of people are are standing up and say, Okay,
we have to push back on this, not just for
the sake of us, but for the sake of those kids,
those college kids who have been indoctrinated, who've been brainwashed,

(46:05):
who've been indoctrinated into this cult. We need to we
need to save them too. So so we'll see what happens,
you know, I I I imagine at some point there'll
be some you know, pushback, but uh, as I said,
it's it's the right thing to do. And if you're
not pissing someone off, you're probably not doing anything to

(46:25):
begin with.

Speaker 1 (46:27):
You are an alumnus of UCLA. How did your speech
there happen and what was the experience in terms of
attendance protest?

Speaker 2 (46:38):
Yeah, well after you know, kind of the antarcrete anarchy
we saw on that Tuesday night. Uh, the American Jewish Committee, Uh,
the ADL, we're planning to do a press conference on
campus the friday after they finally cleared the encampment, and
they asked me to come play my song and to
speak a little bit. Because of the security risk, we

(47:04):
were not allowed on campus. So at the HELLL across
the street from UCLA. We held a press conference and
a few people spoke, and I spoke, and along with
the UCLA professor, a Jewish professor who talked about his
horrible experience, Jonah Platt, spoke and I basically said what

(47:26):
we've been talking about, that if this was this was
Muslims under attack, it would not be happening. So why
why is it with with Jewish people? Why do you
allow this? And I also gave a message to the
kids and let them know that you know, they're not
alone in this, and they have support and and my
heart breaks for them. So that's kind of how it

(47:47):
came to be. I didn't expect it to go viral
on social media, but again I think we have to
go on offense. We can't just sit back and go, oh,
this is terrible. Look what's happening to our campus is
what's happening to our kids. A lot of these folks
are just bullies. You need to confront them. You need
to confront them. You need to teach the kids facts.

(48:07):
You need to have debates, you need to stand in
front of the bullies and speak your piece. You need
to go to MIT. I may go to mit next week,
and you need to perform. You need to sing songs,
you need to stand with people. I'll be performing in
a synagogue here in Los Angeles on Monday, so I
think we need to keep singing, standing together. You know,

(48:29):
we're the ones who don't wear masks. You know why,
because we're not ashamed. I think the folks that do
wear masks, they know deep down that what they're doing
is wrong. So we need to address that. And as
I said from the beginning, nobody does that better than
artists with music. So I'm asking, who's ever listening to this,

(48:49):
you know, reach out to me, join my cause, join
this cause. It's not my cause, it's our cause, and
lend your voice to speaking up for good versus this
kind of moral rot that's infected our kids on campus.

Speaker 1 (49:06):
Okay. In the Wall Street Journal, there was something that
I did not know previously that you're involved with the
family business. Can you tell us about the family business
and your involvement.

Speaker 2 (49:17):
Yeah, well, thank you for asking. I have a very
strange life. As a kid, I worked at our family business,
Precision Wire Products, at fourteen on the line. Are claim
to fame as we make the best shopping cart in
the world, Bob. If you shop at Costco, you use
our shopping cart. And I've worked there my whole life.

(49:38):
My dad still ucla graduate astrophysicist. He still runs Precision
Wire eighty five years old. My son works there. Even
when I had the number one song hot a C
song in the country, I was working at Precision Wire.
And the great thing about it is a couple things.
One It keeps you grounded. You know, this celebrity world

(49:58):
we live in can be prey shallow. Sometimes it can
be a shallow pool. But when you go when you
see people sweating and making things, and you see the
American dream where people start at minimum wage and twenty
years later they're putting their kids through Stanford and Princeton.
When you make things and you have to make a payroll,

(50:19):
I think it grounds you. And I think it's been
very helpful for me. And maybe that's why I have
a little different world view and many of my friends
in the music business, because I have this other life.
You know. Sometimes I'll go into a town and I'll
have a meeting with Albertson's at two o'clock, and I'll
be playing a gig at seven o'clock. You know, at
the local theater. So it's very strange. But I love

(50:42):
working with my dad. He's my hero, and I think
it gives me a different kind of look at the world.
And if you ever need a shopping car, Bob, you
know a guy.

Speaker 1 (50:53):
Okay, in the world of shopping carts, your family business
has what percentage of the nash market?

Speaker 2 (51:03):
That's a question I did not expect on this podcast.
We're there's three domestic manufacturers we're we're the third. Well,
we make about four hundred thousand to a half a
million shopping carts a year. We just opened a new
facility in Texas to expand our capacity. But we also
make things like the racks in a seven eleven where

(51:24):
you buy the sodas behind the refrigerator doors. So but
it's you know, it's just it's really American small family
business and we have four hundred employees, many of them
have been with us. We had a lunch a few
weeks ago where we had thirty people who'd been with
us over thirty years and we realized we had one
thousand hours of folks at that table. So it's really

(51:46):
truly a family business, not just me, my dad, my son,
my sister. It's it's everybody who works there, and it's
a beautiful thing. And as I said, my dad at
eighty five, he works seventy hours a week. He goes
in every day, and it's just, you know, it's not
easy to run a business in California, but we're really
proud of it.

Speaker 1 (52:06):
What's the lifespan of a shopping cart?

Speaker 2 (52:10):
Typically five to six years. If you left one in
a store, they'd probably last forever. Usually what happens is
they get out in the parking lots and the parking
lots aren't great. Everybody complains about shopping cart wheels. They're
actually pretty good wheels, they just get abused. Our carts
last longer. My dad was an astrophysicist. He worked at NASA.

(52:30):
He's an engineer, so he was able to redesign the
shopping cart and the machines that make them. He was
building computers on our dinner table forty years ago to
run his machines, and I often think if he just
marketed those computers, our conversation would be much different right now.
But yeah, it's typically five to seven years. Is a

(52:52):
shopping cart?

Speaker 1 (52:53):
How much time do you dedicate to the company at
this point.

Speaker 2 (52:58):
During COVID, basically my whole, my whole kind of bandwidth
was Precision Wire. My dad had to quant quarantine. We Uh,
we had many people very sick. We were kind of
ground zero for COVID in Los Angeles, East LA. And uh,
my dad couldn't come in for a couple of years. Certainly,
our sales went down. We were an essential business, so

(53:19):
we never stopped so so those couple of years were
really tough, really tough, you know, driving in at five
in the morning, taking temperatures, trying to get people through it.
It was hard on me. I finally got some help.
I got got therapist to help me, got a little
medicine so I could sleep. It was. It was the
most challenging thing that's happened in my life. And we

(53:41):
got through that. These days, I talked to my dad
and I talked to our GM four or five times
a day. I probably do half of my zooms or
music related and certainly now kind of Israel related, and
half our Precision Wire. It's very strange, but but it's great.
I love it. I go to Texas often because of

(54:02):
our new plant. But yeah, yesterday I was there having
lunch with my dad and I'll be there tomorrow. So
it's kind of two worlds colliding.

Speaker 1 (54:10):
And could you survive financially just on your music.

Speaker 2 (54:16):
Yes, I've been very fortunate. Both one hundred Years and
Superman have stood the test of time, and for whatever reason,
you know, people still want to buy a ticket. I
had the greatest time in my life touring with the
Bare Naked Ladies last year. It was basically rock star
dad Camp. We had so much fun, you know, playing,
and ever since the pandemic, I've I've really treasured performing

(54:42):
with my string quartet with the rock band. And fortunately
I've I've had a lot of licenses in my day,
and I've I've also been pretty frugal too. I think
it was helpful for me that I had success late.
You know, Superman didn't become a hit till I was
in my late twenties, so I knew that it wasn't
about me and that this could be very fleeting, so

(55:04):
you know, save your money and invest wisely. And also
because Fire for Fighting is not a band too, you know,
I don't have to deal with the dynamic of other songwriters,
other musicians. But yes, you know, I don't know if
I could afford living California for the next thirty years,
but I'd be all right.

Speaker 1 (55:22):
And no one lives forever. When your father ultimately goes
into the sunset, does that mean you run the business.

Speaker 2 (55:30):
For better or worse? My friend? Yeah, Now, as I said,
I think I don't really have the skill set or
the bandwidth to run the day to day. I think
I would certainly kind of oversee things. We have an
amazing young GM his name's Paul Nova, thirty years old,
who would be a great president. We're putting management in place.

(55:52):
We're certainly going to run Precision Wire for as long
as we can, for hopefully decades, and that legacy will
con you. But I think it's you know, it's it's
only fair to myself that I should still be able
to do what I love to write to perform, especially
seeing how these songs are resonated. I feel invigorated. I'm

(56:15):
excited about songwriting. I love performing more now than I
have in twenty years. So hopefully I'll find a balance
where I can do both. But yeah, I will be
that guy, and I do have a son, so hopefully
I can pass that baton off to him as soon
as possible.

Speaker 1 (56:32):
Okay, So let's go to your musical history. At what
point do you start playing an instrument and is there
music in the house. What were the musical influences and input.

Speaker 2 (56:44):
Yeah, mom was a music teacher USC graduate. She started me.
She started me at the piano at very young two
years old, and when music funding was cut in our
local schools, she took over and started putting on full musicals.
I was Tony in West Side Story. Whether that was
because I was my mom's son or I was any good,

(57:04):
we don't know. But and then she was wise. When
I was thirteen, she let me quit, but by then
I had the fundamentals and I started writing songs because
I loved writing songs. And I bought a all you
know at the time, a new TC half inch reel
to reel and a little mixing board, and I started
writing songs. And when I was sixteen, I had a

(57:27):
mission to go find Steve Perry's voice teacher, which I did,
a guy named Ron Anderson, and I started training classically
as a vocalist. And it was funny all the rock
stars would be coming through his through his you know
teaching studio. Axel rose Don Dawkin. I met Rudy Sarzo
believe it or not, at a at a at a
pool one day, Rudy Sarzo of Azzy Fame, Quiet Riot,

(57:52):
White Snake. At the time, he was in White Snake
and he became a mentor of mine, and I started
going to the studio recording songs. I met a guy
named Scott Sheets, who was Pat Benatar's guitar player, and
we formed a band called John Scott And it was
me and all the ex members of Pat Benatar's band.

(58:12):
They were forty. I was twenty two, and we were
writing songs and I was living the dream. And I
was kind of trailing around White Snake like almost famous.
I was a little kid, and r Rudy would say, well,
you can go in that room, but don't go in
that room. And and and then this little band came,
you know, called Nirvana came out, and as you know, let's.

Speaker 1 (58:33):
Slow down in the beginning. So you're in school. Are
you the known as the kid who plays the piano
or are you playing sports? You're popular? You're not popular?
You know.

Speaker 2 (58:47):
I did play sports. I played basketball, wasn't very good,
but I also was the guy, you know, when at
the party that would sing Somebody to Love just to
get a girl to talk to me, you know, just
you know, I'd bring my guitar and sing, you know, peaceful,
easy feeling or you know, Ebony and Ivory or whatever,

(59:07):
you know, whatever song it was those days. And you
know when I went to college, when I went to UCLA,
I wasn't a music major. I was a applied mathematics major.
I kind of had my dad's you know, kind of
genes for that because I wanted a job, you know,
when this whole music thing imploded. And I still may

(59:27):
need that music in that math degree one day, but
I was writing in my apartment. I was just recording
songs again, working with Rudy and some of the other guys,
and and my life really was music, even though I
was kind of going and trying to get that that
you know, that plan B.

Speaker 1 (59:52):
Before U c l A. What was the town you
grew up in?

Speaker 2 (59:55):
Yeah, I grew up in the San Fernando Valley, you know,
Valley boy, went to Kennedy High scho cool in the valley.
You know, still live out here, you know, in Thousand Oaks,
and but yeah, all through that, all through those there
was a moment there when I was eighteen, because a
lot of these rock stars, as you know, they trained classically,
so we would train operatically. You know, we'd be singing Mozart.

(01:00:16):
We wouldn't be singing you know, I don't know Queen.
And there's a there was a moment there that I
had an opportunity to go pursue opera. But you know,
I was listening to Peter Frampton, I was listening to
the Beatles, I was listening to led Zeppelin, and I
knew I wanted to go kind of the pop world.
But that's that was kind of my trajectory. And but again,

(01:00:40):
you know, I'm I'm a fifteen year overnight success. You know,
I didn't. I didn't have the dream coming true until
I was my late twenties.

Speaker 1 (01:00:46):
Okay, did you play in bands in high school?

Speaker 2 (01:00:51):
Not really. You know, I would sing at the talent
shows and I had a couple of little bands. I
was really more focused on writing hundreds of songs and
learning how to produce. And when I got out of college,
I started playing around La you know, the eighty one
twenty one room below, the Coconut teaser. It would be
me and you know five people, and I was playing

(01:01:11):
a little piano bar on Melrose when I got whatever
discovered means it was. It was a piano bar and
I play there every Wednesday and again it would be
me the person making coffee, and two or three people
I paid to be there, and one night a woman
in a black jacket walked in. Turns out she was
a very successful publisher working at Zomba. At the time,

(01:01:34):
she had signed No Doubt, she had signed Incubus, and
she said, hey, you know I helped get people record deals.
I'd heard that before, but she was very attractive. So
we started working together and two or three years later
she saw the light. We've been married now twenty six years.
Carla Berkowitz, you know, vice president of MI Publishing. So

(01:01:55):
but yeah, I literally was discovered on a piano bar
in Melrose, and it actually happens. So that's just and
my songs. Actually she heard me at Motown. I had
a girlfriend working at Motown who was a secretary for
a guy named Guy Abraham, who was an A and
R guy for Motown who also was an Olympic finalist

(01:02:18):
in the hundred yard dash. And that's how crazy this
business is. You know, all these things had to connect.
But Carla, my wife, you know, she's been my force
of nature through this. We were very fortunate that when
we had my son, Johnny, she was able to quit
her job in the music business to become a full
time mom. But but boy, yeah, she's been my partner

(01:02:39):
in this and and it's been everybody has a wild ride,
but boy, we've had a good one.

Speaker 1 (01:02:45):
Okay, you're in college. Are you playing in bands in college?

Speaker 2 (01:02:51):
Nope? No, because I was really kind of you know,
doing the math degree took a lot of time, and
any excess time I had I was kind of recording
and write. I never really had a band band. I
had musicians that I would play with, I had producers
that I would work with, and only when I had
kind of some success, I had to put a band together.

(01:03:13):
So I think it took me a while to learn
how to perform. I wasn't, you know, a great performer
early on, because I didn't have any experience. You know,
the crazy thing is is when you have a hit
song for the first time and you've never been touring
for ten years, you know, your first show is like
the Tonight Show. And that's usually why it doesn't go

(01:03:35):
too well. But I've also been blessed, you know, to
just have incredible musicians play with me throughout my whole career,
so that's been amazing too. But yeah, I never played
in many bands. If it was anything, it was me
kind of at a piano bar doing the piano man thing,
and I did quite a bit of those.

Speaker 1 (01:03:53):
Okay, you start writing songs when you're a teenager. You're
a math major. You're right, so what's the dream?

Speaker 2 (01:04:02):
Then? The dream was always to be Billy Joel, to
be Elton John, to make a living at this, to
have people sing songs back to me, to be able
to live my childhood passion. And Billy Joel was my
first concert fifteen years old, fabulous Forum, Glasshouses tour.

Speaker 1 (01:04:22):
I was there, Yes, I could even tell you where
I was sitting, but keep going.

Speaker 2 (01:04:28):
Well, a funny story about that. When I played the
concert for New York, you know, before Paul McCartney did
let it beyond core of the encore, I wasn't going
to go out there because I'm like, I don't belong
and bon Jovi and Melissa Etheridge literally grabbed me by
the shirt and pulled me backstage and backstage was every
living icon in the world, and I knew I couldn't

(01:04:50):
go up to everybody because I'd be a total geek fanboy.
But I went up to Eric Clapton, said mister Clapton,
thank you. I went up to Pete Townsend and I said,
mister Townsend, Tommy's been in my CD player for twenty years.
He's like, row, thanks Rot. And then I went up
to Billy Joel because he really was my guy, and
I said, you know, mister Joel, thank you. You know

(01:05:11):
I saw you Faba's Forum Glasshouses tour. It changed my life.
And he's like, hey, I remember that Liberty de Vito
missed the phil that night. Goddamn it. I was like, wow,
that was my Hey. But I also did a CD
for the Troops project, and Billy Joel for free gave
me my favorite Billy Joel song, scenes from Italian restaurant

(01:05:35):
for my project, so I always will be grateful to him.
I love his new song that he put out this year.
I hope he puts out more songs.

Speaker 1 (01:05:43):
Okay, just to drive this home, you're writing and you're
learning how to make records while you're in college. Are
you playing piano? Bars.

Speaker 2 (01:05:53):
When you're in college, not so much note just writing
songs and you know, sending them out to publish and
a and our people and kind of getting the yeah,
it's a pretty good singer, but not a great songwriter,
or yeah, he's a good songwriter, not a great singer.
And then when I did graduate, I really kind of

(01:06:15):
full time started making demos and writing songs and working
with various producers, and when I started working with Carla,
who became my wife, you know, meeting with with record
executives and and doing a few showcases, and everybody eventually

(01:06:36):
had passed on me except for one person, Brian Koppleman.
Brian Koppleman, I'm sure you know Brian.

Speaker 1 (01:06:44):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:06:45):
You know. Brian at the time was working at Emi Records,
and he had signed Tracy Chapman, and he had a
guy named Joshua Cattison, and he heard a song of
mine called love Song, which was about divorce from the
perspective of a child. And to Brian's credit, it was
a song that would never be on the radio. It's
not a hit song, but I think it's it's a song.

(01:07:07):
It's a song that I think maybe shows some potential
and Brian loved that song, and at the time, the
president of EMI Records, as I'm sure you know, was
David Segerson, who produced Tory Jamis's Little Earthquakes. So Brian
liked the song. He said, I have to fly to
New York. You have to play for David, and I

(01:07:28):
can't promise you anything, but I did. I went to
New York. I played for David. They're like, all right,
you want to make a record, And of course, you know,
all the bells went out, all the balloons popped, and
the most exciting moment of my life. And a year
or two later after them putting me through the songwriter ringer,
David actually produced my record and I'm like, oh my god,

(01:07:49):
It's like, could it be any better? The president of
the label is this producer of great piano music. He's
running the label and this is going to be amazing.
All my dreams are going to come true. And then
the week my first single comes out, E my Records
closes and and Virgin and Capital had opportunity to pick

(01:08:11):
up E and my bands, they both uh, they both
passed on me. So I was back to uh, like
so many artists, back to square one. But I kept
writing and and and my wife kept sending out my demos,
and there was a guy let's go back.

Speaker 1 (01:08:27):
Yeah, after you graduate from college.

Speaker 2 (01:08:29):
Yeah, do you have a day job Precision Wire? Precision Wire?
Putting on a suit, going to Precision Wire. And the
blessing was my dad got a guy really cheap uh
to do a lot of work there to set up
the financing for the new building. And I got the
ability to go on any audition or to a studio.

(01:08:50):
I actually built a studio. They're still there a Precision Wire.
When you come, you know, if you ever want a tour,
I'll show you how to make a shopping cart and
and you can see my old studio. So so yeah,
Precision Wire and my parents really gave me the freedom
and ability to pursue music like so many people can't
because they have to get a job, they have to
pay their rent. So I was able to pay my

(01:09:11):
rent and pursue my dream for years until I was
in my mid to late twenties, still sending out demos,
still grinding, you know, after EMI closed, still reaching out
to other las.

Speaker 1 (01:09:26):
Okay, well, before before we get to ABI, when your
wife sees you at Melrose and vine. How many years
have you been doing it? How many years after college?

Speaker 2 (01:09:37):
That was probably a couple of years, So I was
probably twenty four, twenty five years old.

Speaker 1 (01:09:42):
Okay, with Rudy Sarzo and John Scott. When does that start?
When does that end?

Speaker 2 (01:09:49):
Yeah? That ended pretty pretty pretty quickly, as I said,
kind of when Nirvana came out and all the hairbands.
Kind of that era ended that. We had a management,
a manager who was actually managing bad company, and we
had a couple record folks interested. But when that came out,
when Nirvana came out, the whole thing collapsed. It went away.

(01:10:11):
And again it was a blessing in disguise because I
went back to the piano. You know, we were writing
kind of nice pop rock songs. I think they were good.
I don't think there are anything special, but it put
me back at the piano and I really started kind
of writing what I would be, you know, the style
that I would become.

Speaker 1 (01:10:30):
Okay, so how old are you when you start with
Rudy Sarzo till we hit nineteen ninety one when Nirvana hits.

Speaker 2 (01:10:39):
Yeah, so well, m yes, so yeah, I am like
I'm like twenty four years old.

Speaker 1 (01:10:45):
Yeah, and Are you doing this because of the opportunity
or did you like that sound?

Speaker 2 (01:10:51):
Yeah? I did like it, you know, I you know,
I enjoyed the kind of the pop rock band. I
love Journey, you know, I love Steve Perry, you know,
I love Queen. They were all my favorite singers and
and idols and and I love Pat bennettar you know,
so these kind of pop rock songs. I really enjoyed

(01:11:15):
doing that. It really wasn't I think my you know,
my high fastball, uh, because I think, really the piano
the piano songs are But it was a great experience.
I learned a lot from these guys. I learned a
lot about production, I learned a lot about musicianship. But
but yeah, I think Nirvana probably did me a favor.

Speaker 1 (01:11:36):
So you're on of college a few years. What keeps
you going? Why don't you give up?

Speaker 2 (01:11:46):
I think a lot of keys to success have nothing
to do with talent. It's really about will. And I
was going off the cliff. I was right, and and
to be honest with you, I kind of did. I
I kind of did. When E and I closed, you know,
I was again, I was in my kind of mid

(01:12:06):
mid to you know, twenty six, twenty seven, and I'm like, Okay,
it's probably not going to work at some point, I
gotta think about long term and a family. But my wife,
my potential, you know, my future wife, Carla, unbeknownst to me,
was still standing out demos of old songs and basically
lying saying, oh, John just wrote this new song, check

(01:12:28):
it out. And she sent it to a guy named
Andy Martin who had a record company called Deep South Records,
and he liked that. He liked my songs. And a
competitor of his was a guy named Greg Latterman. Greg
Latterman with Aware Records, and I think Aware they thought
I was interesting. A guy named Steve Smith, who worked there,

(01:12:50):
I think, was a big fan, and so Greg and
Steve I think when they heard that Andy Martin might
do this, they said, all right, we'll make a record
with you. And and for me, I was just like,
let me just record these demos so I can have
an album and I can play for my grandkids. One day,
we had fifty thousand dollars. We had to go into

(01:13:10):
a studio at midnight because we couldn't afford the day rate.
And Evan Lamberg at Emi Publishing connected me with a
guitar player, songwriter, up and coming producer named Greg Wattenberg.
And Greg and I kind of went into the studio
at midnight, and we had this beautiful experience of just

(01:13:31):
making a record that nobody knew who we were and
nobody was looking over our shoulders. And on that record
we had a song called easy Tonight and a song
called Superman, and Easy Tonight had enough success where it
got us to Superman, and then Superman became Superman.

Speaker 1 (01:13:50):
Okay, you're with aware, it's got to deal with the CBS. Sony.
They ultimately had success with train John Mayer. What's the
timeline here? Latterman says, yes, how long to make the record?
How long until it comes out? How long till Superman reacts?

Speaker 2 (01:14:09):
Yeah, So we took about a year to make the record,
and nineteen ninety eight, nineteen ninety nine, and we took
Easy Tonight to Triple A Radio and it became a
number one song at Triple A. But of course we
sold no records. But what it did was get us

(01:14:30):
on Donnie Einer's radar, Charlie Walks radar, and so they
came and said, all right, you know you can't sell records,
but we'll give you another song. And I had seen
kind of in my shows, whatever performances I was doing
that Superman was reacting. People were moved by that song.
And I suggested Superman and they were very resistant because again,

(01:14:55):
as you know, the piano was not on the radio
in two thousand, No Billy Joel songs. The piano didn't exist.
But they kind of said, all right, you know whatever,
if this is your swan song, so be it. So
we went out with Superman and of course Greg worked
very very hard, you know, you know, promoting and and
and it's initially it was really struggling because it was different.

(01:15:21):
And we got a call one day which was very strange,
and they said, you know, Superman's number one in the
Philippines and we're like what. I'm like, how did that happen?
Superman's No. One of the Philippines and uh. But we
kept grinding, We kept grinding. The song kind of teetered
and teetered, and of course, you know, I did every

(01:15:42):
you know, every conference room for every radio station, I
kissed every ring, I went to every you know, all
around the country. And there was a couple promoted you know,
back in the day, you know, programmers had a little
more autonomy. And there was this one programmer, Cheris Furje.
She was in Vegas, ran the big Vegas hot a
C station, and she really believed in my song. And

(01:16:03):
you know, you know, we get to eight hundred spins,
it's not testing. Thousand spins, it's not testing. And I
would call Cheressa every week and say, hey, thank you
for giving it a shot. She says, I'm giving it
one more week. And then week one week she called
and she said you're top five. And the next week
she said you're number one. And she had a big
mouth and she started talking to all her friends, and

(01:16:23):
then the song started testing and it was on its
way to you know, becoming a very popular song. I
was in and then they sent me to England because
they were going to launch Superman in Europe. And I
was in England, uh when nine to eleven happened.

Speaker 1 (01:16:40):
So what was that like? I mean, being in California
was bad enough if you were if you were from
New York. Being in England, I mean you couldn't fly back.

Speaker 2 (01:16:51):
It was horrible. I mean, like everybody else, you know,
I was calling everybody. I knew in New York City
and getting a busy signal, and and as you said,
you know, we were stuck there for ten days. It
was actually me and a couple other artists, you know,
we were supposed to perform that night, and I'm like,
there's no way in hell I'm going to play tonight.
And we were you know, I sat in my hotel

(01:17:12):
room for ten days trying to get back to America.
And when I landed at o'haa, I literally kissed the
tarmac because I was so you know, grateful to be home.
And I didn't realize that Superman had become a song
that many news organizations were using, you know, CNN to
as I said, recognize the heroes of nine to eleven.

(01:17:34):
And I didn't really understand what it had become. And then,
you know, a few weeks later, I'm sure somebody, you know,
somebody I love, Rick Krim, called me. Rick Krim, who
you know, runs was running VH one at the time,
and he said, hey, man, you know your song's become
this song and where Paul McCartney's doing this concert and

(01:17:56):
would you want to play? And I didn't even know
what to say to that, And of course, I said, yeah,
and but yeah because of Rick. You know, I played
Superman at the concert for New York and I'll always
be grateful to him for that.

Speaker 1 (01:18:13):
So at this point when you're working, are you working
solo or with a band.

Speaker 2 (01:18:18):
Yeah, at this point, you know, we have we have
a band. As soon as you know Superman took off.
You know, you have a lot of radio show obligations,
you know, trying to build your touring, so I put
together a rock band. You know, for three or four years,
we were in the van, you know, carrying our gear,
setting up our gear, selling our own merch, you know,
kind of paying our dues, you know, through Easy Tonight

(01:18:39):
and all that. And then you know, when Superman broke,
I had the moment every every aspiring musician dreams of.
I had the moment where we went from the van
to the bus. I was actually doing Larry King. I
walked out of the van. I did Larry King in
New York City, and I walked out of Larry King

(01:19:00):
onto our first tour bus. And from then on things
were a little bit easier.

Speaker 1 (01:19:13):
Okay, you have this success, now you have to make
another record. Did you feel the pressure.

Speaker 2 (01:19:21):
Yes, sir, it was quite the debacle. I mean, not
only do you have to follow your first kind of
popular song, it's a song that has taken on the significance,
So you know, how do you do that? And I
got to be honest with you, it was a struggle.
Because I'd had some success, I was able to actually

(01:19:41):
have a budget, and I was able to record much
of the next record, The Battle for Everything, with Bill Batrell.
I love Bill Batrell. I loved what he did with
Sheryl Crow. He had a studio out in Montecito on
the beach. It was like a dream come true. You
show up every day, record, you write, people bring you wine.

(01:20:03):
You know, his girlfriend makes turkey pot pie. And and
I did that for like nine months, and the record
company came up to said listen, and they were not pleased.
They did not hear the next song. There was a
lot of panic, a lot of anger, a lot of
back and forth. And so that was that was, you know,

(01:20:29):
not fun. It was, And but I also realized that
I didn't have the song that could follow Superman, a
song that was not Superman two, a song that could
stand on its own. But I'd still to this day
think the Battle for everything's probably my best record. So
I kind of went we had that. I went back
home and for about a year, I just wrote, wrote, wrote, wrote,

(01:20:51):
you know, song after song, and I'll never forget. One day,
I had this little kind of upright in this little
room in my house, and I would just kind of
get up at six of the morning, nine pound pound pound,
and the monkey on my back was growing and the
pressure was growing, and I had this idea for a song,
and my wife, you know, kind of came in. I said,

(01:21:13):
let me play you something, and so I started playing
her kind of a sketch of hundred years and I'll
never forget. I kind of after I played it, I
turned to see her in the doorway and tears were
running down her face. And I remember thinking, well, either
I wrote a hit or my career is over. I
don't know which one. But but fortunately that that song,
you know, kind of took out the one hit.

Speaker 1 (01:21:35):
Wonder Okay, that runs its course. What about the next record?

Speaker 2 (01:21:43):
Yeah, well, you know, the next you know, after those
two songs, I really never had that level of success.
I you know, I had songs that you know, there
were top ten hot AC songs. I had a song
called the Riddle, which which did well. It's you know,
I think Columbia thought that it would be you know,
another Superman hundred years. It wasn't. And but you know,

(01:22:07):
we sold enough records to keep making another one, and
and kind of every subsequent record, I had a song
that again was a top ten hot acy. So I
had a song called Chances, which was the entitle of
the blind Side. And I wasn't a guy who sold
a ton of records for the label, but I was
a big licensing guy, so you know, they could license
the songs. That was back in the day when you know,

(01:22:31):
people were spending crazy money to license songs. So that
kind of kept me afloat at Columbia. And I was,
you know, I was fortunate to make you know, three
more records there. None of them kind of had the
success of Superman one hundred years, but but they were
enough to you know, to pay the bills for them
and make it worthwhile. And then and I was able
to tour and kind of live the dream and and

(01:22:54):
write for films and and do side projects and and
you know, and play hockey games and that stuff. And
then after five records, you know, they kind of said,
you know we're done and I understand that, and and
I went to wind up Records.

Speaker 1 (01:23:10):
Who whoao? In the hindsight, that's easy to say, yeah,
but when you're told you how did you find out
you were dropped? Literally? And then how did it feel
at the.

Speaker 2 (01:23:19):
Time, you know, it was it was like any you know,
it was terrible. It was terrible. You know, Greg told
me that they're not going to pick me up and
do another record. I actually, you know, threw a tantrum
and I said screw you, and I bought the record back.
I bought the Slice record back, which you know, was

(01:23:39):
pretty stupid of me, but it was emotional and I'm like,
I'm going to go take this and screw you. But
I you know, I remember there was there was there
was a moment I was kind of driving by myself
through from in middle of Texas to a radio station,
you know, probably Market two hundred and three to try

(01:24:00):
to get five spins for a song, and one hundred
years came on the radio and I'm like, oh my god,
you know, here we are, you know, welcome to the doubt,
the downslide of the roller coaster. But yeah, you know,
it's it's it's very hard. It's you know, you go
into a funk, you're depressed. But you know, the nice
thing is I had my wife, and I had Precision Wire,

(01:24:22):
and I had things in my life that weren't just
only music related. My whole kind of self esteem was
not wrapped up into you know, having another hit song.
And so many of my you know, my fellow kind
of musicians of the two thousands, we all kind of
hit that wall at some point. But yeah, it sucked,
Yeah it sucked.

Speaker 1 (01:24:43):
And then what was your experience like it wind up?

Speaker 2 (01:24:46):
It was wonderful. Ed Vetri just a wonderful guy. I
loved ed you know, he was all about musicians. They'd
had so much success and Greg Wattenberg being one of
the principles there kind of run winds up and we
got to make one more record, which I'm so glad
we did because you know what I didn't tell you
about the Battle for Everything was when the Bill Betrell

(01:25:09):
record kind of hit the wall, I had one hundred
years and I went back to Greg and I said, hey, man,
I really like you to do this with me. And
to his credit, he was willing to do that because
you know, he wasn't happy with me going to Bill Betrell.
He's like, look, man, we just made this hit song
and you're leaving. And in a sense he was right.

(01:25:31):
I I you know, I was maybe feeling my oats,
and to Greg's credit, he said, yeah, you know, let's
do it. And Greg, you know, his mastery at creating
pop song hits not just for me, but for training
and many other people, he was willing to do that,
and I'm always be grateful for him. So so to

(01:25:54):
go back and make a full record with Greg at
wind Up and just have those those nights in the
studio and the jokes and the laughs and the fun,
I really treasure that and and I'll always be grateful
to him because he is certainly a master of what
he does.

Speaker 1 (01:26:10):
Now you don't cut another studio album after that.

Speaker 2 (01:26:15):
Yeah, you know, I was kind of I was kind
of looking to do other things. I kind of saw
the writing on the wall of there's so much that
goes into making a record and promoting a record, and
what's the real return. I'd always wanted to write a musical,
so I actually had the opportunity to work with some

(01:26:37):
alan Zwibel, Glenn Slater, some great musical writers. We actually
were hired to write Field of Dreams, which for me
was a wonderful experience. I grew up on musical theater.
I'd written some songs with Stephen Schwartz, the amazing Iconic Broadway,
you know, genius behind Wicked and Godspell. So I had

(01:26:59):
a great affy for musical theater. And we actually spent
a year writing i know, eight or nine songs for
Field of Dreams, and Alan wrote a great kind of book,
and like sometimes happens in that world, the thing blew
up overnight and I learned my lesson. It was it
was my records all over again. But I was also

(01:27:21):
able to write, you know, some songs for film and
and and also frankly, I did a lot outside of music.
You know. My dad was getting older, and I started
putting much more time at Precision Wire, and I started
doing symphony shows. I started doing keynotes, which to this
day is something I love to do, you know, Ted
talks and keynotes and kind of learning about companies and

(01:27:44):
speaking to people and trying to share kind of my
my business acumen with some of my songs. So I
had these other things going on, but I do regret,
you know, not kind of making another record, and you know,
maybe there's still that the future, you know, for folks
who still remember what records are.

Speaker 1 (01:28:03):
Okay, you have this big hit with Superman. There's publishing
and then there's record royalties. Do you ever get a
record royalty?

Speaker 2 (01:28:13):
No, nope. The budget for the Superman video was four
hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That's as you know, that's
what they were spending back there. They you know, however
they do their accounting. I will never see a penny
from record sales. I think we've probably sold, you know,
maybe two and a half million records, which is amazing.

(01:28:36):
But they did spend a lot of money because it
wasn't a band, you know, so there was a lot
of tour support and so no, I never, I never,
and I never will receive money from record sales. But
fortunately for me, you know, I wrote I wrote Superman
one hundred years myself, and and those songs have been

(01:28:57):
very lucrative. And you own those songs, yes, sir.

Speaker 1 (01:29:01):
And with the insanity of the last handful of years,
has anybody ever approached you or you ever thought about
selling them?

Speaker 2 (01:29:10):
Yes, I get approached a lot. I really like having
control over my songs I've seen, especially one hundred years
in Superman, you know, have been very important in many
causes that are important to me. Als are troops, and

(01:29:30):
I like to be able to say I'm going to
license that for free, and and I like to be
able to do that. And I've been with Cobalt for
the last six seven years and they've been great about
just you know, hey, if it's a gratis license, no problem.
So and at the same time, you know, I think
my catalog, it's it's certainly real money. It's it's not like,

(01:29:55):
you know, I'm gonna lay on a beach for thirty
years money. So yeah, So I've been approached, but I
just like having my songs and maybe one day, you know,
if they're still worth anything, you know, my kids will
sell them, but I like keeping them.

Speaker 1 (01:30:09):
How many licenses or sinks do you get in the year.

Speaker 2 (01:30:15):
Not as many as I used to, maybe, you know,
maybe five to ten. I also kind of write songs,
you know, to projects. I wrote a song called All
for One that was the the one hundredth episode of
Hawai Fi O and their their their entitle for their
last their last episode. So every once in a while,

(01:30:36):
I'll write a song for a film. I have a
couple movies kind of that I that I've developed with
a couple of friends of mine that that have been bought.
We'll see if they get made. But back in the day, yeah,
I mean I probably have you know, two hundred and
fifty three hundred licenses under my belt, which is pretty nuts.

Speaker 1 (01:30:55):
And generally speaking, has income going down stay or going up?

Speaker 2 (01:31:01):
No, it's gone down, you know, I think every year.
But it hasn't gone down as much as you know,
as I would think the certainly Superman in one hundred years.
Still you hear within the culture people are still making
home movies to those songs and graduations, particularly hundred years
Superman was just used in a big TV use this year.

(01:31:26):
So they still kind of you know, are lucrative and
and the rest of the catgalog too kind of you know,
still kind of has some interest from folks and so yeah,
but yeah, of course, you know, it's gone down, I mean,
and that's sad. With kind of streaming and Shazam, there's

(01:31:49):
a whole new generation of kids finding these songs, you know,
that have never heard them before. I have kids seventeen
years old at my concerts who weren't alive when I
wrote them. So, you know, that's also pretty cool and
surreal and superman.

Speaker 1 (01:32:06):
I know you've been asked this question a lot, but
are you the type of person who hammers the song
out or there's a burst of inspiration? How did you
create that song?

Speaker 2 (01:32:16):
That song was a gift. I basically wrote the whole
thing in an hour. At the time, I didn't think
it was for me. I you know, I was fancy
myself as a rock guy. But when I played it
for Greg, he kept kept insisting we put it on
the record. But that's you know, the joke is, I've
been looking for that you know hour ever since, because

(01:32:40):
whatever it was was a gift, and of course you
write thousands of songs to try to find that hour.
You know, I wrote thousands of songs before Superman. I've
probably written a thousand or two since then. But you know,
I think that sentiment of it's not easy to be
me when you're kind of a young writer, know, hitting

(01:33:01):
the wall of the music business. Like so many who
listen to your podcast, everybody understands that desire just to
be heard, and that was me. I just I just
wanted to be heard. If nobody wanted to hear me
after that, that's fine, And that was kind of the
inspiration for Superman. It's certainly not a song I could
write now. It's certainly easy to be me, It's easy

(01:33:22):
to be most of us. But that was the sentiment
of that song, and I think that's why it resonates.
You know, a funny story about Superman. When it started
to become popular, Columbia Records came to me and said,
you know, John, something really weird is happening with your song.
And I'm like, what are you talking about. They're like,
adults are buying your song. I'm like, what do you mean,
adults are buying my song? They like, yeah, people in

(01:33:44):
their thirties and forties are buying your song. And I'm like,
what the hell are you talking about. But you know,
in retrospect, you know, it makes sense. You know, who
buys records teenagers? But why were adults buying Superman? Because
I think adults, especially men men, never buy music. You know,
the whole theme of we can't be everything for everyone.

(01:34:04):
You know, My Superman is different than all the other
Superman songs. My Superman is you know, I can't stand
a fly who wouldn't want to fly? People? Don't you know?
My song is Superman doesn't want to be Superman because
we can't be everything for everybody. So I think that
sentiment really resonated with adults, and the song was different
in that way. But again, I still love playing it

(01:34:25):
every night. I love playing one hundred years every night.
I don't get sick of it. There's always a reason
to do it. There's always someone in the audience that's
going to see it and sing it just one time
in their life. So it's I am truly grateful for
both those songs.

Speaker 1 (01:34:40):
And you have this music challenge tell us about that.

Speaker 2 (01:34:44):
Oh thank you for mentioning that. Yeah, it's called the
Music Matters Challenge, and it's a national music contest to
raise awareness for music in the schools. We've already talked
about my mom coming in and kind of being a
music teacher for our school that lost a music teacher.
And the challenge was inspired by a song I wrote
with some Chicago inner city kids last year. They'd lost

(01:35:07):
their music teacher. They were not musicians, they were just students,
and we wrote a song called let music film My world.

Speaker 1 (01:35:12):
Wait were a little bit slower. How does that come
to pass that you're writing a song with kids in Chicago.

Speaker 2 (01:35:18):
Yeah, an amazing family in Chicago called the Tallman family
does a lot of great work with the schools in Chicago,
and they had helped fund some of my Afghan work,
some of my Ukraine work, and we were talking about
how can we do something for music in the schools
and I told I told Kaylee Tallman about my experience

(01:35:39):
with my mom, and I said, you know, let's find
some kids, let's write a song, and let's fund a
music teacher for a school in need. And they did.
We funded a teacher for three years at a quarter
million dollars, and now Farragut Academy has a music teacher.
And through that effort, we said, well, let's take this nationally.
And that's what the Music Matters Challenge is. This is

(01:36:00):
where anybody, everybody, you, bob, could make a video talk
about a music teacher that mattered to you, sing a
little bit of a let music film my world. People
upload their videos and then the winner will win ten
thousand dollars and will provide a music teacher again for
a school in need, with the winner for three hundred

(01:36:21):
grand and three years. But it's really an effort to
raise awareness for the four million kids in America who
do not have a music teacher.

Speaker 1 (01:36:28):
Now, you mentioned that the Tolmans helped you financially with
Ukraine and Afghanistan. How did you meet these people? How
hard was it to get the money? What did the
money actually go for? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:36:43):
I actually for many years I've done keynotes for a
group called the YPO. It's the Young President's Organizations, a
group with chapters all across the nation with young presidents
under forty who run big companies. And Glen Tolman was
one of those folks I met years ago. And when

(01:37:05):
I was doing this work for Afghanistan and particularly Ukraine,
it was very expensive to go to Ukraine. I kind
of fund all these myself, so the Ukraine, you know,
going over there, he you know, he gave us a
little bit of a donation to help with some of
the funding. They're just an amazing family that do incredible

(01:37:27):
things and I'm honored to partner with them on these projects.

Speaker 1 (01:37:31):
Okay, you talk about doing these keynotes, is this a business?
Do you have an agent? Do you do it X
number of times a year or is it once in
the blue moon.

Speaker 2 (01:37:43):
Yeah. The nice thing about having a music agent Larry Webman,
you know Ed Wasserman who's incredible and been with me,
you know, for many years, and his associate Max. The
nice thing about having a music agent is that you
can work through all of the speakers bureaus. So there's
three or four Speeders bureaus that we work with that

(01:38:03):
that hire me to come do keynotes. Sometimes it's for companies,
sometimes it's for organizations, sometimes it's sometimes it's for schools.
And I probably do you know, six to seven years.
I was just in New York. Actually I did one
for all of the federal judges. There was one hundred

(01:38:25):
federal judges there and a lot of the the the
lawyers who handle the trademarks and the intellectual property. Black
tie event very prestigious in New York City, and uh
I got to you know, speak and talk to them,
which meant a lot to me because my aunt is
a is a Pelli Court judge. So I meet incredible people,

(01:38:47):
I learn about these organizations, and I really enjoy doing it.
And as I said, I probably do five or six
a year.

Speaker 1 (01:38:55):
Okay, what's the pitch to hire you.

Speaker 2 (01:39:01):
What kind of world do you want? How does music
and inspiration and where do where do songs come from?
How do you mix creativity with your business acumen? But
you know, we kind of pitch it more to the
to the client depending on what they do. But look,
here's the thing that's cool. Nobody knows who I am,

(01:39:22):
but they know Superman, they know hundred Years. So here's
a guy that can talk about running a family business
and selling shopping carts and also how do you write
a song? So I'm certainly not you know Schwartz Cough
or you know Peyton Manning or the guys who do
these speeches. But but I think people get something out

(01:39:42):
of it because it's interesting to know where do songs
come from? What is that creative process? What does it
take to have that you know, spark of inspiration to
write a song like you know Superman or hundred Years.
You know, I've had it happen two or three times.
You know, Paul McCartney has it happened pretty every every Thursday.
So so you know, for me, I think that's what

(01:40:02):
people are interested in the creative process and how can
that apply to their business?

Speaker 1 (01:40:06):
Okay, if I see you with the judges last week,
and I see you at some Companies confab in June.
Am I going to get the same speech?

Speaker 2 (01:40:16):
Good question. The middle of it will be the same,
but the opening will always be different. It will always
be tailored to the audience, to the business, to what
we're talking about, and the end will always be different.
And in the end, I play my song World that
talks about what kind of world do you want? And
it has nothing to do with music. It's really talks
about kind of ourselves, our well being, the world we're

(01:40:41):
we're in, and how we take care of ourselves and
how the how we need to take care of ourselves
first before we take care of others. So the middle
of the of the keynote is pretty standard. But I
always try to learn as much about the people I
talk to as they learn about me.

Speaker 1 (01:40:59):
And how much preper we require.

Speaker 2 (01:41:02):
A certainly more than playing a concert. You know, probably
probably maybe you know, eight to ten hours of learning
the count, learn about the content company. I talked to
the client, we have a phone call, I do my research.
I kind of prepare my remarks. You know this. You
need to memorize this stuff. You can't be reading notes.

(01:41:23):
So maybe not that much. Maybe you know, maybe you
know six to eight hours and I've done this enough
now that that I can kind of I kind of
got a groove in it. But it is a lot
of fun.

Speaker 1 (01:41:35):
Okay. So therefore, are you riffing off the top of
your head or have you literally memorized it?

Speaker 2 (01:41:42):
I think you, uh, it's interesting. I kind of went
through this through my speech at UCLA. I think the
best way to do it is you you kind of
know your talking points, you have an outline, you know
what you want to hit. You don't want to basically
learn lines because it then it sounds ripped. It So
you want to be kind of relaxed, You want to

(01:42:03):
be in the moment, but you need to hit your marks.
So that's kind of how it is for me when
I have my notes that I'm prepping. It's not a
script that I just read. It's it's an outline. I
need to start here, I need to hit this point
at this point, maybe tell this joke. But also, it's
like performing at a show. You let your audience, you know,

(01:42:24):
give you feedback, and you kind of roll with what
they're doing. And there's not a lot of difference between
doing a keynote and doing a rock show, frankly, because
you are feeding off the audience. You're seeing what's working
in real time, you're seeing what's not working. You adjust
on the fly. But of course, you know, you know,
you have your pillars of your set or your speech,

(01:42:47):
and you make sure you hit those.

Speaker 1 (01:42:50):
Okay, you stop making records with wind up and you
talk about writing a musical, et cetera. Are you playing
live throughout this or if you stopped for a while.

Speaker 2 (01:43:02):
No, we're still touring. You know. I started doing a
lot more string quartet shows.

Speaker 1 (01:43:07):
I was doing so a little bit slower. How does
the string quartet come together? How does that idea come
to you in execution?

Speaker 2 (01:43:16):
Yeah? I started doing symphony shows kind of i'd say,
you know a little over ten years ago, which was amazing.
It was kind of rebirth for me. I've had the
blessing to work with incredible composers George del Barrio, go
down the list, and so I have a lot of

(01:43:37):
songs that I wouldn't necessarily play in a rock show
that I can play with the string with the symphony,
and those went so well. I wanted to take that
experience to smaller markets. So I formed a string quartet
amazing Broadway players, just prodigy players, and for a decade

(01:44:00):
now I do probably in the spring and the fall,
I will do a string quartet tour. I just finished
one last week. So it's just me the string quartet
and we go to smaller venues. It's an intimate show,
it's a storytelling show. But they alone are worth the
price of admission. My violin player Katie just won a
Tony Award, and they inspire me every night. You know,

(01:44:22):
they take they take, I think, the songs to a
completely new level. So that's kind of been the drill.
You know, string quartet in the spring, rock band in
the summer, string quartet during the fall, and maybe you
know through keynote, few keynotes. So probably fifty shows a year.

Speaker 1 (01:44:40):
Okay, you have these symphony shows. Are you sitting at
home or Larry sitting in the office and the phone rings?
How did they come to pass?

Speaker 2 (01:44:49):
That's a good question. But there are you know, there
are symphonies out there that do look for for pop
artists to come play, and they're few and far between.
That's kind of why we started doing the Court because
you may get two symphony shows a year, I'm doing
one this year, and you know, but with the quartets,
you can go into pretty much any market and do

(01:45:10):
five hundred to one thousand seats, and frankly, for me,
it's it's my favorite way to perform because it really
is an intimate show. It's a storytelling show, and you
can play virtually every song off you know, off your
your album. So at the same time, I'm stoked to
go out with my rock band in two weeks, you know,
and get back in the bus with the boys and

(01:45:32):
you know, turn up the amps and you know, close
with Bohemian Rhapsody. You know, that's fun too.

Speaker 1 (01:45:38):
And you go out with your band. You obviously are
the headliner in these smaller quartet shows, but when you
go out the band, you tend to go alone. You
you an opening act, closing act.

Speaker 2 (01:45:49):
Good question. We pretty much alternate. As I said, last
year we were at with the Baar Naked Ladies, which
was just amazing because their audiences are fantastic, they are
wonderful humans, and you get to play for five thousand
to ten thousand people a night, so you get to,
you know, play rock star and have that experience. And
then this year we'll we'll headline, but we'll play smaller venues,

(01:46:13):
hopefully follow up some some of the markets we did
with The Bear Naked Ladies, and I imagine next summer
we'll probably open again. So we kind of go back
and forth. You know, we're certainly not at a level
where we can where we can headline, you know, five
thousand seat sheds. There's a few markets we can you know,
do a few thousand people, but we've never really risen
to that level of a touring act.

Speaker 1 (01:46:35):
Okay, when you go out with either the quartet or
with your rock band, the bus picks you up and
the bus drops you off when the tour is over
or you're going home in between.

Speaker 2 (01:46:48):
Yeah, for the quartet, we're just in a sprinter We
don't you know, we really don't have the bus. We
really can't afford it. It's kind of a break even
proposition for me. For the band will definitely you know,
we'll start in the bus, we'll go, we'll run the
tour and we'll be done. We don't go out that long.
I mean, the Bare Naked Ladies for us was a

(01:47:08):
long run. We're out for six weeks, which for me
is a long run. This year will only be out
three weeks. So yeah, we kind of just pop on
the bus, get through the tour, hopefully the voice survives,
and then you know, have my first glass of whiskey
on the last night after the show.

Speaker 1 (01:47:26):
Why is it your first glass of whiskey at the
end of the.

Speaker 2 (01:47:29):
Tour, Because with my voice, I have to be very
very careful my voice, the way I kind of sing
in the falsetto there throughout my whole career. I actually
had an injury when I was in my twenties. I
had my tonsils out and I started bleeding to a
point where they threw me in the emergency room and

(01:47:50):
cauterized my throat. So I have a huge scar on
my throat, which has always been kind of a hamstring
for me. So when I'm singing, especially you know, when
I have to do no nine shows in eleven days
like I did last month, there's no alcohol. I don't
eat ice cream. I basically don't talk after a show

(01:48:11):
till soundcheck the next day. It's really all about vocal maintenance.
So it's not very rock and roll, but it is
what it is.

Speaker 1 (01:48:19):
Okay, you have this other business, you have your royalties
traveling as hell. What's keeping you on the road.

Speaker 2 (01:48:31):
Those ninety minutes. Well, two things, those ninety minutes of
sharing songs and stories with audiences, and especially in the
last few weeks, you know, being able to play okay
for audiences and people are literally crying in their seats.

(01:48:51):
That tells you you're doing the right thing. The other
thing is the camaraderie with my bandmates. I love them all.
They they make me happy, They bring me joy. The
fun we have running a business can you know, bring
a lot of problems and headaches and hr and and

(01:49:14):
things that aren't a lot of fun. But being you know,
being with my bandmates and perform with them every night
and singing for people. It was a gift, you know,
thirty years ago when I started, and it's it's a
gift every night. I had a show, the Closed Art
Tour at the Coach House last Friday night, and it

(01:49:36):
was a wild, crazy show, and I spent an hour
afterwards talking too folks who showed up, and and especially
after COVID, I think probably all of us who did
this do this for a living, have a unique and
new gratitude for for touring and playing, especially when we
didn't have it for a couple of years, so I'm

(01:49:57):
a blessed guy.

Speaker 1 (01:49:59):
Needless just say, from the time Superman was a hit
to today, the business has completely changed. No song reaches everybody,
even though we read about Taylor Swift and aforementioned Drake
and Kendril Lamar. But in the back of your mind,
is there a dream? Yeah, I could write that one

(01:50:19):
song that everybody would hear again, and I still want
to do that. Or if you made peace, this is
what I'm doing.

Speaker 2 (01:50:29):
If I told you I'd made peace, I'd be lying.
We all want to have that song. We all want
to have that song that the world's singing with us.
And I always believe my best song is yet to come.
We all have an ego inside of us, and that's
why it's so hard when you've had a taste of
success to face the reality when things aren't the same.

(01:50:53):
At the same time, I'm so incredibly grateful to have
had this career. It was such a fluke. The stars
had to align from me. When I hear a song
of mine at home depot, I still can't believe it.
But yeah, yeah, I think we all, we all would
like to have that song. And you know what, in
some ways, Okay is a song like that, because you know,

(01:51:15):
the whole world's not singing it, but a lot of
the world's hearing it, and it's making some people really
happy and making some people really angry. And at the
end of the day, you know, isn't that what rock
and roll is all about?

Speaker 1 (01:51:27):
Absolutely, And you're making an impact in a world, in
an era where everybody's just about the benjamins, and it's
very inspiring. So, in any event, John, I want to
thank you so much for taking time with my audience.
The other thing is I want to take you up
on your offer to go see how a shopping card

(01:51:48):
is built. I literally thin that would be a very
interesting trip. But in any event, thanks again for doing this.

Speaker 2 (01:51:57):
Well, we'll take you to lunch at Mayo's, our favorite
Mexican restaurant. We'll settle we're certainly set it up this summer.
I look forward to to showing you how to make
a shopping cart. And again, thank you for you know,
everything you've done for our business and moral clarity as well.
You're an icon and you're a hero and your own
right and it's an honor to be with you.

Speaker 1 (01:52:20):
Wow, can't say anything to that, So till next time.
This is Bob left sets