Steve Ferrone

Drummer for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, the Average White Band and more!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Stats Podcast.
My guest today is drummer extraordinaire Steve Farone or Feroni Steve?
Which one is it?

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Well when people, when people read it, they say Farone, right,
But if I if they asked me my name and
I say Faron, they go what, So I say Feroni.
It's actually Italian Ferone. So I answer to anything. As
long as it's close one of those in there, it's
still good for me. But Fi, my mom used to

(00:45):
say for him.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
I always heard it was Feroni, but I didn't know
whether that was just amongst players. You know, it's like
sort of a nickname. And I know I you pronounce it,
but the e I think I have it now. So
in any event, in preparation.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
Do you know, there's a very I got a very
interesting story about that. Actually. Yeah, when when I was
born in nineteen fifty, right, my father was African and
my mother was English, so you can imagine it was
it was a little bit sort of scandalous. He was
considered scandalous back then, and uh, and so I was.

(01:24):
I was born in my in my home, in my house,
and we had a midwife. Yeah, so when I when
I came out, I didn't have color that I have now.
I came out and I was very very old. I
looked kind of swore. Actually, they thought I looked Italian,
so so they took that because my mum wasn't married

(01:46):
to my dad. There was another thing that was like
a scandal as well. Back then they this woman had
been to see some movie and there was somebody in
there called Feroni, and they so she decided we call
him Feroni. So they actually wrote on the birth certificate
f E r O n I. Then a few days later,

(02:06):
when I took to color, they felt stupid, so they
just took an ink pen and they altered my certificate
with an ink pen to f E r O n
E and pronounced it fern because they thought it was
a bit crazy having the black man money around with
an Italian name. But everybody called me Feroni anyways at school,
Oh a Fona, go get Feroni, you know.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
Okay, so your parents weren't married. What were the last
names of your father and your mother?

Speaker 2 (02:34):
Well, I came My mother's name was Banks, a maiden
name was Banks, and my father's my father's name. I
came to find out that. I didn't find this out
until I was about forty seven years old that it
was was Nicholson. No relation to Jack Nicholson, but Nicholson.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
So you're going to school, you're like the beginning of
the line. You're the first farone Feroni.

Speaker 2 (02:59):
Yeah, that's right, correct, Yeah, yeah, for on the number
one and the last. Actually I mean, I mean yeah,
I got nine grandchildren and the only one that carries
the Feroni name is the goal.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
Wow, you have nine grandchildren. How many kids do you have?

Speaker 2 (03:16):
Four?

Speaker 1 (03:17):
Four kids?

Speaker 2 (03:18):
Yeah, two boys, two girls.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
And how many times you've been married.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
I've been married four times, but my but I only
had children with one of my ex wives. It's complicated,
not that complicated because many people it's multiple ex wives.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
Okay, are you married now?

Speaker 2 (03:39):
No, I'm engaged. Actually I stopped I stopped getting married
when I stopped drinking. And then and then and then
I had a friend for twenty years. In twenty seventeen
it turned romantic and uh and uh.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
So this will be number five, right, Yes, tell me
about stopping drinking.

Speaker 2 (04:02):
Well, uh, you know, basically, it stopped. It just stopped
working for me. Really, I mean, I had I had
a lot of I had a lot of problems I had.
I looked at these children actually were the were the problem?
I mean I had. I had two children. I had

(04:23):
two children with with with my wife, and then another
child showed up with and this was a nine year
old that was actually in between the two children that
I had with my wife and sewed up with a
with a with a with a uh a lawsuit and
uh and and and basically, you know, because I worked

(04:48):
with Eric Clapton and and you know, average white band
and and a lot of high profile durand Duran and
u uh uh uh and Tom Petty, they thought that
I had their money. You know, I'm just a really
well I'm a well paid side man, but I don't
make I don't make that kind of money. So they

(05:11):
actually came after me with that. And and the way
that I would hide out from that stuff was I
just get drunk and go out and get get and
hang out in the clubs and don't forget about it,
you know, and and uh and then after a while
they just stopped working. So I decided I was out
here in Los Angeles and I did a late show
with Brian Ferry, like a late late show, and I

(05:33):
was over at nathan East house and I was in
his kitchen and he was cleaning the kitchen and I
was doing drugs and swinging Bokra out of a bottle
and I just said to Nathan, I said, I'm I'm
gonna I'm gonna stop. I'm going to stop doing this now.
And Nathan said, great, that's fantastic. Swear off of swear
off now, swear off now. And I'm like, wait, slow down, cowboy,

(05:56):
I'm going to finish this first. And uh. And That's
what I did, and then uh. And then I got
on a plane the next day and I went went
back to New York. And a couple of weeks later,
I started to go mad. That was basically it. And
I was in withdrawal. I was in detox, and I
had no idea what was going on. Uh, And all

(06:17):
I knew was that it was it was just craziness.
It was just I was I was just going I
couldn't all I can think, this should not be happening
to me. I shouldn't be having these nightmares. And you know,
I guess kind of like uh, I mean, I guess

(06:41):
I'd have these vivid dreams of a drink, either drinking
or using dreams and and and it's actually just I
couldn't when I woke up coming in swept, my heart pounding, terrified,
thinking have I done this or I did I do it?
Or what?

Speaker 3 (07:00):
What?

Speaker 1 (07:01):
You know?

Speaker 2 (07:02):
Uh, I couldn't tell if it was real or not.
And it was just Man. All I could think I
was I'm not that bad. This shouldn't be happening to me.
And that was it.

Speaker 1 (07:15):
Okay, a couple of questions. The person who was suing you,
did it turn out that they were your biological kid? Oh?

Speaker 3 (07:21):
Yes, as a matter of fact, as a matter of fact,
as a matter of fact, when well, first time, the
first time that I met met her Whitney, her name
is Whitney, and uh and the first time that I
met her, was was down getting the blood test and
uh and and.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
This little kid walked up to me. And I looked
at this kid, and it's like, oh, ship, that's one
of mine. And the woman and the woman who actually
did the blood test, she said to me, she said,
you know, there's really no need for me to do this,
to do this test. Your two peas in a pod,
you know.

Speaker 1 (07:59):
Okay, Hey, you stop drinking and drugging totally by yourself.
Oruld you go to the program or any of that.

Speaker 2 (08:07):
Well I did. I did about six weeks on my own.
Uh and and uh, like I say, I was just going,
I was going. I was Actually I was in a
losing I was in a losing battle. I was. It was.
It was kicking my butt, it was gonna, it was
beating me. I knew what would stop it. I knew

(08:30):
what would stop all this stuff, which would just have
a drink or go go go, just go out and
get get smashed. And you know, but I didn't want
to do it. I didn't want to. I didn't want
to do that. And a really good friend of mine
I used to used to be in cahoots with with
with this stuff. It actually stopped, uh four years before

(08:51):
he stopped. He stopped drinking and using it. And he
just told me, said, I don't do that anymore. And
he and he and he come to New York and
he visited me and we go out to the clubs
and we'd out and he was his name was Stephen Bruton.

Speaker 1 (09:02):
Of course, yeah, you know Stephen interactive just a little bit.
I certainly know.

Speaker 2 (09:08):
Well, Steve Stephen. He was what they called us the
Steve brothers, and well, you know what he looked like. Yeah,
we said that we were the Steve twins like the
Schwarzenegger movie. Yeah, exactly exactly and uh and uh and
Stephen would just you know, he just got me up
with that drawl of his that say that texted, ah,

(09:28):
my brother, how are you doing?

Speaker 1 (09:30):
You know?

Speaker 2 (09:31):
And he called me up when I was just in
the middle of this mess, sitting there like getting punched in,
just looking like I've been you know, a few rounds
with Muhammad Ali, just just as like stunned that's had
that sort of stunned uh look on my face, just
punched out, you know, just just been destroyed really and uh.

(09:55):
And I told him I giving up everything. Yeah, and
he said, what do you mean You're giving up everything?
I said, no more boots, no more drugs. Yeah, how's
it going? Totally the whole story? What's going on? And

(10:15):
and that was the first time that he actually he
actually mentioned a A to me. You know, he said,
you he said, you have you try going to And
my knee jerk reaction, as bad as everything was, was,
I don't want to go down there. I'm not that bad.
So he said, just stay where you are, and he
got on. He got he got on a plane in

(10:37):
Austin and he flew to New York. And he arrived
that evening in New York, and he came to my
house and hung out with me at my house, and
all he said was me, I find a meeting for
us tomorrow. And I thought, well, you know, he's come
all this way. You know, I'm a nice guy. I'll
go with him my humor room. And and he took

(10:58):
me to this place that's called Midnight Madness down on
Houston Street. He found that meeting when they're twelve thirty pm.
And walked into that meeting and there was a guy
doing you know what you see guys doing in AA,
sitting up there telling the story. He was a marine.
And I felt better than I'd felt in the three

(11:19):
the three previous weeks. I was just sitting in that
room with those people, and and that was what kept
me going back in the beginning, because I didn't want to.
I didn't want to do I didn't want to do
any of that stuff, get a sponsored, you know, whatever
the steps were, read that book. I didn't want to
do any of that. They gave me a copy of
Living Sober that was and I've read that. I read

(11:41):
that bit and that that was pretty that was pretty cool.
But I like to go and listen to people talk
about the war stories. So I go into the meetings
that I sit there and they tell all these stories
about what they did and they'd laugh and I think
it's funny. And then somebody would get up and start
talking about recovery, and I think, boring you. They said,

(12:04):
I'd like to do you a story, give me, give
me a war story, because now it is that you know,
that was thirty years ago and uh, and now now
I like to hear the recovery more than I do
about the drinking. We will know about that and the drugging.

Speaker 1 (12:20):
I stopped drinking before that, and that was before it
was cool to have like a perier or something. That
was when you still went to the bar and people say, hey,
come on, come on, have a drink. So, being sober,
after experiencing all this other stuff, how hard was it
to live your life?

Speaker 2 (12:41):
Well, I used to live in the China Club in
New York. Right, guess what all the bombing They were
all aa oh, they said what. There was one that wasn't,
but he wasn't. He wasn't anywhere near being an alcoholic. Yeah,
name as Jack. He passed away a few years ago.

(13:02):
But the other guys, the other guys, they they're sober,
still sober today. So I didn't really have that much
much of a problem. And my friends, my friends were
pretty encouraging and uh and uh and uh uh. I
mean that I never told them to stop, to stop

(13:23):
drinking and you know, doing, but they were always really
nice around me. There was the odd one or two
of course that tried that I'll come on have a drink,
and they became they became an acquaintance, like really quickly,
they got dropped in the on the on the on
the other side of stuff. For me, I didn't, I've
got no time for that. Yeah. So but but most

(13:44):
of them, i'd say, the majority of my friends, even
though even though that they they still they still drink.
And they, I mean they've got families and stuff that
they you know, they've got children and now you know,
one of them, a couple of girls had just qualified,
just graduating from college. And yeah, you know, he still

(14:05):
has a drink every once in a while. But he's
not nowhere near the crazy man that he was when
he hung out with me. But I don't you know,
I say that, but I don't know. If I was
maybe the crazy one'd maybe he didn't do quite as much. Well,
I know he didn't do it quite as much as
I did, because you would always say, you know, guy,
you guys need to slow down a little bit. He
would do all that sort of you'd say that to us, Yeah, yeah,

(14:28):
you need to go you need to show show some restraint.
And I was like, what's that.

Speaker 1 (14:34):
Let's go back to the beginning. Yeah, So you're growing
up in the fifties, you're half black, you're half white,
your parents aren't married to what degree? Is that a
stigma or everybody just treats you normally?

Speaker 2 (14:49):
But everybody treated me normally. I didn't have I didn't.
I didn't. I mean, you know, my mom lied to me,
my grandmother. I live. I live with my mother, my
grandmother and my grandfather. Uh. I mean they lied to me.
They said, they said, you know that my dad was away,
and and they give sometimes every once in a while
they give me a present to say it was for
my dad. Huh and uh and and and I just, uh,

(15:14):
I didn't think there was anything unusual. My mom went
out to work. She was more the father figure than
than than you know, she's a father figure than I
had that I had, not my grandfather. But my grandfather
was a miserable, untreated alcoholic. He didn't know he was
a milkman. He actually my grandfather used to work at

(15:34):
the brig was a brewery right down the street from
where I lived, called Tamplin's Brewery, and he used to
work in there and get free beer and come home drunk.
One day, he came home drunk and he raised his
hand to my grandmother, and my grandmother sent my mother
up the street to go and get my uncle Ted.
Uncle Ted was uncle Ted Harmon. She's a champion boxer,
and and Ted came down and gave me a boxing lesson.

(15:57):
And so he gave him such an ass whipping that
he became a milkman. It started delivery milk.

Speaker 1 (16:08):
That is really funny. Okay, So you're in Brighton, Yeah,
and you know, what do we know? Because I'm an American,
we hear about the mods and rockers and all that
stuff happening in Brighton in the sixties. Exact they were
exposed to.

Speaker 2 (16:26):
Oh yeah, I was there. I was in the midst
of that. I was in the middle of that, as
a matter of fact. But I was playing in a
band and The Who used to play this little club,
and I think it was called the Florida Rooms, and
it was down in the aquarium where the aquarium is
in Brighton, as a matter of fact, where you go

(16:47):
to buy your ticket and to get into the aquarium.
If you look to the right, this is a little
stage and that was that was the club. It was
tiny that it used to be packed with mods. When
The Who used to play in there, it was fantastic
and my and used to open for him.

Speaker 1 (17:02):
Okay, so you're growing up in Brighton. Okay, you're a
little younger than you know the first generation of rock stars.
So by time you're growing up, is England still in
black and white? Or is it really kind of like
America a few thousand miles away.

Speaker 2 (17:22):
Well, you know, it's it's I started when I was twelve.
I tap danced. I used to tap dance. My parents noticed,
my mom and my grandma, they noticed that I had

(17:44):
that'd sit in the high chair and we listened to
the radio and I banged my spoon in time with
the music, and they said, you know, he's playing in
time with that stuff. So so they said, we've got
to do something with that. My grandmother was a huge
Fred Astaire and Jim Kelly fan, and get him go
tap dancing. So pretty much as soon as I could walk,

(18:05):
they took me to tap dancing school. Uh. And so
I did that and I was really good at it.
I'm twelve years old, and they and as soon as
I was twelve years old, you could actually perform in
the theater. And there was a summer show and they
had they had auditions for a children's chorus. So I
go into this. I go into this children's children's chorus.

(18:28):
I get I get to get the part in that
I get to play in this in this summer show
with this guy Max Bygraves, who's an enormous star in England.
And uh and and uh and I'm out there on
the stage with the kids chorus. We're doing the twist
and see, let's twist again like we did last summer.
And I looked down and looked down into the orchestra
pit and I see the drummer and he's going, hell,

(18:53):
why is this usually his hands. How's he doing that
with his hands? And and uh. And then I'd go
upstairs the dressing room and I'd practice, get those motor
skills together, and then i'd go down on the stage.
Next night, I'd be down there and be looking down
there in that pit. What's he doing with his feet?
And so I learned how to how to do the stuff.
And I just learned how to do that with their

(19:15):
knife and fork and stuff. And then then Take five
came out and I heard Take five, and oh, let
me see, how can I learned how to do that?
And and I had pretty much and good ideas about songs.
You know, I'd listen the Beatles were coming out, and
I'd listen to listen to their songs, and I knew
new sort of song construction from all the tap dancing.

(19:38):
So one Saturday morning I go where the little kids
go to the the the ballroom and in the day
the in Saturday mornings that have a place where parents
could drop their kids off, go do their shopping and
then come back and pick them up. And we'd sort
of act like we were big grown ups in this
little dance all and that night Manfred Man were going
to be playing for the grown ups in the club,

(19:59):
and uh, and they did a sound check and they
played for us little kids, and and you know, being
a dancer, I go, I got to go out and
dance with the girls, and they say, oh, thank you
very much, and then they just walk off.

Speaker 1 (20:11):
You know.

Speaker 2 (20:12):
Now I'm twelve years old and my hormone is the guy.
Now I want to be James Bond. I want him
to at least adore me a little bit. You know, nothing,
nothing a good dancer. But that was it barely talk
to me. All my friends who are all just in
the same trouble. Manfred Man comes down. They play. They
played three notes and every little girl in the place

(20:34):
is screaming and going crazy over manfred Man. And they
said to my friends, that's it, no more dancing. So
one of the guys he had a real guitar. He
stayed on the garage and so he had money, so
he got him in like a real guitar and he
made it, made it go a record player and sort

(20:54):
of Jerry did up to so it had he could
plug into it. And they have a little amplifier. I
had a toy drum kit and we go and we
play We play sauce standing there. We had the other guy.
He had a te chest with you know, like the
skiffle thing with the broomstick and sticking out of it
them piece of string and boom boom boom boom boom,
you know, and uh and uh we play sauce standing there.

(21:16):
That was about the only song that he knew. But
he he used to hang out in the in the
music stores. Because he had a real instrument, he was
allowed to hang out in the music stores. And the
older kids that had bands used to go in there,
and nobody had telephones back then. Everybody you put you
put a notice in the paper, or you put if

(21:36):
you wanted a musician and you wanted to find another musician,
you got to a music store and you put up
a notice drummer wanted, a guitarist, wanted bass player, wanted
you know, or you put in an add in the
New Musical Express or a melody maker or something like that,
you know. And these guys were in there and they
were putting up an ad and they were talking to
the owner. He said that their drummer, they had a

(21:58):
gig at a youth club and their drummer had to
have his appendix out, and so he couldn't do this
gig and they needed a drummer to sit in. So
my friend took his life into his hands and said
to these eighteen year olds, hey, I know a drummer.
And they're like, who's that. You know? Really he's good
and they were a blues ban too, and he said,

(22:18):
he said, he's good. And he's black guy too, you know,
So that that was my first reference. So they said, well,
tell him to come to this address. They gave him address,
and tell him to come here and see it in
like six o'clock and we'll try him out. So this
gig came around to my house and he said, you know,
there's the big kids and they got a band. And
I told him that you play for him, you know,

(22:39):
and I was, well, said the drummers. Did they want
you to just play gig? So I said, well, okay,
So he gave me the address and I went over.
There's over on mon Peleia Road somewhere, and remember them
went to this place and I went in there and
they had a drum kit set up and they said, okay,
sit down and they started to play the blues and
I started to play with him, and I jammed with him.
They said, well, okay, you can do the gig. I

(22:59):
did gig, and then they fired the drummer.

Speaker 1 (23:02):
Now, so.

Speaker 2 (23:05):
It was my It was my gig. So now I'm
wandering around a twelve year old terrified that I've stolen
the gig of some eighteen year old drummer who if
he comes face to face with me, it was my
butt and now. And the other thing was I wasn't
too difficult to find, you know, the only black kid

(23:27):
for like fifty miles in any direction. So it was
a pretty scary time. But they used to take me
down to see all the blues tours that used to
come in. The Chicago blues guys used to come to
Sonny Terry Brownie McGee, John Lee Hooker, Buddy Waters, all
those guys used to come through Bill dog It. They'd

(23:47):
come and they play at the Dome, and they would
take me down and see these people play, and I
just loved it. It was kind of just knew that
that was what I wanted to do when I left Scores.
I wanted to play the drums.

Speaker 1 (24:07):
Okay, you went to the gig as a twelve year old,
you played their drum set. When did you get a
drum set?

Speaker 2 (24:14):
Wow? You know I had I had this sort of
makeup drum kit. It was it was like the bass
drum was as big as I was. It was like
a big, huge march in basic bed. I actually have
a photograph. I have a photograph of my first gig.
And I wore a little bow tie. My mom made
me dress up and put a bow's eye on, you know,
it look smart and uh. And I had this, and

(24:37):
I had this, I had this. They had a snare drum,
a skinny snare drum, and I liked the skinny snadrow.
And my grandma bought me a big thit snare drum.
So I took I took the snares off and I
used it as a tom tom and they put it
on the sand and they use it as a tom tom.
And I had really you know, crappy symbols. When I
found out how much you know, good cymbals cost, it

(24:58):
was like helmu. You know, back then it was probably
like twenty pounds. Yeah they were free, but it might
as well have been like, you know, two thousand pounds
for me, But it was. It was just a lot
of money.

Speaker 1 (25:12):
Okay, so you have the gig with the band, they
kick out the other guy, they put you in. Then
what happened?

Speaker 2 (25:17):
And then they got me They got me a drum kit.
They got me a they got me a a an
Olympic drum kit which was an entry level. Well no,
the entry level was a gigster. Premiere that they had
three a gigster which was really crap awful, and then
they had the intermediate which was so so if you

(25:38):
found a decent one, it was okay Olympic and then
Premiere was was the big one, which is what Keith
Moon started playing after they stole his love wig, and
and and and so I had this a little Olympic
kit that really worked out all right for me. But
the great thing was was that when when I used

(26:00):
to go and open in this little club for like
for the likes of the Who, that they'd let me
use their drum kit. Wow, so I you know them
was like the Hollies and all these bands used to
get all the Mersey bands and the London bands used
to come down there and they didn't want to have
to take off because it was a tiny stage. They
didn't want to have to take their drum kit off

(26:21):
and to put mine up there, you know, and there
was no room otherwise up there to do it for anything,
you know, So so they'd say, well, just use your
own snare drum and put your own bass drum pedal
on there, and then you can play. And I'd sit
there and I'd play all these. I wouldn't move anything.
I just I wouldn't dare move anything. And I just
sit there and I played these. I played these, you know,

(26:41):
these eyes came down. I had like love with kids
and tricks and kits and Rogers kits. I never saw
a gretch, but I heard about them as I got there.

Speaker 1 (26:51):
Okay, so we're in America. We're the lead like about
year and a half. The Beatles don't hit here until
the beginning of sixty four. Were is it hits in England?
Sixty two sixty three? It's a menia in America?

Speaker 2 (27:06):
Yes, What was it like in the UK? It was
the same, you know, it was. It was just a
great But okay, so the Beatles were the principals, Beatles
and the Stones And actually I was more of a
Stones Stones fan because of the blues connection that I
had with the band. There was the Beatles and the Stones, right,
and then there was all these other bands that were

(27:29):
you know, like the Mersey, the Mersey Sounds, you know
that the Liverpool sort of became like a fashion a center.
So and then you had the London bands that that
were that was sort of modeled themselves sort of the
Who sort of stuff or blues bands, and and so
there was there was a lot of bands. It wasn't

(27:49):
just the Beatles, but the Beatles were the were the
were the the superstars because you know, all the girls
used to chase them about all over the place and
scream at them all the time and make a lot
of noise and and and they made they make you know,
it's funny. I'd listened to the Beatle. When I first
heard Hey Jude, I was like, what the hell are

(28:10):
they doing? You know, I didn't get it. I thought
that they you know, they sort of messed up. They
they sort of left the you know, where's the pop song?
I don't This is a weird song, you know. But
then it sort of morphed into becoming Hey Jude for me,
you know, and and oh really, you know, and then

(28:31):
I started to get into like Sergeant Pepper and their stuff,
and and and and that was a whole that was
a whole different experience.

Speaker 1 (28:39):
Okay, so you're twelve.

Speaker 2 (28:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (28:42):
A few questions combined her. How long do you stay
in school? When do you decide? When do you decide
you want to become a professional musician? And what path
does that do?

Speaker 2 (28:51):
I gotta tell you, I gotta tell you. This afternoon,
I was out there at this college. I'm doing this,
doing this orchestral thing. And I walked into this class
and there was a couple of guys in there and
I said, is this the green room? And they said, oh, no,
this is a classroom. We're changing that. We're changing the carpet.
And I looked and I said, you know, I hated school.

(29:14):
I hated school and I still do. They started to
ask me when I was about thirteen or fourteen years old,
what do you want to do? Is the school leaving
age was fifteen? And I said, I want to be
a drummer. And they said, well, you can't do that,
and I said why not? I said because it's not

(29:36):
a real job. I said, ringo star does it?

Speaker 1 (29:41):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (29:42):
And they said yeah, but you ain't Ringo star And
I said no, but I can hang with Ringo. Yeah,
I was really cocky, cocky little kid. You know, it's
pretty pretty sure of myself. And and and so I rebelled.
I just stopped studying all together. I did nothing I
used to I used to play football. I used to

(30:02):
box at the school. Uh, I was in the A
stream and I sort of hovered in the middle of
the A stream. I went out of that. I just stopped.
I mean, I wasn't doing any of that. And all
I did was go play with my band. I go
and play youth clubs with my band and come in
all bleary eyed the next morning. And uh and uh
and they called me. They you know, they mocked me.

(30:23):
They called me Ringo at school?

Speaker 1 (30:25):
Was he?

Speaker 2 (30:26):
And I was like, yeah, okay, I even went I
even went to this to this teacher because I knew
that I wanted to travel, and they had a French class.
And I said to him, his name was Savell, And
they said, mister Savelle, what would it take? How could
I get into your class? I want to learn how
to speak French because I knew I wanted to travel,
and I thought I'd better get a second language. And
he looked at me and he said, I don't want

(30:47):
you in my class, and I said, okay, fine, and
then I went off and I taught myself French.

Speaker 1 (30:56):
Okay. So in this in this period, yeah, you stop
going to school of fifteen, I assume.

Speaker 2 (31:03):
Yeah, okay, as I could get out of the way.

Speaker 1 (31:05):
And are you continuing to live with your grandparents? Are
you making a living drumming or do you have a
street job.

Speaker 2 (31:12):
In addition, I have a I had had. I had
a numerous ever worked in a car washer a bit.
I worked in a building site. I was a paint sprayer.
I did all kinds of I did all kinds of jobs,
you know, anything anything to pay. I mean I had

(31:33):
a good job on the building site. You know that
the owner of the of the company, you really liked me,
and you wanted to put me through school to make me,
make me become a site agent.

Speaker 1 (31:44):
You know.

Speaker 2 (31:45):
I just wanted to make music, That's all I wanted
to do. And the paint sprayer guy, he you know,
he'd been in he been in the says in the war,
and he actually he actually I said, when I got
the opportunity to go up to London, I said, I
got this opportunity to go up to London, go and
play some music. And he said, take it, he said,

(32:08):
you know, he said, you can always come back here
and work if you need to. You know, I'll always
give you a job, he said, But these opportunities to
do something that you love only coming around once in
a while, So just go up there and take the
opportunity and do what you can with it. And I
went up there, and I did the starving musician thing,
you know, just.

Speaker 1 (32:27):
Before we get there. You know, the train from London
to Brighton is not that long, no, and it's not
that different from where I grew up in these you
take the train into New York City. You're living in
Brighton before you moved to London. How often would you
go to London?

Speaker 2 (32:45):
I went a couple of times with my parents.

Speaker 1 (32:47):
That was it. That was it?

Speaker 2 (32:49):
Yeah, okay, So what was the invitation, What was the
opportunity that got you to London? Well, there was a
there was a answered an ad in the back of
the New Musical Express for a drummer and and there
was a guy who lived in North London, and he

(33:10):
said that he was managing this band, and would I
go out? Would I go up there and and and
try playing with him. So I went up. I just
went up to London and I started playing with these guys,
a guy named Calvin Bullen and Hugh Bullen and some
other guy that was a singer and Hugh. Hugh died
a couple of years ago. Calvin, I'm still in touch

(33:31):
with his guitarists and and anyways, uh uh. We we
lived in the guy got us a one room. There
was like this room in the basement, I guess what
they call a garden and room, and and we we
robbed it. Used to have to rob the gas meters

(33:53):
so that we could get hot water.

Speaker 1 (33:56):
It was.

Speaker 2 (33:57):
It was pretty It was really bad, you know. And
we go and we rehearse in not not In hill
in Notton hill Gate. We go down there and rehearse,
and you know, go up to clubs and tell them
that we were poor musicians. Would they let us in?
And the dormant would let let musicians in sometimes and
go and play, you know. And I remember one Christmas,

(34:17):
I had to get a job delivering delivering mail as
like a Christmas mailman, so that I had a bit
of money, you know, to live. We rely on We
rely on on girls that we met in clubs that
would feed us, you know, and there was we met
West Indian, a couple of West Indian girls, and and

(34:39):
they gave me. They gave me, They took me the
house and they cook cook curry goat and rice and peace.
As somebody who's used to diet of fish and chips
and roast potatoes and roast beef, curry goat and rice
and peace wasn't very appetizing, but I was hungry, so
I learned to eat it. Now I love it. Yeah,

(35:01):
and uh, and that's it was.

Speaker 1 (35:03):
It was a rough time. Well, okay, what's the journey
from there to a big break for you?

Speaker 2 (35:11):
Well, I just played with a lot of different bands.
Got with the band that went to went to Italy
for a week and and we got into a car
crash in a blizzard in Belgium, put all the equipment
on the train and went down went down to Italy
to play in this club called the Titan Club. And

(35:32):
we got there and we set up and we started playing,
and this American guy named Ronnie Jones, who was a
singer in Italy, asked me to stay. And you know,
we got down to Rome. It was sixty degrees, which
for me was boiling hot, and I loved it in January,

(35:52):
so I'm not leaving here. I'm going to stay right here.
And I stayed there and I worked with RUnni. I
stayed there for I went for two weeks and I
stayed there for three years in Italy and just work
with different bands. And that's where I met Robbie McIntosh
from Average White Band and Alex lidget Wood. You used
to sing with Santana, and I followed Robbie into another

(36:13):
band after.

Speaker 1 (36:14):
Oh okay, but well that's a little fast for me.
So you're in Italy that is not the epicenter of
the music world.

Speaker 2 (36:23):
No, but there's music there. No, No, come.

Speaker 1 (36:25):
I'm wondering what's going on in your mind? Are you
saying I like the weather I'm playing, or you're saying shit?
Am I ever going to break through here? Do I
have to go back to London? No?

Speaker 2 (36:35):
I didn't even even thinking about that. I was just
thinking about that. You know, I was meeting lots of gals,
Italian girls and Italian girl that that's nothing to Tonian.
I was up at I was making music, I was
earning a living. I was I didn't have any responsibility
to go home and be with my parents or anything.
I was having a ball and I was playing playing

(36:55):
music with these great musicians. You were teaching me stuff.

Speaker 1 (36:59):
Okay this late date. You know, like Kenny Aronoff, you
went to ah the school and he can write music,
et cetera. You where are you on that spectrum?

Speaker 2 (37:08):
I started that at twenty one with this with this
French band, and they were going to go and they
were they were they were real musicians. They knew how
to read music, they knew how to do all that stuff.
And I knew and all I knew was was that
if I wanted to be a professional, I'd have to
learn to do what they did. And they all went

(37:29):
to this music school in Nice and Andy. They approached
me they I was playing with them in Italy and
they said, listen, we've been off of the residency in
a casino in Nice. Would you come and do you
want to come and stay there for a year with
us to get your work permits and everything. It be
on the up and up and you'll make earn money.
And I said, well, I was. I was kind of

(37:51):
in that space where I was like, Okay, I'm twenty
going to be twenty one, I got to do something.
I'm either going to go back to England and go
back to school. And I met some of my Americans
that messed around with computers and that kind of interested me.
But I knew what it would take to be a musician,
and either one involved school, the nemesis of school. And

(38:15):
so they offered me this gig and I said, well,
can you get me into that music school that you
go to, and they said, we should be able to.
Shouldn't be a problem with that. So I went there
and I started to work with them in this casino
and the percussion teacher from the Conservatory of Nice came
and saw me play and he said, he said, oh,

(38:37):
you said, I just turned twenty one. I was twenty
one when I came here to Denis the day I
went to Nie, it was on my twenty first birthday,
and he said, well, you're too old to get into
the music class, tool to get in the percussion class.
The eldest that they would take somebody for the percussion
class as fifteen. I said, what can I do? They said, well,

(38:58):
we're going to make you a teacher. And I said, well,
what do you talk? Are you how can you make
me a teacher? He said, well, you play modern drums.
And the only thing that we teach in this conservatory
is classical music. To teach classical drums, we don't treat
They don't teach meat and potatoes drums. And we got
a lot of young kids, and they want to learn

(39:18):
to play like Bernard Perty. They want to learn to
play like Billy Cobbram, they want to play like Ringo Star,
they want to play like Charlie Watts, they want to
play like John Bonham. And you know how to do that,
you know. So they said, you teach them to do that,
and you're in the school and we'll get you into
the soul fish classes. So I said, okay. And my

(39:39):
first thing was the first thing to do was that
school was to put on a concert with these kids
and play some jazz with these kids, and for a
radio show to publicize the school. And they did that,
and then I started teaching these kids, and they used
to pay me private lessons and everything to teach them
how to play modern drums. And then I go sitting

(40:02):
in the selfish class. Selfish classes meant, this is a
great thing. I'd have to write out stuff for them
for them to practice. It was simple, very simple stuff
like straight up, straight down, drop a beat here, and
I'd write this stuff out. And these kids have been learning.
They knew how to read music since they could walk.
So they would look at me and they say, no,

(40:23):
mister FERRONI, that's not how you write that. You write
it this way. So they would teach. They were teaching me.
They were teaching me how to write stuff out. It
was the best deal. And I was making money in
the casino. It was just the best I had, the greater.
The three years of that, I did, okay.

Speaker 1 (40:40):
So what happened after three years of that?

Speaker 2 (40:42):
After three years of that, I got the phone rang
in the casino and they said, there's a phone call
for you from England. And I thought it might be
my mother. I thought it might be something wrong going
on at home. And I picked up the phone and
it was Brian Auger and he said, do you want
to come to a marror work with me? And I
was ready and I said yes, I want to go.

(41:04):
And he said you got two days to get to England.
So I sold all my stuff, got on a plane
and flew to England.

Speaker 1 (41:14):
And how did Brian Orgar know you or you know him.

Speaker 2 (41:18):
Robbie McIntosh and he he come.

Speaker 1 (41:22):
He'd been in.

Speaker 2 (41:25):
When I was in Italy working Robbie who used to
play with the Piranhas. We all went to see Robbie
play with Brian Orga and I sat in with him.
They let me sit in. They asked me to sit in,
so I went and sat in and play some music
with him, and he remembered me. So when Robbie left,
he said, I need to get another drum. And Robbie said,
once you called Steve. Remember that guy Steve? And he said, yeah,

(41:45):
so yew did I get old of him? And he
tracked me down in the in the casino. And that
was when I made my first trip to the United States.

Speaker 1 (41:52):
Okay, two days you're in England. You fly to America.
Good experience or bad experience with Brian Auger.

Speaker 2 (42:00):
Awesome experience, awesome and and and I remember like we're
driving driving up we get you know, I arrived with
the cart with my drum kit on it, you know,
And and the guy said, what are you doing here,

(42:21):
I'm on vacation. I'm on vacation And he said no,
I said, you're a musician. I said, yes, yes, I
come here. I want to play music with people. And
he said, ah, he said, you got any drugs? And
I said no, so, no, so I don't have no drugs.
And he said, see that door there, that door was
New York City. There's all the drugs that you want

(42:41):
in there. Boom stamped my passport and then I went
that was it. And then riding up looking at those
skyscrapers on Sixth Avenue, he was like, oh my god.
And the smell, just the smell of the city was
like amazing. And opposite the hotel where we were at
was a New York Jazz Museum and you go over
there and people were just sitting in there playing jazz

(43:03):
in their little concert people sitting on the floor listening
to people played that girl. That was heaven for me. Heaven.

Speaker 1 (43:12):
Okay, you were in New York and how long were
you in the US.

Speaker 2 (43:15):
For that trip? I think we were here. I think
we were here maybe two or three weeks because we played.
We played in New York in a club in New York.
It was up in mid to up up on the
Upper East Side. And then we went to Boston and
we played in this club called Paul's Mare. Did you ever? Yeah, yeah, absolutely,

(43:38):
And we played in Paul's More and then and then
we drove from Boston. We drove three or four days
across the country to Los Angeles.

Speaker 1 (43:48):
You drove.

Speaker 2 (43:50):
In a couple of station well, and the first part
of it was really boring, right, But then we got
to the Rocky Mountains and I remember coming round on
this road going up the Rocky Mountains and there was
a huge moose standing by the side of the road
and that was the first toy o. Oh, this is
We're getting into the West. Now, this is great. And
then driving through the desert and being terrified that we

(44:12):
were going to run out of gas. And I remember
stopping at a gas station and there was near Vegas,
and there was a slot machine. I put a quarter
or something in the slot machine and I won two
silver dollar pieces and I've still got them. Wow. Yeah
and uh and and then finally getting to Los Angeles

(44:33):
and playing at the Whiskey of Go Go. I mean,
it was it was everything that I wanted, everything everything
that was it was. It was fun, it was music,
it was I was just playing great music with a
great player, Brian Olver, And he's still still my friend,

(44:55):
still a great player. Yeah, here's the eighty something now
and he's just as in Uday say to Brian, Hey, Brian,
you want to play, but I'm there. He's there immediately
there you know, and and it was an amazing, amazing experience.

Speaker 1 (45:20):
Okay, so you go back to England, then what do
you do?

Speaker 2 (45:23):
I started playing with with the with some local guys
in in England, the studio studio musicians. They had a
band called Gonzales. Uh and and I started to do
record dates and people started to ask me to play
on on records. Gonzales. Gonzales was a band that if

(45:48):
if you if you were a musician and they and
they knew you and they knew you could play. It
was sort of run by a guy named Mickey's. He
was a saxophone saxophone player. Uh So, what would happen
was you get asked to go and play that seat
was then yours until you had a conflict, you had

(46:08):
a gig that you couldn't be there and play with
the band. Then somebody else, somebody like Richard Bailey would
come in and be would be would be the drummer
and it was his gig until he couldn't do it,
and then somebody else would come in or if you
were available, and they just called around and find out
who was there. And that was we actually opened for
Average White Band at the Townhouse one one Easter Easter

(46:30):
Bank Holiday, and and I was hanging out with Robbie.
Robbie and Hamish and Alan and those guys, all of
them were hanging out with everybody. I was hanging out
with everybody there. And that was a great gig at
the Roundhouse. So so you know I started. I got
this guy Mike Vernon, yeah, a producer. He called me

(46:52):
up and well, actually he came to see the band
play at Ronnie Scott's and he said, I'm doing this
album with freddie King, and I want you guys to
play on this album with Freddy King, an album called Burglar.
And so that was my first full album, like first

(47:13):
first real studio musician gig was was that freddie King album?
Pretty good start?

Speaker 1 (47:21):
Okay, freddy King a lot of Americans, no One from
the Grand Funk Railroad song We're an American band, and
he never had a hit on the rock charts, and
now his reputation keeps going up and up. So what
was it like working with Freddy King?

Speaker 2 (47:38):
It was amazing. He was He was quite a character.
You know. He'd wear these jumpsuits, his big white jumpsuits
and he had a huge belt buckle with FK on it,
you know, and the studs all around it. Sort of
Elvis Presley out sort of guy. And he was loud
and he drank gin. He liked to drink gin. Yeah,
and they were what they were doing with this album

(48:00):
was they were trying to bring him a little bit
more into the R and B area, to make him
a bit more popular with this with this record. So
that's why they had us play on it. But he
insisted on playing straight, straight blues every single day, and
he would wander down to the studio usually with a
buttle of gin and he's hand and it's like it's
time to play and we just sit down and play

(48:22):
a blues. But he's a what a player. God, he
is just a great player. What a character. Excellent.

Speaker 1 (48:30):
Okay, So you know where you're hanging in London, you
know everybody, you're doing some sessions, you're working with Freddie King. Yeah,
what's the next step for you after that?

Speaker 2 (48:40):
Well, Mike Vernon said, do you want to, uh, come
out and I'm doing a record with this span Bloodstone.
They're doing a movie. Would you come out to Los
Angeles and and and and work with me with them? Yeah? Sure,
So I came out to Los Angeles and ended up

(49:02):
recording with with with Bloodstone working on their movie. And
it was at that point that right then that Robbie died.
Was Robbie came in. They were playing The Average White
Band were playing in at the Troubadoor, and I spoke
to Robbie and he said, once you come down on
Sunday night. We hung out a little bit and he said,
once you come down on Sunday night, it's going to

(49:22):
be a big party. It's going to be a last night.
And I said, I got to work on this movie.
If I get through, I'll come down. And as luck
would have it, I couldn't go. So next day my
drum tech guy named Terry Merchant called me up and
said Robbie's dead. And I said, what, they're drunk and

(49:43):
he said, no, man, Robbie's dead, and and that was shocking,
shocking to me. Robbie always said I'm going to dive
before I'm twenty five. I never thought that was going
to happen to him. I thought he was indestructible. Robbie
could drink, God, he could drink. He could drink like
a butler of Voca, and then switched to Scotch and

(50:05):
he'd never get sick. He'd just pass out, you know.
And I think that's what happened. Somebody gave him this.
They said it was cocaine and it was heroin. It
was cut, was strickening, and it stayed in his system
and he killed him. Yeah, did that stop me? No?

Speaker 1 (50:22):
But well, I mean that's when I first became aware
of you. Yeah, they came to La. I was in
La and the album had just come out. So how
do you become a member of the band so fast?

Speaker 2 (50:35):
Well, it wasn't very fun. I mean, you know, I was.
I went down when I after Robbie had died. I
went to the hotel they were staying down here on
just off a venture of Boulevard, in this hotel, just
off a venture or and doing what scotsman do when
they were having awake drinking and I was down there

(50:57):
with what are you guys going to do?

Speaker 4 (51:00):
You know?

Speaker 2 (51:02):
Yeah, And nobody really knew. Everybody was just a mess.
And then I would say, I said, look, you know, Robbie,
Robbie wouldn't want you guys to stop right now. They
were just starting to get airplay with it, pick up
the pieces were just starting. I said that that's like,
that's that's that's not what he would want. I said,
I'll tell you what if I can help you out,

(51:23):
if I got time, I'll help you out and I'll
come and play with you. And then Stick Super offered
the same thing from from the Crusaders.

Speaker 1 (51:30):
He was.

Speaker 2 (51:31):
He was like, yeah, the same same deal. So if
I couldn't do it, Sticks would do it. So they
were going out and doing like the odd weekend here
and there.

Speaker 4 (51:39):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (51:40):
When I started playing with them, they were they were
opening opening for Billy Cobham and that's when I first
met Mike and Randy Brecker who was playing with them,
and uh and and uh uh uh pick up the pieces.
All of a sudden was like boom bang number one

(52:01):
and then Billy Cobbin was opening for us. Yeah, but
I was under contracted, Bloodstone. I was contracted. I mean
I signed a contract and they you know, they gave
me a car and and they gave me you know,
paid me money every week and just to work with
this band. We did a gig down at the old

(52:23):
Long Beach Arena and we're down there and we played
this gig.

Speaker 1 (52:29):
And uh we finished.

Speaker 2 (52:30):
To give us a great gig. Everybody every started. Everybody
started off a little bit skeptical. I was this band,
you know, and then when they realized that we were authentic,
and then they all started dancing and the place just
went wild and it was really great. And they came
off the stage and this little guy with a goate,
very dapper, like a sports jacket, I think like a

(52:52):
shirt and instead of like they speaking a little bit
like this. Ah. He came walking up to and he said, ah, yeah,
you gotta giant in the band. You gotta be in
the band. And I said, I'd love to, but I can't.
I'm in a contract to this other band. And he said,
you're out of that contract and you're in this band.

(53:14):
And then he turned around and whooked a white and
Bruce McCaskill, the manager of the Bad Spanager, was there.
I said, who is that and he said, oh, that's
aw'm I herd again.

Speaker 5 (53:23):
Heard that coming, and I was that was it. I
was out of the out of that contract, and I
was in Average White Band. It was that that's simple,
Average White Band. They have that huge album, you know, yeah,
so many great tracks. I love the cover of Work
to Do.

Speaker 2 (53:41):
But uh yeah, okay, they do that.

Speaker 1 (53:44):
They do the Cut the Cake album.

Speaker 2 (53:46):
That's what I did.

Speaker 1 (53:47):
That was my first So, although not quite as commercially
successful as the previous album, where does this leave you,
because you've been doing a million different things at this point,
do you say, I'm just a member of the average
White being. This is all I do with us?

Speaker 2 (54:02):
I mean, that's kind of what I was doing, you know.
I mean I was I did Average White Band and
that was it. And and uh and we recorded Cut
the Cake. And while I was in you know, if
if if if I played something and a Reef said, uh,
so I first met a Reef Mardin, he said, I
really like that. That's I like that pattern that you're

(54:22):
playing there. Just keep playing that pattern that that's that's
the groove that I want, so that I can remember it.
So everybody was talking while they were called it. I'd
write it down. I write write out what the pattern was,
so I wouldn't forget it. Yeah, because I could do
that forget get stuff and uh and uh. At the
end of cut the cake, a ref said to me,

(54:44):
he said, listen, I noticed you read music and I said, yeah,
a little bit. He said, he said, uh, would you
would you? Would you like to do some sessions for me?
Would you do some sessions for me? So I said, oh, yeah,
I'd love to, you know, so he bought me. I
think the first session that I ever did and was
was a bet Middler song, like a bet middle of

(55:05):
sort of dance song that I did. That was the
first session that I did from And then he started
to use me on Sha Ka Khan and all the
Shaka Khan stuff started to happen. And then other producer
Zarif was such a hot shot producer. Other producers in
town suddenly started hearing, Hey, you know the guy who's
playing with the average white man, he's doing sessions. And

(55:25):
so I started to get these calls and I went
to what I what I call the the the the
school of Local eight o two in New York with
all those wonderful studio musicians, all those guys that that
that became my friends that still today my friends. And

(55:47):
they taught me. They taught me everything. They taught me
what worked, what didn't work, and and and they they
even let me try stuff out. And uh ref Mardin,
I owe so much to a Reef Mardin. A Treasury's
memory is just a wonderful, wonderful man.

Speaker 1 (56:07):
So what was his magic? What is it that he did?

Speaker 4 (56:11):
He he he.

Speaker 2 (56:15):
He, Okay, you could sit and you could play. You
could run down. You're running down a song and you're
sitting down and you're playing a song and you're trying
to find a part, and you're trying to get this thing,
and you'll play, you'll play. And then he would come
in and he'd say to me, says, Steve, come here
a second, and he take me in into the into
the into the into the control room, and he would

(56:36):
have the engineer. He'd say, just play from number five
twenty right, and so he he's u and then he
get to this area and he say, hear that that's
what I want. I want that all the way through,
you know, and I get it, I get I get
what he was talking about. You that that's that's the

(56:56):
groove he was looking for. And so sometimes it was
it was difficult to grab that and sort of hang
onto it schoolboy crush on.

Speaker 1 (57:07):
On.

Speaker 2 (57:08):
I mean, I came that. I got credit, rid a
credit because that was that was my group, you know,
that was that was my thing that made that come together.
And we must have done like twenty six takes of
that dang thing that one day, I mean, and it
just did not hang together. And the reef said, okay,
everybody go home, come back tomorrow and we cut it

(57:28):
first thing in fresh and it'll be okay. So we
all go out go do what we go to do
that evening' get a get up. The next day, go
to the studio. We walk in and said, well, let's
let's run it down. Just make sure we got the form.
And we ran the song down. Okay, let's go for
a take. We do a take. We go in and
we sit there and we listen and it didn't hang
together again. It was like god, no, here we go again.

(57:51):
And the engineer, Jean Paul, who was Les Paul's son,
is less Paul so much to say. Jean Paul turns
around and said, you want to listen to the run through?
You'd hit that button and boom there it was. It's uh,

(58:11):
you know, a reef had a really great sense of
of of of.

Speaker 1 (58:17):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (58:18):
You know it's only like with Shaka, come uh. We'd
have a song. Shaka always showed up late, always late, right,
So so so we're in there and working the work
in the rhythm section, you know, all this like Richard T. Cornell,
the Prix were all these great players, and we were
sitting in there and we learn our part and we

(58:39):
let we get this whole thing. We get okay, this
is how the song's going to go right perfect, and
then Shaker would show up about two o'clock in the afternoon.
She walk in that vocal booth and she'd open her
mouth and everything would change. Everybody would just adjust to
for this, for this vocal for this vocalist, you know.

(58:59):
And a Reef was big enough to say that's great. No,
that's not what I taught you. That is great. That
stuff is great, and and he just knew his stuff
if right right, string arrangements that were just there was
there was so cool with you know, with lots of

(59:19):
stuff going on, but the never get in the way
of anything. What I found about a Reef was when
we recorded average White Man, we we could we could,
we could he could add horns. I mean we had
Brecker Brothers would come in and and and and and
we'd have like a horn section on certain stores, the
Brecker Brothers coming. We we we'd add string sections, uh

(59:41):
a reef of right string arrangements. We'd have all this stuff,
but percussions. Ray Bredo would come and play with us,
you know, all these people would come and would come
and play with it, and we'd make this album. We'd
make this thing. But we could always go out a
six people and play that album. And that wasn't the
case with other with other producers. We'd have to augment

(01:00:03):
the band with like and that. Later on we started
having these other other producers that were coming, and they're
great producers, but just not I don't know if they
knew how to produce a band, you know, because we'd
have all this with a reef, we'd have all this
other stuff on there. But we could still go out
with six people and just play this, play these songs.

(01:00:23):
With these other people, we'd have to have the background
vocalists and add another piano player. And and and I
was sitting out there playing it was like where did
my band? Where'd my band go?

Speaker 1 (01:00:34):
You know?

Speaker 2 (01:00:35):
And with some other band, Now that's not average white band,
this is this is some other band. And that was
kind of like when things started to go downhill when
we when we when we left the Atlantic and went
to Arista. Okay, let's stop there for a second. You
said you learned something. You learn a bunch of stuff
from all the studio musicians in New York. Tell me

(01:00:57):
a couple of things you learned. Well, I think the
most important thing was not to be afraid to ask
about something if you saw something that you didn't understand,
to ask. Asked that. I remember I was doing a
session one day with Marcus Miller and and and and
there was this thing that was on that was on
the on the chart that they that they give me
and I didn't know what it was, you know, and Marcus,

(01:01:21):
what's that like? You know barfi what is that thing
at bar fifty seven? And he said, oh, that's oh okay,
got it, know what it was? And Marcus said, turn
around and said thank you. I said what he said,
thank you, thank you for not messing it up and
blaming somebody else. He said, it's always great to ask stuff,

(01:01:44):
you know, ask about stuff. And yeah, he was wonderful.
And so I mean I got to play stuff that
was that for me was really difficult. When I played
with the band. I played with this band with Anthony
Anthony Jackson, Uh what was what I forget what they

(01:02:05):
called the Dang brand now, but it was Michelle Camello
was was in the band. Gordon Gordon gott Lee was
who was a New York Philharmonic percussionist was in the band.
Peter Gordon was played french horn in the band. Uh
and and and when Anthony couldn't do it, will Lee
would do it. But the music was just really difficult

(01:02:27):
stuff and they they would teach me how to do it,
how to play it, and I'd have to figure out
ways to play things that was kind of out of
my out of my out of my domain, you know, Uh,
these mixed measures and stuff that they were playing, and
I had to figure out how to play my simple

(01:02:47):
stuff through there to make that, make it speak properly.

Speaker 1 (01:02:51):
So if they didn't call you, who did they call?
And how competitive was it?

Speaker 2 (01:02:58):
I never felt and he and he sort of competition
at all. I mean, there was there was the cats,
and there was there was those people that were the cats,
and there was those that weren't, you know, I mean,
I go and see like Steve Gadd play with stuff
all the time up at Michael's. Chris Barker was a
good friend of mine and Steve and Omaha Kim was

(01:03:19):
was a friend Lenny White. I used to see him around.
We'd run into people in the studios.

Speaker 1 (01:03:26):
There was.

Speaker 2 (01:03:28):
There was just lots of lots of I mean, I
mean I used to come out. I used to come
out here and out to California and hang out with
Jeffercaro who's a friend of mine. So there was enough
with his brother this afternoon. We just was just just
playing with his brother this afternoon.

Speaker 1 (01:03:49):
Okay, So tell me about going to rist and how
that kills the band.

Speaker 2 (01:03:55):
Well, I think Clive had ideas about what he wanted
the band to be, and he sent us these songs
that frankly there they were just awful. They were like
songs that Barry Man and I didn't want to put
on his record. I think Clive I had this vision
of making average white Man into the next air supply,

(01:04:18):
and for me, there already was an air supply and
we didn't want to be that anyways, And and it
just sort of got there. We started making records that
I still I still listen. I tried to like him.
I just don't like them. Cupan's in fashion was just awful.
H and uh we started to do that, and then

(01:04:40):
it's just sort of like, man, you know, this is
like they're dying. I'm going to leave before I don't
want to see it dead. I'm just gonna leave. Mhm.
And you left it and did you have enough studio
work or what were you thinking? When that's what I went,
That's what I went to do. I just went back
to doing studio work. I just did a lot of that.

Speaker 1 (01:05:00):
And when did you start going out on the road again.

Speaker 2 (01:05:04):
I did a little bit here and there, I mean
a little bit with a little bit with with with
the Chaka Kahan. Not much, just very very I spent
all my time in town. I would travel a lot.
I traveled a lot. I started to travel a lot
to England and uh and uh Los Angeles. Did a

(01:05:26):
lot of work in Los Angeles, and and then I
got I got this. I was in London and and
I went to Bob Goldoff's I was playing with Deran
Duran and and I went to Bob Goldofs Knighthood party
at the hard Rock cafe and and I was sitting

(01:05:47):
there and Phil Collins walked up, tap me on the
shoulder and said hey Phil. He said, have you ever
met Eric Clapton? And I said, well, I met him.
I met him once. He showed up once at a
an average white band show and I just meant just
to say hello, meet meeting, you know. He said, uh,
he said, well, come over, come with me. Come and
come on, I'm sitting over there with you. Come over
and come over and meet him. So I go over

(01:06:08):
and I sit at the table at Clapton's there as
someone else is there to and I'm sitting there. We're
just talking, make small talking there for a little bit
and I say, okay, well then I go back hang
out with my bunch and my my crowd over there.
Nice to met you. And then a couple of weeks later,
I got a phone call. You want to go play
with Eric Clapton. Yeah, yeah, I'd like that. And it's

(01:06:30):
a way. He's just playing a couple of gigs. You know,
he's playing a little club up in Boston, and he's
going to play another club in New York. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
he's in the band. Well, Greg Felin Gains and Nathan East.
Oh perfect. I had done dates of them out here
and get I knew them doing record dates to reproduce
them for record days. Great players, and and so I

(01:06:55):
went and did did those those gigs. When I did
those gigs room and that, they said, well, you know,
what do you want? What do you want to go
and do it? Eric Clapton at that point, I hadn't
done a lot of you sort of like, oh, he'd
been off Maradar for a long time. Yeah, a little
bit of money enough to sort of cover cover the week,
you know, just have some fun. I was just looking

(01:07:18):
forward to play with Eric Clapton, you know. And and
and then I I I get back, had a great
time playing with him, and did the rehearsal. I think
I think Eric actually got drunk in the rehearsals, had
to go in the hospital for a couple of days
and just sort of left us to rehearse on our own,
and then sort of came back out and joined the

(01:07:39):
band a couple of days rehearsal, and then we went
and played these two gigs, you know, and we had
a great time playing those gigs. And uh, and then
I got this check in the mail. For like three
times four times as much money as I'd ask for,
you know, and I couldn't. I said, I think I
think he made a mistake. And they said, no, no, no, no,
that's a miss clubs and wants you to have that.

(01:08:01):
Thank you very much. I really enjoyed playing with you. Well,
I really enjoyed it too. And then I started to
get these calls it comes to England. So I got
to England and work and we started to do these
runs with the Royal Albert Hall, you know, started with
three days, and then seven days, and then a week,
two weeks, and they think, you know, twenty four nights
and working up to twenty four nights. And then record

(01:08:23):
companies started to learn that we were there and they
would say call us up and ask us if we
could go do session on our day off. And it
was the boom years, you know, and I was doing
this Saturday night live as well at that point.

Speaker 1 (01:08:36):
Okay, well just let's slow down, get a couple of
things here. You're playing with Clapton. Clapton's had many different
periods of his career, different music, up and down. It
was probably the first guitar hero and rock, but his
audience is so primed for Clapton, you're on stage, Does

(01:08:58):
it make any difference? Does the audience know whether you're
on or your offer? It's just Eric clapped in their satisfied.

Speaker 2 (01:09:04):
My job with Eric Clapton. Eric told me was I
got to be up there be Eric Clapton every day,
make me play Wow, that was it. So I just
I sit there and and sometimes you have difficulty, you know,
it's not easy to be out there to play a
great solo every time. You have to be inspired. You know,

(01:09:29):
sometimes you're the person that he's the person that inspires,
and other times he needs a little kick in the
ass to do that.

Speaker 1 (01:09:36):
You know. And and.

Speaker 2 (01:09:39):
It was just a question of knowing when he was
just trying to figure out some way to get in it,
or to give him like a big opening, something to
do like really big, or even just like break it
down so that he got really loud and found himself
out there on his own. And I had no other
choice but to play, you know. It was it was
a great band of doing that. It was was. It

(01:10:00):
was really a great band for playing that rock with Eric.

Speaker 1 (01:10:04):
Okay, let's go back to Duran Duran. Duran Duran had
all their hits in the mid eighties. They were incredibly
cold and I remember K Rock Acoustic Christmas in nineteen
ninety two. They were the headliner. The album hadn't come
out yet and they played Ordinary World and what the
the other big hit off that album which you were

(01:10:26):
involved with, So tell me about that.

Speaker 2 (01:10:29):
Well, yeah, I mean I did. Notorious was the first
the first album that was when they first started to
get back together, and Notorious sort of was sort of
an icebreaker for them, you know, getting doing this stuff.
And that was sort of like there was that one
year where it was Eric Clapton and Duran Duran and

(01:10:50):
I got to stay home for like three weeks out
of the whole year. Yeah, and uh and uh and
I was just loving playing with Clapton's and and and
I just sort of, I mean, it wasn't even like
I'm not going to play with anymore. It was just
all I went off and I was just I spent
more time playing with Eric and that and that was
that was more more of my gig. But uh, so'm

(01:11:15):
I'm in London and uh to do George Harrison and
George just hired Eric's band and uh uh to go
and do this concert tour in Japan, and uh and
and I get there and and because I'd stayed at
the Royal Albert Hall, I mean I used to. I
rented an apartment on Sloan Street and I would just

(01:11:37):
walk up the streets sometimes. And they get on the
bus and ride with the fans up to were you
going to play the night Steve? And I haven't seen
the set list yet, know, And uh, I ride with
the fans on the bus up there. And so I
had this apartment on Sloan Street. I used to stay
in there like that. Side I go in there with
with George. I had rendered a car and I would

(01:12:00):
have to drive out to Bray and rehearsal George. But uh,
so day one I'm there and then take a ride
down the King's Road. Just have a look around the
King's Road, see what's going on. I drive down to
the kings Old and I'm driving along in traffic in
the King's Wold very slowly, you know, And I look
on the on the sidewalk and I see this guy
walking and I say, dang, they looks like Warren Cook Carrillo,

(01:12:24):
you know. But he's got all these muscles, you know,
it's like muscle bound. It's like a body build a
sort of guy. And I said, but the last time
I saw war and he's like skinny mister skinny guitarists,
you know, missing person's little skinny, skinny skinny guy. And
uh and I look and hey, we Warren and it's

(01:12:49):
and it's it's Steve. You're in town. Yeah, yeah, he said,
I need you to do a session for me. And
this is I'm still driving along now very so, and
I said, I don't know what my schedule is. I'm
doing this thing with George Harrison. And he puts his
hand in his bag and he pulls out this cassette,
throws the cassette in through the car. Win call me.

(01:13:09):
We set it up when you get time. And I
drive off and I take this cassette and I put
it in the cassette player and listen to it. Ordinary World,
a demo of ordinary World. So I get back to
the hotel, I call up Warren and I say, listen,
you don't need me on this song. You know, this
is a hit song like this, just like this is

(01:13:29):
got a little drum machine on there that they did
the thing too. I said, you don't he said, no,
we really want you to play on it. I said, well,
I said, this is this is a great song. This
is a hit song. Ifever I heard it. What a
great song that is. I watched last night. I went,
I went onto YouTube and I watched the I watched
the band, watched them. They had like a new one

(01:13:50):
of their late latest concerts, Taylor playing. I watched them
play Ordinary World. This is just a beautiful What a song,
What a great song.

Speaker 1 (01:13:59):
Okay, you've worked with all these legendary guitarists. Is there
one that you prefer to play with more you were
more amazed by? Or are they all unique? What's your think?

Speaker 2 (01:14:13):
I'm a you know, Mike Campbell never ceases to amaze me.
Is that the most underestimated guitarist?

Speaker 1 (01:14:25):
You know?

Speaker 2 (01:14:26):
Anybody to talk about Mike Campbell? They are people that
talk about Mike Campbell are great, great, what a great guitarist,
But they I don't know. Maybe he's not as flashy
as like some of these other guitarists are, but he
just has a way of being as some of those
solos that he plays, I mean, that's just no composingness.
So that's what he plays. That's how he plays, Yeah,

(01:14:48):
when he sits back in the band, the tones that
he comes up with to fit in with the band,
that sounds that he comes up with. He's just a phenomenal,
phenomenal player. I love playing with Mike Campbell. That's that's
for sure. But how do you how do you how
do you compare Eric clapped better? How do you put
them on a scale? Eric? You know George Benson. I

(01:15:10):
played with George Benson. He's a pretty badass guitarist. George Benson,
you know, but he doesn't know. He doesn't know, he
doesn't know how to reader. Note George, you got no idea,
and then you get guys like OSNOI. He's just phenomenal.
That I mean, just crazy is the stuff he comes
up with, and and and his stuff. He first time

(01:15:34):
he called me and asked me to play with him,
I said, he said, will you play with me? I'm
going to do this gig out in Los Angeles?

Speaker 1 (01:15:38):
And I said no.

Speaker 2 (01:15:39):
He said why not? I said, because your stuff is
too hard. It is not hard, it's in four fourth.
I said, what planet are you from? Your stuff? Your
stuff is so difficult, you know, and it isn't FO
four But it's like where he puts the accent away
with me, and it is pretty once, you know, once
you find it, it's not that different. But I mean
he has some stuff. I still can't even figure out

(01:16:01):
how he gets that phenomenal guitarist Humor Kraken. What can
I say? No more? You know? Uh uh oh god,
uh uh He's what I thinking of. I mean, there's

(01:16:23):
just so many guys, all these guys in New York,
the studio guys, Michael Thompson out here, Yeah, David Williams
from from from I was sitting listening to students your
your show that your podcasting you did with Steve Lucath,
and he was mentioning all these guys, Paul Jackson Jr.

(01:16:44):
All these players, you know guys. A lot of people
say they, who the hell is that? Well, you don't know,
you know, how come you don't know who David Williams is?

Speaker 1 (01:16:54):
You know?

Speaker 2 (01:16:54):
I mean, you know if you go bug a Darren
do bugger dar David Williams, you know, and that just
didn't happen. That was David Williams playing that did that?
Uh yeah, Lucas, I mean, all these guys, I mean,
I don't know I can't really.

Speaker 1 (01:17:12):
Okay, wells which gif? How'd you end up in the
s n L band?

Speaker 2 (01:17:16):
Uh? I gotta, I gotta call I just I think
I got a call. I just got a call. I
got a call from who. I forget Who the musical
director was at that point was g Smith g g
g was was was the was the musical director of
the band. But but the but uh uh was it?

Speaker 1 (01:17:37):
How was not?

Speaker 2 (01:17:38):
How? No, it wasn't how. I forget the guy the
original guy. He does a lot of movie stuff. He
was he was the guy that sort of would pick
out the band. Uh And and he asked me to
come and during the new season when Lawn Michael Lawn
Michaels came back, they asked me to do the Saturday
Unite Light Band And that was that was a thrilled too.

(01:18:00):
That's really well, Leon Pandalvis.

Speaker 1 (01:18:03):
And who what was it like?

Speaker 2 (01:18:06):
It was fun As a matter of fact, some of
the jokes that went on in the band were actually
funny as in the show until until Lovetz came up
with the liar. It was kind of we sat up
there and we've grown at some of these jokes. That
is awful. And then and then all of a sudden,

(01:18:26):
John Lovitz came along and started doing that liar thing
you know. Yeah, my wife Merk Morgan Fairchild, and it
was like, oh, this is good, this is really good. Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:18:38):
Traditionally the drummer is the business guy, is that you
or not?

Speaker 2 (01:18:46):
Well, well, you mean doing the business of the band.

Speaker 1 (01:18:50):
Yeah, and making sure it goes forward and getting the
gigs and being on top of it and being the
driving force.

Speaker 2 (01:18:57):
Oh no, no, no, I'm pretty I'm pretty lazy. I
don't want to have any any kind of responsibility like that.
I would say the best I'm a good, a good,
a good sergeant arms uh to have around, uh, to
hang out and and keep the camera to you of

(01:19:21):
the band around. I mean, Jesus, like, you know, there's
all these people out there writing books at the moment,
you know, and and and you know, Tessa and Iles
from from Merrick's Band wrote a book. Uh, Phil Palmer
wrote a book from Merrick's Band, And and I feature
heavily in all of these books. And there's yeah, jan

(01:19:43):
gay Marvin Gaye widow, she she she wrote a book.
And I mean that Rick James wrote a book. And
I mean and I mean that book. I was like, jeez,
I'm gonna have to write my own book. A lot
of a lot of the a lot of these they
call me up and they say, well, you know, we've
written some stuff about you in in the book of

(01:20:05):
some of some of the adventures that we've had with you,
and do you want to read it and see if
you want to take anything out and that? And you know,
my life's pretty much I'd say, pretty much my life's
and open book. Really. I mean, I know they love
me and I love them, and they would never intentionally
write anything that was that was going to be considered harmful.

(01:20:26):
So just just put it out. I trust him, and
then when I have got around of reading it, it's
all as awful as it is sometimes. When I got
arrested once for trunk driving and ended dub calling Roger
Forrester's phone of Eric Clapton's manager calling call in the
office and see I got the phone. Nobody answered the

(01:20:47):
phone answering machine, So nobody knows the trouble Tess and ours.
But Tess and Arles put that in the know. You
just just wait until I write my book. I got
some stuff on YouTube, but no, it's it's.

Speaker 1 (01:21:10):
Well that's a you know, the promoter in Montreal tells
a great story how the who got busted and he
went to the mof you to get the money to
the cash to nail him out, and he went in
there all in jail and they started singing, don't fence
me in? So how did you end up in Petty's band?

Speaker 2 (01:21:34):
Well? That was you know that when when after we
finished the tour with George in in Japan, Yeah, I
came back and and George caught me up and said, listen,
I'm gonna do this other gig. When one other gig
and the one more gig at the Royal Albert Hole,

(01:21:56):
you know, you said, can you come and do it?

Speaker 1 (01:21:58):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:21:58):
I love to sell problems. It was a couple of problems.
He said, Eric, Eric, Eric's not going to do it.
So I'm getting Mike Campbell to come and do it.
And I'm like, who Mike Mike Campbell plays with Tom Petty?
Oh okay, I don't really know too much about it
better other than I'd seen few videos on on an MTV,

(01:22:19):
you know, And and he said, he said, he said,
he said, who could I get to play play bass?

Speaker 1 (01:22:27):
Who? You know?

Speaker 2 (01:22:28):
Because Nathan can't do it. He's going out. He's going out.
I think he's doing something with Phil Collins. And I said, well,
that's simple. Will Lee call Will Lee because Will Lee's
a huge Beatles fan, you know, and uh and equaled
Will and Will came over and did that. Anyways, were there?
I get. So we did the gig and and and
we did the rehearsals and everything, and I noticed that

(01:22:50):
this guy, Mike Campbell, he just had this way of
fitting in that was you know. And then he would
play some really great stuff. And when George went to
a solo, he would just step up and play something incredible, right,
And I'm like, who the hell is this Mike Campbell guy?
And Will Lisa and he plays with Tom Petty. Don't

(01:23:12):
really that for me? So I used I took the
habit of walking up looking at Mike and going fucking
Mike Campbell, looking right there, fucking Mike Campbell and uh.
And then we went out and had dinner. A couple
of times we went out and then sort of end

(01:23:32):
up sitting around around Mike and we ended up doing
some talking and it's very nice. Didn't didn't exchange numbers
or anything that was it finished. No, after he went
back to America and we did that gig in it
and it was it was maybe a month or so
month or two later that I got this phone call
from from my answering service radio registry. Wouldn't I used
to everybody had a radio Radio Registry telephone number. Now

(01:23:56):
you call in and they'd book you for stuff. And
they call me out and say, Steve, you're you know,
you're open next week and you go to Los Angeles?
And they said, yeah, what for? They said, Oh, it's
top secret, geek, top secret. Can't tell you who it is?

Speaker 1 (01:24:09):
I do.

Speaker 2 (01:24:10):
Who's the booker? So they put me to into the
booker and and I say, who's this kid? Who's this
gid for? Sorry, Steve, we can't tell you. It's top secret? Okay,
triple scale, mister mercenary, no problem, Okay, all right then?

(01:24:32):
Yeah fine, So they flying me out and they put
me in the Sportsman's Lodge, right, which was I never
I mean, I'd seen it, but I never really taken
that much notice of it though. Sports I mean I
was staying at four Seasons or something like that, the
High High House. I stayed at the High House. I
never stayed in the valley, and so I check in

(01:24:55):
their first thing that happens. I'm going there, I check in.
I just walk in there and I signing. The thing
is this sort of half talk to the person behind her,
and they look up at the person behind the desk,
and it was Fluff. The girl used to be the
cash here at the at the at the Roxy. Fluff, Steve,
what do you do? This is gonna gonna gig out

(01:25:16):
here in some secret gig. So she puts me in
a suite, and and and and and and and then
I found out that they had the i'd say, the
second best swimming pool in the hotel in Los Angeles.
Over there, it's a great swimming pool. And uh, and
so I the next day, I have to go out

(01:25:39):
to Sound City and get a rental car and drive
out there. And as I'm as I'm arriving, Kenny Arnos
drum kit in his flight cases. Kennyanos names on it
coming out. She is still not unusual, you know. Uh
and uh. I mean, because sometimes people hire you to

(01:26:02):
play on certain songs on a record. I want this
guy to play on that song. He's really good at
playing that kind of style. Something so I didn't didn't
really didn't think too much of it. And I walked
inside and Russ was setting up my drums in the
studio and they said to me, I just just go
through into the control room. And I walk in the
control room and there was Tom Petty and Mike Campbell

(01:26:26):
and then like fucking Mike Camera and Tum Petty and
then just the three of us went and we went
and and uh sat down started to play you don't
know how it feels?

Speaker 1 (01:26:45):
And that was that.

Speaker 2 (01:26:47):
And we we went into into the control room and
I was standing behind the board and they were standing
in the front with the engineer listening, listening to the
listening to the take that we did, and and Tom
turned around the mic and he said, well, what difference
of drummer make sir? Now I'm like, what the hell

(01:27:07):
does that mean?

Speaker 1 (01:27:08):
Right?

Speaker 2 (01:27:08):
I mean it could mean anything, right, right, Like, well,
this this guy, yeah, I mean, this guy's useless. Get
rid of it. What do you bring him out here for?
And then Mike Tom looked to look right at me
and he said, oh, don't worry. You won. And that
was it the start start of Wildflowers actually start twenty
five years I didn't know. It started twenty five years

(01:27:33):
and and when I finished, I did two. The first
time I was out there, I was I was drinking.
And the second time I came back out to do
the second half of Wildflowers, I'd stopped. And there was
only one person that noticed that I'd stopped. Really yeah,

(01:27:54):
and that him You'll have to find out yourself, because
I don't. But he said to me, have you stopped drinking?
I think we only went out to dinner once. Yeah,
and so yeah. So so it was uh and so
and and and uh and then and then the next

(01:28:18):
thing was like, you know, I mean, I just went
back and started doing my stuff. I was working did
some stuff with Brian Ferry. But I really loved the
way that the Heartbreakers worked in the studio. I really
loved the way that they went after a take, and
they went after and then and they had these great
songs too. I mean, Tom was just such a great songwriter.

(01:28:39):
You know, we had such good stuff to work with,
and and and the other thing. The thing that really
impressed me was Wildflowers was so much different than the
other stuff that Tom had done before. It was it
was like, I mean, even sometimes we'd play a song
and I say, oh, here we go. Now this is

(01:29:03):
this is sounding more like this is more like Tom
Petty a Tom Petty song. And he played we play
about three times and then Tom would say, you know what,
we've been there before. Next we'll move on and do
something else. And he would just and I'm like, what
are you doing? And some of that stuff got on
to Wildflowers and all the rest, and he found it

(01:29:25):
like later on there in twenty seventeen, I guess he
started going through going through that that stuff to do
that album with Wildflowers and all the outtakes. And he
said to me when they said you know, he said,
I was. I was listening to these songs. There's a
couple of songs that didn't get on the record. They

(01:29:48):
sound like real songs that they're really good. They they're
pretty much ringing. I don't know how they didn't make
it onto Wildflowers. And I said, well, you didn't want
them on there. You said that you've already been there.
Who visited that place before? You remember you saying that
about a couple of the songs.

Speaker 1 (01:30:09):
How do you end up in the band you're working
on the solo record?

Speaker 2 (01:30:13):
Yeah, then they well, so they finished their they finished,
they finished their record, and and.

Speaker 5 (01:30:23):
And uh.

Speaker 2 (01:30:25):
I was working with Brian Ferry. Brian had a way
of working. He had these guys that weren't musicians that
were sort of advisors, right, and and so they'd walk
into the dressing room and Brian would feel there was
something wrong with a song. So he would say what
was what was wrong with that? Love is a drug?
And they say, oh, it's too fast, Oh too slow? No, no,

(01:30:46):
it's too fast or it's too slow. He said, we'll
go and talk to God, talk Frony about that.

Speaker 1 (01:30:50):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:30:50):
And so these guys would walk up to me and
they would say, Steve, Brian feels love the drug is
too fast or it's too slow, one or the other.
And I say yeah. They said, well, yeah, could you
do something about that? And I said, well, I'd love to,

(01:31:12):
but I don't start it. The bass player starts it,
you're talking to the wrong person. I just played whatever is.
But whatever temper starts whatever it does, and it always
feels all right to me. So I'll tell you what,
why don't you just fuck off? So they kind of
got used to this thing where they come up to

(01:31:34):
tell me something and I'd sit there and I listened
to what they had to say, and I'd say, you
know what I'm going to tell you, right the fuck off?
And I said, yeah, that's about it, and they would leave.
So I really wasn't that that that. I always felt
that it would have been nice if Brian had come
in and as a band, talked about the stuff as

(01:31:55):
a band, and then then sending these guys who really
didn't know what the hell they were talking about. Yeah,
so as manager asked me, you know, he said, would
you go out on the road with us like next
year and do some stuff next year? And I said, no, no,
I'm actually I'm kind of busy. I didn't really just
didn't really want to do it, you know. And and

(01:32:15):
uh and uh and and I called my girlfriend and
and I said, you know, they asked me to do
next year and I didn't. I didn't really want to
do it, so I said, and she said, what, well,
what are you going to do? You know, it's a gig.
I said, yeah, but this is not really a gig
for me, you know, I'm something I happened. I just
make you go back making records whatever, I do something

(01:32:37):
and uh, and she said, well, what would you like
to do? I said, in truth, what I'd really love
to do. I love doing that record with the Heartbreakers,
you know. But I said, but that ain't going to happen.
That's standing in She's gig. Yeah, I said, that's not
gonna that's not going to happen. But something to show up,
I said, I had so much fun playing with those guys.
It was really terrific. H So that was the end

(01:33:00):
of that, pretty much the end of that conversation. The
next day, phone rings. She calls me up. She said
Tom just called her. Who wants you to call him?
And they said what? She said, Tom? She said, I
think he wants you to do a tour with him.
And I said, well, I said, I don't let me
make a call, So I called Tom. I called Tom
up and Tom. Tom said to me, he said the listen.

(01:33:23):
He said, what are you doing next year? He said,
would you like to come out play with the Heartbreakers?
I said, well, I'd love to. I said, well, first,
let me just tell you. I'm really flattered that you're
asking me to do this, you know, I said, And
and I'd really like to do it. However, I've been

(01:33:46):
in bands and I know that they're like they're families,
and they're usually dysfunctional families. Have you spoken with Stan
yet about this? And he said, well, no, I actually
I haven't. I said we have. He said, we have
some issues between us and they're not getting to go.
And I said, well, I'll tell you what I said.
Let's leave it like this, right. I'm really flattered that

(01:34:06):
you ask me, why don't you talk to stand and
if things, if things work out, if you can work
things out with them, that's great. And if you can't,
if things, if things don't work out, come back to me.
And i'd and I'd love to and I'd love to
do to do it. And he said, oh, okay, fair enough.
I hung out the phone. An hour later my phone rang.

(01:34:27):
It was tell me, said you're working next year.

Speaker 1 (01:34:30):
That was it?

Speaker 2 (01:34:32):
Now I was in the band.

Speaker 1 (01:34:33):
Okay. So you're in a band that's been in existence
for the better part of twenty years and they play
all kinds of stuff. How do you catch up with
that stuff? Do you listen to the records or you
can just tune into anything the rehearsal? How do you
end up fitting in? Because in the Wildflower's album, they're

(01:34:54):
creating that stuff from scratch.

Speaker 2 (01:34:56):
Right, Well, okay, those difficult things for me to learn
was the stuff was the stuff their songs there, there, there,
there there song. I mean, I knew I won't back down.
I'd heard that, I knew a great wide open I'd
seen the video right, all the stuff that was on MTV.

(01:35:18):
I knew all those songs. I knew those songs. I
thought it was a terrific song. But there was other
songs like the deeper. Well I considered deep, deeper tracks,
and I'll give you the example of what I considered
the deeper second of it. Well I did. That was
the most difficult thing what I came to find out

(01:35:38):
about the Heartbreakers. They're living in Gainesville, Mike and Tom
nineteen fifty, same as me, same year as me. They're
growing up. I'm growing up in England. We're listening to
the same stuff. They're listening to the English stuff. I'm
listening to the American stuff. Elvis. You know all these
blues guys that used to come through that my, my, my, my,

(01:36:00):
my teenagers guys took me to when I was twelve.
We're all listening to the same stuff, except Tom's living
in the same town as Bo Diddley, you know, you know,
I had to go. I have to go and see
him play at the dome, you know. But we're listening
to we know the same songs. We knew the same songs.

(01:36:21):
So when when they would they would say, well, let's
let's play that, I'd know it, you know, I just
know it. But I didn't wasn't familiar with a lot
of heartbreak and stuff. So to go out and do
the Wildflowers to it. I had a list of songs
that they were going to do, So I the wildflower

(01:36:41):
stuff I recorded that. I pretty much knew that, But
the other songs I had to sort of, you know,
learn them and figure out what what standard played or
whoever it was that played drums on the seat, what
what was like the the stuff that was ultra necessary,
like certain fields that people need to hear, certain feel
that people need, and other ones I could just take

(01:37:03):
complete advantage of and do whatever I want, like don't
come come around here no more. I could just make
up my own stuff, you know, and and uh and
and so that that was. That was well, we were
So we're out on the road and we get to
Chicago and We're playing that big stadium where the Bulls
play right packed to pack to the scene, people going crazy.

(01:37:26):
We finished the show, we come off stage. We're bout
there having a couple of drinks while the crowd's just
still going wild, getting ready to go and do the encore.
And Tom looks at me and says, do you know
breakdown And I said no, it wasn't. It wasn't on
the list. He said, Okay, boom, check them scat, boom,

(01:37:50):
check them scat. Do that they're going crazy. Follow me,
and we walked out on the stage. We will down
on the stage and that's what we did. Wow, And
that was that was my rehearsal. That was my rehearsal
in front of like twenty five thirty thou people.

Speaker 1 (01:38:10):
Okay, when Tom Pitty and the Heartbreakers was like twenty
fifteen somewhere around there, you played like a week at
the Fund. Then there was different stuff all night. Did
you guys rehearse for that?

Speaker 2 (01:38:22):
Were we rehearsed, uh for the funder the funder here, Yeah, somewhat.
There was a couple of things that we that we
that we that we rehearsed. One of the things we
kind of went over was that Mystic Eyes. We kind

(01:38:43):
of jammed that a little bit of the rehearsal. Some
of the things that we just jam. I just think
that we were playing for fun. And then he would
just say, Okay, well we know that that's good. We
don't know Tom's even done. We don't want to over rehearse,
you know. And Tom was a very very good leader.
You keep your eye on him. He tell you where
you want the song, where we want the song to go,

(01:39:05):
you know. And uh. And so some of the things,
some of the things that rehearsed, and some of them
I don't even remember rehearsing. Sometimes it was kind of
like the the film or show where we we'd rehearse
something in the afternoon and then play it that night,
and and and and and then not play it again.
So some of them, some of those songs, like like

(01:39:28):
from like from the film or Exile on Main Street,
I don't I listened to that. I mean, I'm completely
surprised because we must have rehearsed it, learned it that afternoon,
played it that night, and then never played it again.

Speaker 1 (01:39:40):
Okay, I saw you know Petty many times, but I
wasn't in the band. Were there good nights and bad nights.
What was the band like? Were they always good? It was? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:39:53):
I think you know, I don't remember a bad night
with Harb. I mean there were some nights that were
that were just there was other nights that were magic,
of course, like every band has that, but I can't
say it was just okay. The band was great every night.
It was a great band. And I think that the
reason that the band was a great band was because
Tom used to rest the band. He didn't he didn't

(01:40:17):
work the band into the ground. He would he would.
We worked a couple of nights and then a night off.
We always traveled. We had our private jets, so we
would stay like in Chicago, fly out, do a gig,
and fly back, and some nights were we'd play one
night and then we'd have two nights off. So so
we were every time that we that we went to

(01:40:39):
walk on stage, we were eager to play. Yeah, and
we were fresh. We were rested, and uh and I
think that's what I mean. I know I played with
excuse me, I played with some people that just want
to play, like, you know, five or six shows in

(01:40:59):
a row and it's you get down. I get to
the fourth show, and it's like, I don't want to
be there. I just want to know. I want to
lie off and I need to rest because I don't.
I don't when I when I play, I don't. I
don't cruise. You know, Uh, I burn energy. I like

(01:41:20):
to put everything, everything physically, everything physically that I have
into playing the playing the drums might not look like it,
but there's there's a lot of work going on back there.
You know, there's a lot of drumsts getting worn to
pieces up there. I don't break them that much, but
I'll wear them out.

Speaker 1 (01:41:36):
Okay, needless to say at this point in his career.
At that point in his career, Tom was going on tour,
not every year, and he wasn't working six months eight
months in a row. What were you doing with the downtime?

Speaker 2 (01:41:51):
Well we we uh that that that but that that
was the way that it was all the time. You know,
Tom will go Tom we go out on the road
and he and he'd finish the tour. What we do
maybe three or four months that just and and every
three weeks we go home for a week to ten days. Yeah,
And and then because he liked the band, wanted to

(01:42:13):
be out there. Didn't want to have to kick the
band out there when he would have a band wanting
to go home. He wanted him to want to be
out there. So we would all, you know, we actually
get to the end and say keep going for another
week or something, and and then we'd just go about
our stuff and then we'd look forward to getting back
out on the road.

Speaker 1 (01:42:29):
Uh uh.

Speaker 2 (01:42:32):
He was a very wise man when it came to that.
You know, he he he watched his ticket prices so
that people could get in, you know, his fans could
get in. And uh, he was he was really concerned
with with all that.

Speaker 1 (01:42:47):
Did it take up all your time? If there's twelve
months in a year, were there time we could do
your own things?

Speaker 4 (01:42:52):
Or yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:42:53):
I did?

Speaker 1 (01:42:54):
I did.

Speaker 2 (01:42:54):
I did my own things. I mean playing playing with
Tom Petty allowed me to build the studio, so so.

Speaker 1 (01:43:02):
Uh I did. I did.

Speaker 2 (01:43:04):
I did my own stuff. Once I called up Mike
Campbell and I said, I said, what are you doing?
He said nothing, Just I said I know. I said, look,
I know you got some songs, right. I said, why
don't you call Ron Blair and that Ron come over
and we we'll sit there and and we we we'll
play some songs down. He said, you do that. I said, yeah,

(01:43:26):
that's I just want to play. And he said okay.
So I go over to go over to Mike's house
and the Dirty Knobs started and we started, you know,
I said, We started playing with Ron and and and
then they got Jason Sana. Mike found Jason Say and

(01:43:46):
got him to come and play with the band, be
second guitar. And we we would we would cut a song.
If we'd learn the song, we play it once and
then move on to the next song. Wouldn't even listen
to it. And then and I got these the tapes
that said it's really great, it's really exciting, you know,
and and Mike was loving it. And then he took it,

(01:44:08):
took it to Tom to listen to and Tom Tom said,
this is awful. It's horrible. What are you doing this for?
You don't need to do this. Yeah, And Mike was like, listen,
you don't like I like, the songs are awful, horrible stuff. Mike.
Tom was in the defense boat. I don't want to

(01:44:29):
lose Mike Campbell.

Speaker 1 (01:44:30):
Right right right, right right right.

Speaker 2 (01:44:32):
So he turns out the turns around to Mike and
he says, he said, it's ship And while we're at it,
you know what, because by then, how he had died
and Ron was back in the band. He said, And
by the way, in case you didn't know this, that's
my band that you're using.

Speaker 1 (01:44:50):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:44:54):
Mike was so upset, he was so upset, he called
me up you Steve. Tom just doesn't like it. Just
he just my brother wants Eve and listen to the
stuff that I'm doing with you know, And and I
can't have you in the band anymore. He said, he'd
fired you and run and just so so Mike had

(01:45:18):
to go out and find another band. A few months later,
he'd left, he'd left the house so upset that he'd
left the c D. Tom had one of those hundred
CD players right he'd left. He just left the house
completely distraught. Tom's walking around in his house and he's
got the thing on, like, you know, just automatic, just

(01:45:39):
play something here there. This thing is whizzing around and
playing all these different songs. And he hears this song
and he says, that's a that's a pretty good song.
Who the hell's that? Just can't stop the sun, can't
stop the sun from from shining and and so he
called up Mike and he's like, I want that SOUD

(01:46:04):
And he said, who else is on there? The other
nub guys that take that guy off? And I'm going
to put the put the guitar on there. And he
changed the guitar and uh, and then he put it
on the last DJ. Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:46:17):
So you know, everyone knew that Tom was hurting. But
you go on on a run, it's incredible. You finish
up at the Hollywood Bowl. Yeah, and then the next day, okay,
what they say, you know, disgusted some with Tony, but

(01:46:37):
who knows what the truth is. You know that ultimately
fentanyl was the cause of death, and fentanil. Although there's
legal fent nail, there are other drugs. It's a big
issue now lace was fentanyl?

Speaker 4 (01:46:50):
Was this?

Speaker 1 (01:46:52):
Did you know during the tour he was taking drugs
that were not like pharmaceutical drugs.

Speaker 2 (01:46:58):
I No, he wasn't taking I don't personally. I don't
think Tom was taking drugs that were known that were
non pharmaceutical. I think what he was taking on the
tour was was was prescribed. He wasn't dirty.

Speaker 1 (01:47:17):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:47:18):
Yeah, Look I think i'd seen Tom uh when he
went to a period, a drug period. It wasn't pretty,
you know, and uh and and and he kicked that,
he stopped it and uh and uh and and uh
and he cleaned up Tom uh the last the last years,

(01:47:41):
I would say, you know, basically he would drink Coca
cola and he didn't even seem to smoke as much,
but that is what he had a certain points that
I'd say, you have a joint once in a while,
just seemed not really within the problems as normally, you know.
And he had a lot of pain with that hip hop.
Is because I used to help him up onto the stage.

(01:48:03):
And I think he I've said, I've said stuff before
that got me in trouble with with with with people.
But I think that well, I know that he had
said stuff about it to other people that he would
take he would take some moxie cotton that would get
him through the show. And but I think that that's

(01:48:25):
the only thing other than that I never saw, I
never saw any indication that Tom was using anything to
get high. He was using it for what it was for,
and that was so he could get through that show.
And then it gets you know, I wish, I wish
like I think a lot of other people had that
he had stopped the tour and uh and and got

(01:48:45):
that hip fix and then you know, resumed later on.
But you know, he was very loyal. He was He's
very loyal to everybody. He was loyal to us. He
was loyal to the crew. You would think a lot
about them, you know. Uh. I think that when at
the point when he's hit broke. Uh, that's that's when
the illegal the illegal drug came into it. That he

(01:49:08):
was in so much pain when that happened. But uh, uh,
I would, I would, I would state anything on it
that while we were out on the road, he wasn't
recreationally using anything to do anything. And I'm sure I'm
pretty much sure that fent mold didn't come into it.
It was just something that would get him through the show, Okay,

(01:49:31):
either either an orco or or like I had for
my knee I needed to. I'd have Norco every every
six hours for my knee when I when I did
my knee replacement, and then i'd have oxy cotton for
for for a bridge and uh and I gave it
to Julia and she come in say what's your what's

(01:49:53):
your pain level? On and I'd say it really hurts,
and she give me something. Well, I'd say, it's not
too bad, and then she give me something. I had
no idea at the end. One day I turned around
her and I said, have I had any painkillers today?
She said, you haven't had any painkillers for three days. Yeah.
So I think, having been around enough, I've been around

(01:50:16):
this stuff, I can say that. I would say that
my guess was pretty educated that when we were out
on the road, Tom was using drugs. He was in
enough pain that he needed something for sure, Because, like
I say, i'd have to. He put his arm around
me and we'd walk up those stairs to that stage.

(01:50:36):
And sometimes we'd stop halfway up and I'd say how
are you doing? And he say, just get me up
there and I'll get through this. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:50:43):
And so.

Speaker 2 (01:50:46):
Some nights when we came off for the when we
came off of the on core, he'd need me to
help him back up to the OnCore. Other nights it
was working just fine, the stuff, and he'd walk up
the stairs on his arm without any help. But that
was few and far between. Most times he'd need my
help to get up there. And uh, and so, uh,

(01:51:08):
I think you can tell, well, I think I can tell.
I have enough experience with that stuff now that I
can tell if somebody's using something recreationally or if somebody's
using something that they shouldn't. And uh, and he was
definitely within the realms of prescription what I could from
what I could see.

Speaker 1 (01:51:27):
Okay, how did you find out? And then it was
a loss for all of us, in a shock for
all of us. But then as time goes by, how
long did it take you to put the pieces back
together yourself? You know?

Speaker 2 (01:51:48):
I remember it was. It was such a shock when
when and when I found out about Tom I was
I was in San Francisco, and I did I'd done
a gig up in San Francisco, and and I had
a really early flight back to Los Angeles, like six
am flight the next day. So I went to bed
about nine o'clock at night. I woke up about one

(01:52:11):
o'clock in the morning, and uh and uh and and
I turned on the TV just to have something to
look at to go back to sleep, and and uh
and and and the the news was full of the
shooting in Las Vegas, the people getting shot in Las Vegas.
And I was sitting there and I was listening to

(01:52:31):
the sound of those machine guns and I couldn't I
couldn't believe that that was that was going on.

Speaker 1 (01:52:37):
I was just it.

Speaker 2 (01:52:41):
It must be like shooting into soup, those guns, you know,
just all those people and just firing into those people.
And I couldn't believe it. And my phone was on
the other side of the room, plugged in and uh
and and it started to ring and I thought, Ah,
it's just somebody from England calling. They've seen this thing.

(01:53:02):
And I wondered, some somebody panicking. Oh, Steve, and Steve's there.
Let me find it out. No, just let it, let
it ring. And I was watching this thing and the
phone stopped and they started ringing again, and I thought,
who the hell is that? And I go over and
I look and it's Benmont. And I answered the phone
and say, hey, but how you doing? And he said
and he and he talked about somebody somebody being gone,

(01:53:25):
you know, uh and and he said and he was
he was like crying and shaking and and and and
ben Mont's wife was pregnant at that time. And I thought,

(01:53:48):
this is how far away it was for me that
it was Tom. I said, I say, I say. I
said to Ben Ah, muh, your wife state and he said, no, no, no,
she's fine. Tom. Tom's gone, you know. Uh and uh

(01:54:15):
and that's when the nightmare started.

Speaker 1 (01:54:17):
Yeah, okay, well it's a whirlwind week and then it's
ere quotes returned to normal. How did you ultimately adjust
and move forward?

Speaker 2 (01:54:31):
I don't think. I don't think any of us did.
I don't think any of us. I still think that
we the Heartbreakers really has a special bond with this
crew everybody. I don't think. I still think that any
given time, Uh, it can it can overwhelm us. The

(01:54:54):
loss of Tom. Uh uh huh uh. The day the
next day, I got up and I flew until six
o'clock flight, and I flew and I went straight to
Tom's bedside. The whole band was there. Everybody was there,
and we we we spent all day waiting for Tony

(01:55:15):
to show up, waiting for Tom's brother to show up,
and and finally we were all in the room when
he died. And I never forget the sound and what that,
what that room was like. I never forget that, and
and uh and then we all just sort of went
out of ways. You know. Some some months after yeah,

(01:55:40):
and Mike was really every everybody was grieving in their
own way. Everybody was going through their stuff. And I
remember going to to the funeral memorial service and and uh,
uh I I got, I got, I got put into

(01:56:03):
the rock will fame in Brighton, in my hometown, and
uh and Julia uh decided to do something for me.
She got in touch with a lot of people, you know,
Nathan Easton, Eric Clapton, and and I mean just all
these musicians, you know, all these musicians that I know

(01:56:25):
and I love all made a little film and she
edited the whole thing together. You know, congratulations Steve are
getting into the rock, Will you deserve it? That sort
of stuff, and and and and and she tried to
show me this film. She tried to show me this
film through about a week. And I'm getting ready to
go get We're getting ready to go to England, and

(01:56:47):
and I'm like, I haven't got time, I haven't got time.
Take a minute, look at it. I haven't got time
to do it. Now, I've got to do this. I've
got to do that. I've got to get this. And
finally we get to the airport and we're sitting there
waiting for the plane and she pulls out a computer
and she right, now you've got time, and you never
look at this film, and I see all these people
go through the whole thing with all these people, all
these people saying, you know what a great guy I am,

(01:57:10):
you know, And the very last thing that she put
on that reel and sorry, yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:57:23):
Yeah, yeah yeah, the very last thing she put on
the reel was Tom Petty introducing me at the Hollywood bot.

Speaker 2 (01:57:44):
H And I did what I just did. Then see
what I'm talking about. He was a wonderful, wonderful man
and great songwriter, great great a great human being. Yeah,

(01:58:14):
miss him and we're still missing.

Speaker 1 (01:58:17):
And uh.

Speaker 2 (01:58:22):
Thanks. That feels good to do that, to know that
I could have that kind of capacity of love for
another human being. And five years later I just started
talking about it.

Speaker 1 (01:58:40):
Yeah, yeah, Okay. The past five years have been crazy
for all of us with COVID, etcetera. Although everyone's kind
of in gear. Now you talked about this school thing
you're doing. What's been keeping you busy?

Speaker 4 (01:58:54):
Now?

Speaker 2 (01:58:55):
Well, I was in in New York when when COVID hit,
I was doing the Seth Meyers Show. I was the
guest drummer on the Seth Meyers show, and the last
day they canceled it, they pulled them plug. And the
next morning I got up and walked to an AA
meeting across Times Square at seven o'clock in the morning,

(01:59:16):
and there was only three people in Times Square, and
I was one of them. And I said, this is
gonna be something else. And so I got back here
and I called the guy that puts all my stuff
together in here, and I said to him, how can

(01:59:39):
I what would it take to make my studio so
that somebody can engineer me remotely? And he said, oh,
eight to ten thousand dollars, And then he came back
and just to put all the new stuff in. And
then my good friend Eric tongran Et, as he's known,
he's a great engineer. He lives down in Long Beach.

(02:00:01):
He came up here and he set everything up, gave
me a quick crash course in how to how to
adjust levels and and to get to do stuff. And
then we we do zoom and uh and and I've
learned how to make make little adjustments and stuff. I
started to do my own radio show here and and

(02:00:24):
we kind of worked through the We just worked through
the through the through the lockdown every every every once
in a while, a couple of guys would come over
and we'd cut something live and put put a little
band together with some friends that I knew were prudent,
and we'd all stay. It's not very big room, but
there's enough to keep six feet between everybody, and we

(02:00:45):
wore masks and we we'd make some music and do
a little recording, and we did. I'm glad, I'm glad
we're all back back together now. I did just did
a couple of days, did a date in a couple
of dates in the in in Nashville, and we're all
in the same room, a bunch of guys playing again
instead of just being me overdubbing something.

Speaker 1 (02:01:05):
This one, Okay, I see behind you a Gretch kit. Yeah,
it's a nineteen How many sets of drums do you have?

Speaker 2 (02:01:14):
Oh? I quite a few. I don't know. I got
mainly I got maybe like five or six gret drums sets.
And this one is a it's a nineteen nineteen fifty
Gretch broadcaster. It's the same age as I am, except

(02:01:36):
it's in a bit better condition.

Speaker 1 (02:01:40):
So let's assume you get called to go to Nashville
you got a set of drums in Nashville, yep. So
if I call you Nashville, New York, London, there's a
set of drums in all those places.

Speaker 2 (02:01:52):
Well, I have.

Speaker 1 (02:01:54):
In New York.

Speaker 2 (02:01:55):
I have a friend that lived out here for a while,
Dan Stay because and he was my drum tech and
he well he will he lived out He actually lived
here in my house. Is he had a roommate. He's
a young guy, you know, And and he had a
roommate that he was living with. And he came home
one day and his friend that hadn't been feeling very

(02:02:17):
well found his friend dropped dead. He had an undiagnosed
heart heart problem and uh, and he found his friend there.
So I said, well, he couldn't keep the apartment, so
I said, we'll move in with with with me and Julius.
He moved him with me and Julia and was my
drum taken and uh and and he wanted to get
himself a set of great drums. So I helped him

(02:02:39):
get a set of dreat drums and broadcast as the
reissues and he loves them. And then he moved back
home to New Jersey. And so whenever I go on
the around New York area. I called him up and
he brings his kit in and uh and and I
play that one. So that's pretty cool. Why gretch best
sounding drums and on it? Because they just got away

(02:03:03):
of you know, they have they have a motto, the
the great greats, that great, great sound. They have a
tone that I don't I don't think any other drum
kits that ever actually managed that. People aspire, they say,
people will come up to you from other companies and
they say, we make drums that sound like great drums,

(02:03:24):
And I say, but I play great drums. When when
when I was a kid started playing, I asked around, Yeah,
what's the best drum kit?

Speaker 1 (02:03:35):
Right?

Speaker 2 (02:03:36):
I mean it's like if you if you, if you,
if you're gonna, if you're going to play cricket or
you know, play baseball, you say, what's the best back right?

Speaker 1 (02:03:44):
Right?

Speaker 2 (02:03:45):
What's what's the best what's the best glove? Yeah, because
there are degrees of good in everything, and everyone would
say great drums And I never saw I never The
only person I saw playing great drums was Charlie Watts,
and he has a great sound.

Speaker 1 (02:04:00):
You know.

Speaker 2 (02:04:01):
Everybody else was like lovewig or tricks and there were
people playing trickson when I was growing up singer, and
then they make good drums too, that they all make
good drums. But this everybody said there was something special
when I started with average white Man and I could
finally get my own afford to buy my own drum kit.
And that's what I bought, was a great drum kit.

Speaker 1 (02:04:23):
Now with guitars, even though they look the same, everyone
is different. Yeah, when it comes to drums, is everyone different.
You have to play them.

Speaker 2 (02:04:33):
Every one of those drums back there, every one of
those snare.

Speaker 1 (02:04:36):
So people can't see we're audio only. I can see
about twenty snares there they go, keep going up.

Speaker 2 (02:04:43):
Yeah, that they all have different characters. Uh, you know
something like this.

Speaker 1 (02:04:51):
This week.

Speaker 2 (02:04:54):
I was in Nashville. I have a signature model that
they don't make anymore because they said it was too expensive,
so they stopped making it. But but uh I have
I had the Singing Great chickenature model and and it's
very versatile. But uh, what I had to do was

(02:05:15):
when when I listened to a song, it depends on
how how how I want this imagine the song sounding
each one of these drums there was a different sound
there was different quality and some I just drag one
out and put let me put this up in see
what this does to this song. Yeah, like you'll see

(02:05:37):
you know, people with guitars. The player of the other day,
Mike was playing, uh and his band and Chris and
the other guitarist in the band in the in the
dirty knobs he was playing. He said to Mike was like, no,
he said, here, take use my rickenbacker and he and
he gave me a rickenbacker and which is still a

(02:05:58):
piece of wood with the same six strings, but it
has a tone that suddenly made everything pop to life.
Well that's what what drums do. Yeah, And who are
your drum heroes? Well, uh, okay, let's start with We'll
start with with with Bernard Purdy. Was the first guy

(02:06:18):
that that I heard play syncopation like that was just amazing,
amazing drummer. I love Bernard. I saw him. Uh. I
saw him a few weeks ago, and I think NAM Show.
I saw him down in the Nam Show. I hadn't
seen him for a while. Uh. And and I really like.

Speaker 4 (02:06:41):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (02:06:44):
I like the older guys Elvin Jones, Max Roach uh
uh uh uh, Blakey uh uh uh a another guy
at sam Woodard. He used to play with the bassie Sorry,

(02:07:04):
Duke Ellington. Just an amazing swing swing drummer. There was
a uh, what's that guy's name? Michael Michael the Silver
was the drummer that really impressed me when I was little.
We played with Sammy Davis Jr. And UH and he
would Sammy Davis Junior would sing like day in day

(02:07:26):
out with just Michael Silver playing some songs with some
some toms, with some mallets and google and uh and
Sammy Davis Junior would would sing day in day out.
That was very impressive for me. Very melodic player. But
my favorite favorite favorite player of all has nothing to

(02:07:46):
do with the way that I play. And Uh and
uh as a gentleman by the name of Jack de
Johnnett right, just an incredible player. And the thing that
I love about him is that he's so musical. The
way that he listens, the way that he listens and
and and and and accents draws your attention to other

(02:08:09):
players in the in the other people as they're playing
things that they're playing. I first became aware of him
playing with the Charles Lloyd Quartet on an album I
think it was called Live at the Live in the
Soviet Union, which was recorded at the height of the
Cold War. It's like, I got to say that, how
the hell did you do that? You said, well, it

(02:08:31):
was a state department thing and that Russian American were
fighting and every time they went to walk on stage,
some international incident would happen, and in the Russians saying yet, yeah,
you can't go on. Finally they got the idea that
you know that had to wait to get. As soon
as they got the all clear, they ran on stage
and started playing. Before before that they could, you know,
they get something else could happen that they get stopped

(02:08:51):
playing for and that the excitement on that record is
just amazing to hear guys play modern jazz like that
for a bunch of Russians who really had no idea
at all what that was. Uh, And it's pretty impressive.

Speaker 1 (02:09:08):
And we were talking on the phone, you were talking
about practicing to what degree do you practice? And do
you play every day or if you're out of town
you might not play for a month, but your situation, No.

Speaker 2 (02:09:21):
I'm not a woodshed person. The only thing I like
to do what I what I consider I like to
sit down and play with people. That's why I got
like piano here, I got guitars. I got guitars and
basses on the walls. So when my friends come over,
but let's jam a little bit, you know, and we
just come in the studio, we start messing around and

(02:09:42):
start jamming. And that's the best. That's the best practice
that I can do. But I'm not one to sit
and practice rudiments or try to find stuff. I like
to be challenged. When Osnoy asked me to play with him,
he sent me this stuff, and the charts that he
sent me didn't make any sense to what I was
listening to, if you know what I'm talking about. It

(02:10:04):
was so I said, well, you know what, how would
that tear up the chart? I'm going to learn it?
And I and I had to come in here and
uh and wood shed the piece by piece to some
and then tie it together. And then I had him
come in a few days early and make sure that
I had that I've done it properly to check my homework.

(02:10:25):
But he's, yeah, it was it was, I know it now.
I got it.

Speaker 1 (02:10:32):
The stuff that I learned with okay, So in a
perfect world, and we don't live in a perfect world.
If you could play as we disagree, I disagree. Well
stop there is that a joke? Or do you have
a philosophy on this?

Speaker 2 (02:10:46):
I have a philosophy on that.

Speaker 1 (02:10:47):
We'll lay the philosophy on me.

Speaker 2 (02:10:50):
I just think that nothing would be as it is
as things weren't as they were. That's all. We live
in a perfect world. Everything's perfect, we just don't see
it yet. That's all.

Speaker 1 (02:11:00):
Well, that begs the question. Do you ever get down
and frustrated yourself? Oh?

Speaker 2 (02:11:05):
Hell yeah, I just I just remodeled my house.

Speaker 1 (02:11:09):
You ever done a after me.

Speaker 2 (02:11:13):
A nightmare? Yeah? Uh?

Speaker 1 (02:11:16):
Nobody works in a contractor.

Speaker 2 (02:11:19):
And you know, and and and the other thing too
is that you know, I mean Julia came came here
to live with me in twenty seventeen and we went
through COVID together. Yeah. So so yeah, we had three
years of three years of bliss and then we had
to we had to figure out where she's here all
the time now. Yeah, so so so that was that

(02:11:42):
was something too. We came to that. That was that
was pretty good. But uh, I mean I've been when
I looked when I came in, when I got sober.
But when I got sober, my life was just a mess.
I thought it was over and never no way out
of this and never they never go never going to

(02:12:05):
let me go there. I'm never going to own a
house again. I'm never going to do this again, never
going to be able to do that again, never going
to be and and and and I got a sponsor,
a guy named Bill Summers passed away last year October
the nineteenth and and uh the best part of of

(02:12:25):
twenty five years he was. He was my sponsor. And
uh and uh and he told me, you know what,
one day, all this is going to be over. You
just ain't seeing it yet. It will be over if
you stay sober. And so that's what I did. And
uh and uh and now I look back and and

(02:12:46):
and you know, the persons that were that were my
biggest what I considered my biggest tormentors. If they hadn't
have stayed with it and can continued to torment me,
I wouldn't have found it necessary to stay sober. If
they just if they have eased up after a year,
I just said, well that's that I can go back

(02:13:07):
to I can go back to to drinking. Now everything's
everything's good. Yeah, and and yes, sometimes I got some
friends that are going through some stuff that that's seemingly overwhelming.
Yeah at the moment, but I can talk from experience
that I've been there. And uh and uh, you know what.

(02:13:29):
Sometimes I found this. There's a little booklet that I
found that I haven't got one out here, but I
got it on YouTube. If I need to listen to it. Uh,
a little booklet called the Golden Key. We've telling it
just stops thinking about the problems, start thinking about God
and it will heal itself. And and and it got
me to to my problems. It really did get me

(02:13:51):
through them. And it does work if if you work it. Yep.
So so yeah, I hear people say that you know
a lot in a perfect world, and it's like things
are perfect, you're just not seeing you're going to grow.
You're going to grow from from whatever problems that you're
going to I mean, would it be desirable not to

(02:14:12):
have to go through those problems? Yes, But what would
you do if you if you, if you, if you
didn't have any problems, Ah, life would have carried on
being one big party for me, and probably I probably
wouldn't be here now, okay, it is the perfect one.

Speaker 1 (02:14:28):
Let me reframe the question. If you could play any
kind of music you wanted, what would that be.

Speaker 2 (02:14:37):
Good? Good music? Uh? You know, I just got back
from Nashville doing some recording with the guy named Ira Dean,
who introduced me to some players that were down there. Uh,
guys like like a Pork, the bass player named Pork

(02:15:00):
and and and a keyboard player named Moose uh who
just like incredible musicians that I'd never heard of before,
I never met them before. Yeah. Uh uh, That's what
I love to do, is to play with with with
great players. There's there's nothing like it. And this thing
that I'm doing with this uh, this orchestral thing that

(02:15:24):
I'm doing with all these I've seen these players, these
orchestral players, I've been down I've been down to Disney
and I've and I've seen them. I've seen them play
play stuff that I wouldn't even attempt to attempt to play,
some Beethoven stuff. That's just it's so difficult, such such
hard music to play, you know, And they're going to

(02:15:47):
be over there playing some Chicago, Chicago songs and that
have been orchestrated these you know. Uh, and and and
and and a lot of times I've sat there and played.
I've done that stuff before all over the country with
Jason and Jason Cheffin and uh, you know, some trumpet

(02:16:08):
players they come up, especially trumpet players, they come up
and say, man, it's really great to play with you
and really know where I am with this backbeat yours.
It's really it's really nice to have that, you know.
So they like, these are the guys that can play anything,
you know, but they like they find a good, good musician,
a guy does what he does well, and they dig playing,

(02:16:29):
they dig playing that stuff. It's just it's just wonderful
to be able to play with all these players.

Speaker 1 (02:16:36):
And it's been great to talk to you, Steve. I
could go on for days. We just hit the highlights,
so many stories in between, but I'm gonna let you
go now. Thanks so much for making the time and
making this.

Speaker 2 (02:16:48):
And thank you for taking your time from writing all
the writing stuff that you write. You know, I read
that stuff. That's good good.

Speaker 1 (02:16:59):
It's like in the it's like being in the eye
of the hurricane. You know, I'll go somewhere, so know,
I was just talking about you with this pretty much
I don't know. I just wrote and said it out there.
It's kind of weird, you know.

Speaker 2 (02:17:12):
I really I really enjoy like sometimes, you know. I mean,
I I do my research and I hear you talk
about a musicians that and and and and and and
and and I researched for my show. I said, let
me have a listen to this person, you know, and
and and then usually when I'm reading about them on Wikipedia,

(02:17:32):
they say that they play with somebody else and I
never heard of them. Who's that? And I start to
feel my way around and I find find something that's
that for me is obscure, but from other people say, oh,
we knew about that all the time, and uh so
it's uh it really helps me, uh to read, to
put my put my show together, gives me stuff to

(02:17:54):
listen to with something fresh, and it's funny our popular
my radio show has become. I was walking to an
April the other day and they said, oh, you're that drummer, right,
the one with the radio show new Guy. You're the
new guy I used to.

Speaker 1 (02:18:08):
Be on KLSX on Sunday nights and it's radio, you
don't know anything. And I was backstage at the old
Universal the Amphitheater and John Boyle. In the record, Bruster says,
you want to talk to Timothy Beachman. They said, I
don't like to be introduced to people who don't know
who I am. It's like a waste of time. I

(02:18:30):
don't want to waste their time. And then Timothy comes
up independently, like fifteen minutes later, and the goes, good
to put a face with a voice, and I say,
I literally had no idea, what are you talking about.
We've never met before. Bla blah, goes, oh, I listen,
I'm careless X every Sunday night. It's like you don't
even know you put it out there, and yeah, I

(02:18:53):
tell you.

Speaker 2 (02:18:53):
You know. I was in New York, working in New
York and there was a jingle guy and he he
said to me, I think it was Bernie Draken. He
said to me, you know, Steve, He said you should
check out the Reverend Milton Brunson. He says, a great
choir and they have great voices, right, And he said

(02:19:17):
it's really well recorded. So so I go out and
I find this, this this record, Reverend Milton Brunson, incredible stuff.
Start reading the names on the back the the the
orchestra leader, musical director guy named Percy Beady, and he
sings a song on there. And he's got a great
voice too, you know. So I start buying stuff music

(02:19:40):
when they when they have and and and I find
out that there are church in Chicago. So I'm in
Chicago with the Heartbreakers, and first time I've ever had
a Sunday off in Chicago, staying at the Four Seasons.
I called downstairs to the concierge desk and I say, listen,
do you know where this re? Milton Bronson's churches? And

(02:20:04):
hold on, We'll get back to you. So they come
back and they say, we don't know anything about that.
And I said, look, look, look, I know this is
the Poor Seasons, but I know you've got a black
person works in. I know you've got to have a
black person working the here somewhere. Ask them. So they said, okay,
So they hang out the phone. They come back. We

(02:20:25):
got the address. So it's on the and the outside
of outside of the loop, you know, outside they want to.
I go out there and I'm sitting there and I'm
watching the choir and they're just rocking the joint right
and there's this woman, an old woman, sitting in front
of me, and she is like alumni of the choir.

(02:20:46):
So they say, please come up and sing. So she
gets up and she goes up there and she sings
this song. She sings her ass off and she comes back.
Everybody's clapping her. She comes back and she sits down
in front of me. And after the service has finished,
I say, do I say that was?

Speaker 1 (02:21:01):
That was?

Speaker 2 (02:21:02):
That was really wonderful? I said, it says, excuse me,
I said, it's Percy Bady up there. She said, yes,
that's him at the organ right. So I walk up
and he said getting these music together on top of
the organ. And I say I walk up and say.
He looks up and he looks at me, and he
goes Steve Feroni and I say, Percy Bady, And how

(02:21:27):
do you know who I am? I said, I'm a fan.
That's why I'm here. You never know, right, No, that's
you know.

Speaker 1 (02:21:37):
What I tell my girlfriend is you never know what's
going to happen when you walk out the front door.

Speaker 2 (02:21:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:21:42):
It's like if you stay at home, I mean now,
in the internet area, you can hear from people, but
once you get out there, anything can happen. That's one
of the great things about life. M Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay, Steve,
I think we've covered it in any events.

Speaker 2 (02:22:00):
Have been enjoyable meeting you start face to face.

Speaker 1 (02:22:02):
And absolutely ditto.

Speaker 2 (02:22:04):
Let me know if you ever want to come and
see the Dirty Knobes or if you want to come
and see this symphonic thing.

Speaker 1 (02:22:08):
Oh okay, but let me be clear. I talked to
Mike my end to uh, you know, you don't go
on the road with them.

Speaker 2 (02:22:17):
Right, Yeah, I've been doing it. They asked me. They
asked me to go out, uh and play with him
on the on the last two. So I did the
I did the West Coast and and Mike said, well,
you want to be in the.

Speaker 5 (02:22:29):
Band now, but let's be clear, if fire me and
you get me back now, they're not staying at the
four seasons.

Speaker 1 (02:22:37):
No, no, no, So what's it like starting all over?

Speaker 2 (02:22:40):
Oh it's fun, man, I'm telling you, it's great. It's yeah,
it's it's it's like it's the Heartbreakers. It's playing with
the Heartbreaker. I'm playing with Mike. Yet we understand each other. Yeah,
I give him credit. You know, he'll go out and
do that stuff that he did. Yeah, Cole Sung, I
don't even know. It's like, what's ups that? Three?

Speaker 1 (02:23:04):
Four?

Speaker 2 (02:23:05):
Uh okay, it turns out pretty good.

Speaker 1 (02:23:11):
Absolutely well. People can't see you got a smile on
your face. That's the most important thing in any event.
We're gonna wrap it up until next time. This is
Bob left. Six