Part One: The Phil Spector Episodes

Welcome back to behind the bastards, ladies, gentlemen, gentle thems, and all points in between. This is a podcast about the very worst people in all of history. And normally, it's a podcast where I, the host, Robert Evans, read a story about the very worst people in all of history, to a guest who generally comes in cold.

Not always, yeah, they haven't been doing this eight years, you know, the drill thumbs.

You've figured it out by now, even I know the drill by now. And regular listeners, we'll recognize the voice of my dear friend, Greasy Will, the Grammy award winning, Greasy Will. His buddy, what's the, how's it going? I'm very excited to be here, we are going to flip the roles here, and that's right. And I'm going to tell you about somebody who's very near and dear to my heart, a bastard of the music industry, and I'm very excited about this.

Yeah, I have a question first. Yeah, yeah.

“Yeah, uh, Greasy Will, who I love, my buddy, uh, do you know where this is being streamed right now?”

Oh, we on, we have nothing. Well, Netflix, yeah, our good buddy, Greasy Will here, the second we announced that we were going to be streaming video episodes and Netflix commented sell-outs. So what does that make you? That's what I was afraid of 15 years.

When I was a kid, being a sell-out was an insult.

But now is an adult, the world that we're in, being a sell-out just means you're successful. You know, like it's exciting for me, yeah. Just means you get to buy the good produce. There are other ways I made money in the past that I might have preferred more. Are there different ways to, you know, this is the, this is the future we've been given.

Look, look, you're talking to a guy who, all right. So I have a course of recording course that I made. And recently, I posted this, uh, ad that I had made with a high quality camera, like the one you're viewing me on right now, if you are, in fact, viewing me. I have a high quality camera and all the comments where people like Greasy and High

Death is weird. I don't like it. So welcome to our lives.

“Oh, you're specifically, like, I do not do high quality and anything I do in music.”

I mean, in anything, that's perfect. Well, because I, I, I reached the peak of my, like, success as a professional in an audio medium. And you also reach the peak of your success as a professional in an audio medium. Yes. And the powers that be in their wisdom decided, we get to put these guys on TV.

People need to see their faces for some reason. I don't know. When we moved to Netflix, a surprising number of people were just based on confusion or based on the fact that it changed from YouTube. We're like, I, I would like to realize that many people were, we're watching the podcast.

Right. Right. Um, we have, we've been working on it. We have gotten it to where audio episodes of the show are back on YouTube music. Uh, so if you listen to the show that way, uh, I know there was, there was confusion.

Things got disrupted there for a while, but for now on, that should be normal. And initially a lot of our international, uh, viewers were cut out because it was Netflix wasn't letting, it was, uh, our show wasn't available internationally. Did it have regions specific broadcasts? Yeah.

Now our show is available on most of the places that Netflix serves worldwide, baby. Yeah, so uh, Vietnam and Korea for reasons. I don't know. So the Aussies out there, you can, you can watch now if you've got an Netflix, uh, I, I don't know.

Again, 90% of the audience listens because it's a fucking podcast. So hopefully none of, none of this should be changing for most of you. Yeah. Um, who are we hearing about today?

“Will, who, what, what piece of shit are you going to tell me about?”

I know, but all right, so let me ask you this.

Let me ask you this first, uh, if you had a Mount Rushmore of horrible music people, right?

Like whoever you could think of, who, who's, who's your George Washington? It's, it's got to be Michael Jackson because Michael's the perfect mix of that man's music. You simply can't cut his music out of popular culture and haven't made sense. There's too big a gap.

Like his, he, he made the impact he made is there and a bunch of his music is a mortal. And also definitely rafed a bunch of kids. Tonic, yes. So it's like my face bastard, maybe. Yeah.

My, I can give, I can give my four. Yeah, go ahead. So my four, Michael Jackson. Art Kelly, P. Diddy, and the subject of this episode. That's all right.

So I'm going to tell y'all, I don't think the subject of my episode makes it on, on the bastard's, uh, Mount Rushmore. Uh, a vise. Right. And here's, and here's why, here's why.

But in fact, you, you, you want to hear, because number one is Ian Watkins.

No. No. Ian Watkins was recently just, actually, I was going to bring this up even before. But Ian Watkins was recently murdered in prison because they don't like those, those types of people who do those things to infants.

Oh, infants. Oh. Oh. Oh. He was the winner on the lost.

Yeah. He was the singer of lost profits. And, uh, it's interesting because I do have a question in my overall thesis. In discussing this person is when is it bad enough to cut somebody out and when does their music overshadow the big, the big picture, right?

Because we so often in the music industry, uh, we, we will give people weird passes. Weird people get weird passes just because they're good at something. Yeah. They're good at making noise. Oh, yeah.

That's kind of ridiculous to me. I do not, I do not think that makes a lot of sense.

But people really like how it always is, see you're allowed to molest 15 year olds.

Yes. Yes.

“So, our subject today is somebody who I think is horrible and you will hear a lot of evidence”

to, uh, to that effect back that up. Yes. But, um, but our subject today is Phil Spectre. Phil Spectre. Do you know about, do you know about Phil Spectre at all?

Like, what do you know over the Phil Spectre? Well, here's how much I know about Phil Spectre in order to even listen to this podcast. I had to make, I make sure I had a gun on me. Like, that's right. And that's right, because I know Phil's bringing one.

Yes. Yeah. Phil is definitely bringing a gun to the party. For sure. Okay.

All right. Let's do it. This will be our episode today. We are, we are, we are going to talk about Phil Spectre. Boom.

Cold open done. We did it. We're done. We're open. Oh.

Look at you. Pretty a scroll of the party. I love it. This is an eye-heart podcast. Nancy Dhuman.

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“Alright, are you guys ready to hear about Phil Spectre?”

I'm born ready. I was born ready, actually I was born, bloody with a cord wrapped around my neck, but

also ready, were you in fact a cord baby, that explains a lot, I remember, I'm always in

labor for like 70 hours, that's something was wrong with me, my god, yeah, she had a chip on her shoulder about that, it might have just been 48 hours, it was like a long time. And in perfect comparison of our relationship, my mom was in labor with me for less than an hour. I think my mom had me inside of the back of a pickup truck, but I don't know, like

truck.

Oh my god, that was an honor.

“So first up, I want to say, this is why I picked Phil Spectre, and because I am personally”

a very big fan of his work, it is informed a lot of my work as a musician, as a producer, as an engineer, I love Phil Spectre's work. To me, it was, it was so groundbreaking for the time, for many reasons, and there's a lot of like a future of music that came from where he was at, you know, and I like to do that game of like, oh, well, I like the Beatles, and the Beatles were really influenced

by like what Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys were doing, and Brian Wilson loved Phil Spectre, and so it's like, if you are a Beatles fan, you not only have heard Phil Spectre's work, you've also, you've also like been influenced by him indirectly through them loving, you know, the, the, the, the, the chain of command that went right right right right right

right, right chain of cuts.

So yeah, yeah, yes, yes. So Harvey Phil up Spectre, his name was not Phil, original Harvey Harvey was named Harvey Phil up Spectre was born on December 26, 1939 in the Bronx, New York. That's at least what the birth record say, his mom claimed that he was born on Christmas

“day because she honestly and truly, I think maybe believed that he was the second coming”

of Christ. That was actually like, she was just, yeah, really, really like into it. So, okay, he, he had an older sister Shirley and an older brother who died just days after being born, who was born just before him, which is a bit why he got the ultimate Jewish mother protection system going on over him for his whole child.

Oh, yeah. So he is he is wrapped up, there's a wall between him in the real world. Yes, absolutely, absolutely, there are unconfirmed theories regarding Spectre's extended family structure. Some biographical accounts and just his parents may have been closely related, possibly

even first cousins, though this has never been definitively proven, but he said it all

the time he would tell people this.

“He'd be like, my parents were cousins, was like, alright, like, I guess randomly at like”

lunch on a Tuesday or something, he's bringing this stuff up. Full story, bro. Oh, yeah, yeah. What is well documented is that both sides of his family were Jewish immigrants whose families fled, let's take a break real quick, Robert, you want to play guest the country,

his Jewish relatives had to escape in the late 1800s to early 1991. I'm going to go with Poland. Oh, so close, very close, very close, a pot, probably we don't know exactly, but probably Belarus or yeah, or, or you crane to, you crane to, you crane to, yes, well, so yeah, you're in the right, the right area, a lot of people who are like, I don't know, I don't

know exactly what country they were in, and part of it is it was separate from the period of time they lived there. That's literally the description that's most often given is Eastern Europe. They fled Eastern Europe, you lived under three or four governments, yeah, absolutely. So, you know, this is a very classic early 1900s American tale of, you know, Jewish immigrant

families leaving their country because of the anti-Semitic pogroms going on and then coming to America, settling in New York in a very Jewish neighborhood or being surrounded by other Jews who had escaped these same situations. So obviously, some generational trauma going on for sure to start off and also family trauma and also some questionable things going on with his mother already, you know, as far

as her mental stability is. So as a child, Spectre was described as overweight and physically fragile. He struggled with recurring health problems and was often encouraged to stay indoors rather than participate in sports or outdoor activities. He developed a strong dislike for beaches, athletics and physical competition and any environment

where he expelled exposed an inadequate. Over time, his body changed. Yeah, yeah, he hates beaches, that's my favorite bit of that all of the, he's like, yeah, you know what I hate, I hate beach. You are not Ken, Spectre, your job is not beach, okay.

No joke, like multiple times throughout any of the biographies that you read about him, it's brought up that he doesn't like beaches, specifically beaches. He's like, oh, yeah, Phil wouldn't go to Venice because there was a beach close by. Like he was like mad about it. All right, bro.

As he entered adolescence, he lost weight dramatically and he became notably small and

them.

“He remained physically unimposing, ill-suited for sports and deeply self-conscious about”

his appearance and masculinity.

As an adult, he would always joke that like when they were picking sports teams that he

was, he wanted to be the manager, I'm the manager of the team today, you know, like right from because he's like, I'm not going to, I don't know, play sports is ridiculous. What a weird little guy. And Phil was nine years old, his father Benjamin Spector died by suicide. Oh.

Yeah, we are going to have some classic bastard style empathy to start off our show today. That's tough. That's tough. He's having a difficult start of things, you know, yes, he's had it, he's had it rough. I'm sure this won't make him a monster spoiler alert.

He is dad killed himself, so basically the story is his dad left the factory, he was

“like a metal worker and he left the factory and started driving home and just parked a”

couple blocks away, put a hose in his tailpipe and started sucking on some carbon on oxide fumes in his car and they don't know, they don't really even know why he did it. Like he had financial stress, but, you know, it was done. Yeah. It was, it was the right time for that to be a normal thing, you know, yeah, financial

stress business failures to pressure and they've all been cited possible mental illness as well. Like there seems to be a very strong prevalence of that in Phil's life. Whatever the cause, the event shattered the whole family, right, to, so birth, birth the Spector becomes the central force in Phil's life, tightening your grip on our sons

emotional and developmental trajectory. Alongside it was Phil's older sister Shirley, who would exhibit as much control over his issues over Phil as his mother did. Both of them would emotionally abuse Phil often. His mother would often disparage his father and blame young Phil for his death.

So she's like over great. Like you're, you're dad killed himself because of you before you, he was happy and then you came along and then you killed him.

“And that's the best thing for kids, right?”

Given that sense of agency, because you killed your dad. And you didn't do anything to put your mind to, including killed your parents, which you already did. Right. Yeah, very impressive, bro.

I couldn't kill my parents. All right, so she treated his father's death as a source of family shame as well, too.

So it was like, she never told the truth about it to anybody like if she met somebody

and they were like, oh, he's often Europe on business or he died in the war. She's always like, just making up other things and not saying, oh, yeah, he you know, killed himself or whatever. Which I mean, I guess I kind of understand, you know, it's not like I'm like, yeah, dude, I'm step mom killed herself, which is facts, you know, I guess I just did announce it to

the world never mind. So yeah, obviously, not a great start to life, he's fall, he's frail, he's his dad kills himself as mom and his sister, both super possessive and controlling over him, pretty fast as he start to the story, not long after Benjamin's death, birthed a relocated the family across the country to Los Angeles.

This is where Phil decides he absolutely hates being called Harvey and he starts going about his middle name Phil. Cool. All right. The move placed them in the predominantly Jewish neighborhood of Fairfax, which this is just

a stupid little aside, but all the kids called it, like, in the neighborhoods called it Fairfax because it was like, like, the weakest school around, they were like, so he's like the, he's like the weakest kid at the weakest school. Right. Yeah. They're calling it school. They're basically calling a school gay and like the parlance of the times. Right. Yes. Absolutely not true when I was in high school because Fairfax beat our ass at basketball. Oh, it's good to hear the thing. I don't know. I don't know if it's true. That money does something long term. Shocking. So Phil struggled to make friends outside of small circle of family and school acquaintances and he remains socially awkward and

intensely sensitive and deeply dependent on maternal approval. Obviously on account of his mom and the way she is. Yeah. The money issues. His only advancement into social normacy came as a result of his musicianship. He was said to be able to play any song that you heard on the radio and could play it immediately like he could just drew and start playing along before the song even finished. Right. During this time, Phil found himself his first real girlfriend, a girl named Donna Cass, Donna believed Donna recalled Phil being very

intelligent but intensely possessive. He would call to places he believed she was and questioned the people there about her whereabouts and when he found her, he would grill her about what she'd been doing. Right. She said she believes this was his nature because it was what Bertha and Shirley did to him whenever he was at home. Right. She said, this is from breaking down the wall sound. By the way,

breaking down the wall sound. It's really, really good. We'll touch on some stuff about it later. But that and Ronnie Specter's book, which was Be My Baby, which is amazing. I highly recommend reading the audio or hearing the audio book of that because it's narrated by Rosie Perez, which is my God. Yeah. It's amazing to listen to Rosie Perez narrate this whole story because she's like, you know, she's like, she's Rosie thought, man, it's all in tight. You know, she's got that

whole thing's amazing. It's really good. Yeah. From breaking down the wall sound, quote, "To Donna, it was as if Bertha and Shirley saw her as a rival for Phil's affections

who was trying to steal him away from them." She says, "I always felt they were in love with

him or something. They treated him like he was a God. They protected him and they wanted to protect him from me." Weird. So this is like 15, 16 years old. He's already intense. Like they barely even had phones and this dude is calling around, checking on his girlfriend everywhere she goes and like

“making sure his story matches at like, you know, in like 15, right? On hand. I think it's, you know,”

yeah. Well, and here's a thing. This is something that I think is, a lot of musicians are weirdos, right? It's like there's a certain thing that goes along with being a weirdo and being like that kind of musical genius that people can like, that you can hear a song and, you know, and play it the first time you write, right? There's something that's like kind of hand in hand

with the two personalities that kind of seem to go together a lot of times. So it's not weird to be weird,

right? It's not weird to be small. It's not weird to be skinny. It's like I know a lot of those people in the music industry, but it is weird to be possessive and shitty, you know, and like, yeah, you know, and have a pattern against women, which we'll see in this, in this whole thing. So during this teenage years in Los Angeles, Spectre became obsessed with guitar's Barney Castle. One of the most respected and accomplished session musicians working in the recording industry.

“Castle was a jazz guitarist, but it often go on to play pop hits of the day and eventually”

became part of the legendary wrecking crew. If you know about Hollywood music in this time, the wrecking crew is everything. They wrote, they played on every single song in the late '50s and early '60s, all the way to the '70s pretty much. They were the band you heard in the back of it. So feel respected in both for his mastery of jazz and his seamless transition to other genres. At one point, Spectre was given the opportunity to meet his idol. The meeting did not unfold as

he had imagined. Bertha is mother insisted on accompanying him during the conversation with his idol. Yeah, Bertha, she does it. During the conversation, she begins questioning Castle about career prospects, financial stability, practical viability, like a career in music, all this stuff. It's like, like, yeah, he's like, he's like, yeah, do not get to meet this guitarist this legend. It's like, well, what's the money like in the job? You know, like, yeah, she's just taking over

control of this whole conversation and feels just so embarrassed. Like, this goes from being like, oh, I get to meet my hero in music to like, I'm just really embarrassed. I'm really embarrassed that I'm sitting here having this conversation. And this is just, this is his mom. His mom is

in control of his life at all times. He's always stuck with that. That's yeah. Okay, I did not

realize like knowing about like the later stage of Phil Spector's life somewhat. I did not realize

“he started out dominated by his mom to such an extent. That, yes, that does, I think to scan.”

It does kind of scan. Yeah. You know, I mean, it's not always true, right? It's like a lot of times, a lot of times people are just shitty people, right? But a lot of times, if you look into it, it is kind of like when you're dad, when you're little like, oh, he's just beating you up, because he's got a shitty home life. And he's trying to, so a lot of, sometimes that is true. Sometimes they're just bullies, you know, but sometimes they just, they got a shitty home life

and they're dealing with something that you can't possibly understand. So, by the mid-1950s, Spector began forming musical groups with classmates and neighborhood friends. Eventually, he helped create a vocal trio called The Teddy Bears consisting of Phil, a net climb board, and Marshall Leap. The group formed the Teddy Bears. Yeah. And that's such a 1950s name to, you know, yeah, it is. So, the group formed through teenage friendships. They all went to the same

school or whatever, and like they knew each other. And so it was like just a very high school organic situation, right? But then Phil Sister, Shirley, forced her way into the band as a manager, right? And she, like, immediately, is like, as soon as they start having any success whatsoever, she forces her way into into the whole situation as the manager. And then when Phil's like, no, I don't want you to be in a manager, and mom's like, let up being a manager, Phil, you know,

idea what she's doing, of course. Like she makes horrible decisions all over the place. She's doing

“dumb stuff. But Phil is still, he's the architect of this whole thing. And he, he writes this amazing”

song, right? In 1958, well, still in high school, Spector wrote and produces song titled to know

him is to love him. This is where I'll make my first entry into evidence of Phil was seriously

fucked up. Like, I had some fuck, that was, he was fucked up, right? Right? This is where we're going to get into Phil was seriously fucked up. Uh, so if I can you show, uh, Robert, the image of the gravestone there. Yep. Okay. I'm seeing it. Yeah. Ben Spector April 20, 1949, Father has been for tonight. Maybe, yeah. Which way the hell, yeah, brother. To know him was to love him. What was that? The, the, the, the name of Phil's song there was to know him is to love him.

Phil, uh, Phil wrote, he doesn't have daddy issues. He's doing good. He's fine. - Yeah. - Phil wrote a song and he talks later, he says this song is about death. You know, this is a song about death. And nobody noticed 'cause it's framed

in the 1950s kinda, you know? - To know, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. - Yeah, it's very silly, but nobody else gets it, but if you listen to it, it's like, "Okay, yeah, you work on it." - It was like a huge fucking hit. - Yeah, it was a huge hit.

- It was a huge hit. - Yeah, yeah. - Very big deal. - It did. - It became a massive national hit, reaching number one on Billboard charts. Part of its success came from side bastards,

appearance, Dick Clark American bandstands. - Ah. - Yes, that's right. Dick Clark is a side bastard today. I'm not gonna get deep into him,

but he basically invented payola.

People would pay him to put bands on American bandstand. And it because of him, like literally,

“like the, that's what got out of control eventually”

and caused like the biggest, you know, one of the biggest scandals in the music industry for the longest time is like, "You have to pay in order to become successful." - Yeah, yeah, yeah, the paid-a-play deal.

- Thanks for creating that, yeah. So the success was astonishing, right? Given the band's youth, Phil is only 17 at this time. He's a, he's a baby, right? So it's massive, like so I've said,

it was a number one hit across the country. He was a huge song, to even today, it's still like, kind of a big song, like that.

I looked up, had like a couple hundred million streams

or something wasn't saying, yeah. This experience kind of cemented because he was the architect of this whole thing. He was the boss of this whole situation. So this kind of cemented like his dominance in the studio.

This is what made him one a, he was the producer on it.

“At 17 years old, you have a number one hit in the country.”

Your ego's probably gonna go a little. - Yeah. - You know, it's certainly not. So, but this is where I'm gonna hit item number two of Phil Spectre was seriously fucked up. - But before you do that,

as the boss and the producer of this podcast, do you know what time it is? - Oh, shit. - It is. - And time for some Advertising. - And you know what, none of our sponsors did is raise Phil Spectre.

I feel confident saying that. None of our Advertising helped help raise Phil Spectre. Fairly certain, I believe it. I was really curious where you were going that. - Yeah.

- Why hasn't a woman formally participated in a Formula One race weekend in over a decade? Think about how many skills they have to develop at such a young age? What can we learn from all of the new F1 romance novels

suddenly popping up every year? - He's still smelled of podium champagne and expensive friction. - And how did a 2023 event called Waga Getting change the paddock forever? - That day is just seared into my memory.

I'm a culture writer and F1 expert Lily Herman, and these are just a few of the questions I'm tackling on no grip, a Formula One culture podcast that dives into the under explored pockets of the sport. In each episode, a different guest tonight

will go deeper into the wacky mishab scandals and sagas, both on the track and far away from it, that have made F1 a delightful, decadent dumpster fire for more than 75 years. - Listen to no grip on the I-Heart Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. - You know Roll Doll, the writer who found up Willy Wonka, Matilda, and the BFG. But did you know he was also a spy? - Was this before he wrote his stories?

I must have been. - Our new podcast series, the secret world of Roll Doll, is a wild journey through the hidden chapters of his extraordinary controversial life.

- His job was literally to seduce the wives of powerful Americans. - What? - And he was really good at it. - You probably won't believe it either. - Okay, I don't think that's true.

- I'm telling you, okay, that was a spy.

Play poker with Harry Truman,

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on the I Heart Ladywap, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts. - I'm Lori Siegel, a longtime tech journalist, and consider my new podcast mostly human, your bridge to the future.

- Anyone can now be an entrepreneur, anyone can build an app, and it's very empowering. - Each week, I'll speak to the people building that future, and we're gonna break down

what all of this innovation actually means for you.

- What I come to realize is that when people think the day of dating these AI companion, they're actually dating the companies that create this. - We're experiencing one of the greatest tech accelerations in human history.

And let's be honest, that can be messy. - There's no playbook for what to do when an AI model hallucinates a story about you. - But it's my belief that we should all benefit from this moment.

Mostly human, we'll show you how. My goal is to give you the playbook. So you can benefit. - The reason I say agency is because like, if you can give power back to people,

“then I think that's part of the best thing”

we can do for your mental health. - Listen to mostly human on the I-Hard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. - In 2023, former bachelor star Clayton Eckard, found himself at the center of a paternity scandal.

The family court hearings that followed revealed glaring inconsistencies in her story. This began a years-long court battle to prove the truth. - You doctor this particular test twice in selling, correct? - I doctor the test once.

- It took an army of internet detectives to crack the case. - I wanted people to be able to see what their tax dollars were being used for. - Some like the greatest disinfectant. - They would uncover a disturbing pattern.

Two more men who'd been through the same thing. - Greg Olespiand, I command you in it. - My mind was blown. I'm Stephanie Young. This is LoveTrap.

- Laura, Scottsdale Police. - As the season continues,

Laura Owens finally faces consequences.

- Ladies and gentlemen, breaking news at America for County as Laura Owens has been indicted on fraud charges. - This isn't over until Justice has served in Arizona. - Listen to LoveTrap podcast on the I-Hard Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. (upbeat music) - And we're back. Oh, boy, I sure love those ads from, I don't know, probably the Portland Police Bureau

and then some AI company. - No. - I wish it gets sponsored by a whiskey company. That would be nice. - I know, I wish it was, I'll take your whiskey.

I'll tell people to drink it. I have no problem telling people to drink. There's no health consequences to that. It's a lot healthier than gambling. - I actually try it, like I was doing social media

for a little while where I was doing cocktails with greasy. Like it's like a thing. Hoping like some company would be like, "Hey, this guy's doing alcohol." - Content.

- Some liquor, yeah. - Didn't work though. That was the reason to do it. I literally just was like, "Oh, some free booze." You know, like, let's subsidize this control.

- You just, you just throw in out like a fishing line and hoping a brand picks up so you can drink for free. - That's all I've ever wanted. - That's how the internet works now. (laughing)

- All right, where are we? - All right, so while on tour, Spectre was allegedly cornered by hostile individuals who mocked and humiliated him. - What are they talking about?

- What are they talking about? - They in short, being a nerd, being short and nerdy. - I mean, they're still old enough that just being short and having glasses will call us you some serious shit.

- Yeah. - So keep in mind too, like this is important, he at adulthood was probably only like five foot three. Like he did not, I say he was a little geez. - He was real little, right?

- So like, we don't know if the story is true. It's very mythological bullshit type stuff, but we don't know if the story is true, but it absolutely, if it is true, it makes a lot of sense about who he would later become.

He was physically restrained and urinated on during the encounter. - The precise details vary depending on the source and it's like kind of multiple biography's reference. He said he told this story later on.

- So it's like he gets like ganged up on by a bunch of guys outside of a show who are making fun of them 'cause he's a short little nerd and they like hold him down and piss on him.

“- It sounds like, I think he's in the bathroom”

when it happens. He goes in to go to the bathroom after a show

- It's very like 90s like teen high school movie types

situation, yeah. - Yeah, it's very scary. - It's very scary type deal if Heather's or something like that's intense bullying. - Yeah, they're pissing you. - Yeah. - Yeah, if the story is accurate,

it appears to have deeply scarred him. - Yeah, that's pretty good. - Yeah, that's pretty good. - Yeah, especially when you think like, imagine where he's at in this whole situation,

like he thinks he's like made it. Like he's a top of the world. He's got a number one head on the other, right? He's got money, he's got success. People all over the country are seeing him come to see him

play shows and he just goes to the bathroom, like walking off stage, probably one night and he gets jumped in the bathroom and pissed on. Like that's, yeah, yeah, I remember on you.

“- I think it's gonna make him a better guy.”

- Yeah, definitely, definitely not gonna make him a nice person. All right, so despite the group's success, fractures quickly appeared within the teddy bears. A net climb bar used her earnings from the hit record to purchase a car and not long afterwards,

she was involved in a serious accident that left her hospitalized for an extended period. - So, she gets a bunch of money. She gets a nice car, she gets one of those 650, 60s cars that it's just, it's steel.

There's no seat belts. The car, all of the force of the impact is transferred to you. - Yeah, yeah. - We're probably predating like, like the national traffic safety board, like requiring seat belts

by like 20 years at this point, I feel like, yeah, I don't know it. - So she gets in this horrible accident and this is kind of the nail in the coffin for the group, but you know, she, a net says that, well, she's in the hospital, she gets in this horrible accident

and Phil doesn't call her, come by or anything. He just, that's it, that's just the end. He just leaves, he just goes away and that's it. There's no band anymore, okay. - So they're like high school friends.

This is very strange to like, to get this, this far successful with your high school friends. And there's no incident, it's not like they didn't get along or anything like that, they were all friends. And then he was just like,

"Duce is, I'm out of here." - What do you think it's kind of like, she could no longer provide you to him. He could give us something like that, or we really can't even speculate.

“- I think, I think you're right on the path, Sophia.”

I think you will find, as we continue on, anytime somebody stops serving their usefulness to him, Phil is done with him. He just wipes him from his life, - There are friends. - And to action only, which spoiler alert

is the next person we're gonna talk about. Lester Sil, Lester Sil, this is right after this time, or we're during this time. If this is when he made friends and a partnership with Lester Sil, Lester Sil was a decorated

where we're two veteran who fought in the battle of the bulge. He made his way into the music industry after that. And despite what you think, actually, the nicest guy, everybody's like, "Oh, Duce, Suzy walks in the room.

He's the best, I love this guy, you know?" Like, this is like, if you live through the battle of the bulge, it's hard to get like, bent out of shape about the little things. (laughs) One would assume, but also I met a lot of very disgruntled

war veterans in my time. And I'm like, "Oh, why are you guys so mad, bro?" It's just like, I don't know, get an addiction that helps out or something. I don't know. - Like, get an addiction.

That's always my advice to people.

So, Lester took a liking to Phil and assumed a fatherly role in his life. So, he like really does step into Phil's life. Him and Bertha and Phil start having problems at home. He lets Phil move in with him, you know?

He gives him connections. He introduces him to people, he tells everybody, this is this killer of producer Phil, like, he just like, helping him out anywhere.

“And he even sends him to Phoenix, I believe it was,”

to meet Lee Hazelwood. Lee Hazelwood, at this time, is a really successful writer. He would later go on to write these boots I made for walking, which, oh, my girl. - My girlfriend. - My girlfriend, that's Sinatra.

She's so beautiful. - That's one of the finest achievements of our species. Yeah. - Love that song. - So, he sends him to hang out with Lee Hazelwood and Lee Hazelwood hates him.

(laughing) - Me as a wood. It's like, this motherfucker won't stop asking questions.

He's always like, doing stuff.

He's weird, and he's just always around me, and I don't like him, and he tells him, never bring him back to my studio. I never want to see that guy again. - Wow. - Okay.

So, so, this is like, kind of seems like a pattern as we'll start to like emerge here, is that like, either you love Phil or you are like, - Okay, that's good. - That's good, yeah. - Yeah, that guy's the worst.

So after this, he moves on to a relationship with another girl. He breaks up with Donna Cass or whatever. He moves on to a relationship with another girl, Lynn Castle, but it was short lived

as she couldn't stand as incessant interrogations.

too absolutely crazy.

Where are you, what are you doing,

where are you going, controlling?" - So, yeah, that sounds right. So, this is clearly a pattern. He is absolutely controlling. He's like, definitely trying to like,

“that's basically what I knew about Phil Spectre going into this,”

is that he was like super controlling his professional and personal relationships. - Yeah, that's kind of all I knew. - And that is exactly it. And we'll get more into this professional side of this too,

but it is alarming early, you know? And like Sophie, we brought this up earlier, it's like letting people get away with stuff

and how long can they get away with it, you know?

- And it seems like, I mean, it's the fifties. So, let's be fair, like, this is still the time where, or like, early '60s. This is definitely the time where like jokes on TV, we're like, "You're wife, I was talking to you.

"Watch, give her the old one, four in the eye." - Right, right, right, right. You know, like, the honey mooters are like, actively like, like, to the moon, and I'm gonna punch you right here.

- Yeah, yeah, bang, zoom, it's great. It's like an aspect of like, yeah,

“'cause it's just like so common in universal at the time, right?”

- So nice, here's some deal. - Let's do an old timeie voice besides Robert, 'cause Robert is so good. Straight to the moon, Alice! - That's not a good accent, I don't know. - I love it. - Right, Archie Bunker's shit.

- It's great, guys. - You were doing your best. - It is two different, it's interesting to the two different kinds of reactions to, oh, I keep like, doing things I'm not supposed to be doing, and I haven't gotten in trouble yet,

'cause like, the two reactions are the one I have had about things that I won't talk about on air, where at a certain point, more than, whatever the statute of limitations as it go, I was like, I'm gonna stop doing this,

done this too many times, I'm not gonna keep taking this risk anymore. Like, I feel lucky, but I feel like I'm gonna stop rolling the dice on this. - I do, I feel the exact same way every time

my registration on my car goes more than eight months out of eight. When I'm like, all right, eight months, that's a long time to get this right here.

“- Yeah, right here's an in-registered my car, right?”

- Yeah, still like that, where it's like, that's probably, now I'm gonna, we're shoplifting, where it's like, I don't have enough money now, I'm not gonna keep taking the risk. And then, that's people who are like, no one's called me on my shit, guess I'm gonna get even crazier, and then they become the president. - No reason to stop now!

(laughing) All right, so, spoiler alert on Phil, he doesn't get any better. - This is his pattern, he keeps going, but they do break up him and land break up, and he starts expressing desire to relocate back to New York City. - Okay.

- New York offered something that he really wanted, which was proximity to a legitimacy. In New York at the time, there is a, there is a building called the "Brill Building." And we're gonna tell you this, I'll just read 'cause it's better to read than it's summarized, I think. - Spectre quickly embedded himself in the "Brill Building" ecosystem, the highly competitive songwriting and production factory, that produced some of the most influential pop music of the era.

The environment was famously ruthless. Young writers turned out songs daily, competing for placement with artists and labels. Success required speed, instinct, and relentless self-promotion. Spectre thrived creatively, but developed a reputation almost immediately for opportunism. So, I just read this thing where it's like, "Hey, everybody's cutthroat up in this shit."

And then it's like, "Specter immediately gets a reputation for being opportunistic in a cutthroat building, to be opportunistic, to be like that in a cutthroat building." - You know, like, in the music industry, to be a cutthroat for people like that guy is fucking ruthless, is something, yeah. Multiple collaborators from this period later accused him of aggressively positioning himself for credit and financial participation in projects that were often collaborative efforts. There were recurring stories of Spectre inserting himself into songwriting a production roles

and minimizing the contributions of others once success became likely. In some cases, he was accused of leaving collaborators off credits entirely. A move that not only deprive them of recognition, but also cut them out of long-term royalty income. So, he's already just ruthless. So, there's something that I want to bring up here, which is about the way that writing works,

or writing a song works, which is like, "The deal is, if there is no prior agreement." If two people just walk into a room and write a song together, it is, and it didn't fit not as, right, and not as part of a pre-existing business arrangement or whatever we're talking about. - Yeah, they did not, and no one specified, like, "Hey, I'm taking a song." - Yeah, if nothing is specified, it is a 50/50 split.

Doesn't matter if one person wrote one word in the other wrote the entire song and all he was like,

"If you come into that, if it's three people, it's 33 and a third, if it's four, it's 25%,

So, for him to come into sessions and be jumping right on, it's like, I've seen this before, like somebody walks in the room and starts suggesting things and you're just like, "You just took a portion of my cut of this song, and your suggestions were things I was going to do anyways." That's kind of annoying, you know? It's like, it's really easy to finagle in this time period, especially. So, a fellow writer named Beverly Ross, who helped

Phil recalled his promises to bring her with him if he would ever get into the right rooms, but he renamed immediately upon being granted opportunities. She saw Phil as a user and she was eventually offered a staff job, but she declined it because she would have to see Phil every day. So, this woman literally turns down a successful money paying job writing at the brill building because she was like, "Oh, I'd have to see Phil every day," and he is cold. I don't want to be around him.

He's the worst, right? Yeah, he's scared. I respect it. I mean, it could be that annoying, that you're like, absolutely not. I won't, this is not worth the job. But, John, it's not worth my piece of mind, and please stay away from me. We should all have that much stuff respect. Yeah. Really,

“but, you know, 20, 20, 6, man, it's hard. Man, it's just hard to live. You should have the market”

out there, you know? That's what you're doing right now. All right. So, this is from her quote, "I was so gun shy of ever becoming vulnerable to someone who'd betrayed me like that, because Phil practically killed me emotionally. I figured I wasn't smart enough to handle the part of his personality that I understand. It was like, Phil was born without a conscience, and I was his victim. He could be so ruthless." Wow. So, seemingly, we have heard only from women

that this is an issue, right? It's like, this does not seem to be very much a male issue. This is an assistant. Yeah. Women around him have to feel the brain of, you know, I mean, yeah, again, not to give anybody an out or any empathy for somebody who's a shitty person, because like, shitty acts, or shitty acts, and it doesn't matter, but you can see like this is kind of like an emotional, you know, reaction to his mother and his sister, pushing him, controlling him,

“sure. And also, too, yeah. And you know, an Asian isn't absolute. Yeah. I think I'm going to talk”

about this later, but so Phil, whenever he went to work at the Braille Building, after he got this, his money from the teddy bears, right? He made a lot of money. He had to actually take his mother to court. Kind of, it's not funny. He had to take his mother to court to get his money, because even as like a teenager, his mom was like, no, he can't, you can't be trusted, you'll leave

us, you won't let us have any money, you won't take care of us. And so he's basically,

even like going into adulthood, he's having to fight his mom in court over his own money, because of the way they, you know, because the way that she is, the controlling nature of her and everything. So, you know, it's like he's, he's doing that while also controlling other people and, and, you know, doing shitty things to other women. Yeah. Yeah. I mean that. Yeah. So it's in part just kind of his revenge based on his shitty mom. Yeah. He's just kicking it out on other people. Well, also just he

“grew up learning that like, that's what you do to people like you can either be controlled or”

controlling. Yes. I'll pick that. Yeah. Sure. So, so yeah. So being cut throat like we said, being cut throat isn't weird in the music industry. Like, you know, there's a lot of people that are famous for their like ruthless activities inside the music industry, especially in the old days or whatever. But to be in a cut throat environment and be the cutiest, throatiest person of that environment is like, okay, like everybody is like, no, fill is the worst of all of them. Like,

you know, everybody, everybody in the building hates him. Nobody trusts him. He gets a reputation from just being like the dude that would show up all the time and just like jump in on things

and take control and, you know, some people don't like him. So one of the most important

relationships back to form during this New York period was with legendary songwriting production doored Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller. Lieber and Stoller were already giants of the early rock and rhythm and blues era and were responsible for shaping hits for artists like Elvis Presley, the coasters like numerous other artists. They were architects of the modern producer model combining songwriting and arrangement and studio direction into a single creative authority.

At this point, like music is changing really fast at this point, you know, because the technology is changing the way that people operate is changing. It went from being like, oh, this is a band that plays this music to now like we got a creative team. All these people are writing this stuff

and like also to this is really important. This is the first time in musical history that music

goes from being marketed to adults to being marketed to teenagers. Oh, yeah. Because prior to this,

Yeah, yes. They weren't in a comic, it's a teenager. You're like, you were just working in the minds and handing money to your parents so that they can buy a starvation with it. Yeah, you could see

it afford to starve to death. So this is the first time in all of recorded history, basically,

that teenagers become a market, right? And this is really important to this whole overview of like where where the money comes from and how they market to things and how they even write a song. Like, so it went from being like, okay, a band does all this to like a group of guys would get together in a room and start being like, okay, cool, I wrote this song, I was going to give it to

“this person, but you know, we should give it to this person. And that's why in this time,”

you'll see a lot of like, you know, like, I'll read the Franklin songs that are also Otis writing songs later or whatever. You know, like, people would just write a song and give it to an

artist and then anybody who liked that song would also cover it because the money went back to the

publishing. Right. The performance is a minimal amount of the money. The publishing is the money. So these guys would keep giving these songs to other people, other artists and be like, you should do this song and it just became normalized to do that. So the strength of the of the music industry went from being bands to being producers, right? And this is where Phil kind of slams hard into the industry. All right. So he falls in like he he falls in with these guys

Lieber and Stuller who are like the guys of the time. They are the Max Martin's or whatever famous

“producer, the Kenny Beats or the Dr. Draze or the whatever you love, they're that of this time.”

And Spector admired them intensely. He started their recording techniques, their business strategies, and their ability to shape artist identities from behind the glass. In many ways, Lieber and Stuller provide his Spector with a blueprint for the career he wanted to build.

Despite recognizing his talent, however, Lieber and Stuller never fully trusted him.

Accounts from associates and later biographies described them as simultaneously impressed by Spector's musical talents and wary of his personality. He was ambitious, obsessive, and socially abrasive. He pushed himself into rooms. He had not been invited into. He demanded opportunities. He had not yet earned. He hovered around sessions, absorbing information, and inserting suggestions persistently trying to attach himself to projects. But they kept giving him chances. Part of this

was practical because he was good. He was very good. He was physically talented. Yes. And so it's like, man, you ever worked with somebody who's good at their job at a horrible person? Yes. We all been there, right? Yes. And you're like, "Ah, Spector's turned to the studio today." Yeah. We're going to write them in a picture. We're not there. But yeah, we're going to write a banger. But what he says is the room with that dick. Yeah. They're willingness to tolerate him

also reflected that he represents the next step. What I was just talking about. He's the next step in the evolutionary ladder of working in the music industry. He's the producer model that will become the tour to force in the industry. Yeah. That's a good note. I do want to say, and I'm willing to settle for will billions of dollars. I only want to be coming in with for the record. And I'm sure. I know. I actually know that you get billions of dollars from these

ads, right? I do. I do billions of every single ad. And there's no health care given to any of your employees. You are just like, you are a hard way Jeff Bezos, man. This is actually bought Bezos's yacht just to sink so that my yacht will avoid sinking the same way. You know, I've heard about that. What we're doing. I would not. Yeah. I don't sleep on that couch as well. I'm saying anyways. It's time for an ad. Let's all think about what diseases you get from Jeff Bezos's yacht

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Opa County as Laura Owens has been indicted on fraud charges. This isn't over until just as the served in Arizona. Listen to LoveTrap podcast on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We're back. The answer was Ghana Rhea. All right, so this is where Phil starts really developing his understanding of how records are made. How I mean, this is a learning environment. This is the professional environment of writers in New York.

This is his high school or college or whatever. This is his moment. He absorbs all that. And he starts really understanding the recording studio and the process of recording is like the music itself. The music comes from the environment that this stuff is made in as much as anything else. And this is kind of like a new concept because, you know, music is where we're in the 60s right now, right? We're in the 60s. We only really started having

like reasonable sounding recording recorded music like 10 years prior to this. Before anything like that, before 10 years, like we only got, everybody say thank you to Adolf Hitler right now.

“Thank you Adolf. Without? No. What if he's been a contribute to his recording industry?”

To the world. What? We got a post-war war, too. Do you know this about Hitler? This is actually really funny. Yeah, yeah, because it was hugely, he famously believed and wrote about this in

voice was the best tool for influencing people. And at the time, the grid of my podcast.

“Yeah. At the time, exactly. Literally, he was ahead of the curve on that. He would have been”

a Hitler and a podcast there. Oh, my God. He don't hit the world's first podcast there. Amazing.

That's right. That's right. You know, it's like the British were all baffled at the time, too, because like prior to this, like basically they had magnetic wire recording and they had wax cylinders that they could record, too, right? And it was basically one shot, one kill. If you like, if you messed up, it was over, right? But magnetic recording actually, and it was cleaner, sounded way better. Like, in comparison to like the old vinyl stuff that I had, the like,

it was way cleaner. It sounded more pure. And the Brits were like, how is this guy broadcasting from like eight different cities in absolute clarity? Like, they're so confused at the time. They have no idea what's going on. All because Hitler's over there with the only magnetic recorder that's in the entire world, because it just turns out, BASF there in Germany, which is still a company

“congratulations you guys made it through the entire Nazi regime and all the backlash. I, you know,”

hats off. So without Hitler and his magnetic recording, we would not have the music industry. They got the GIs, the GIs brought it back in the forties to America. We started tinkering with it

by late fifties. We have less Paul and Bill Putnam basically like the gods of recording. Folks,

if it hadn't been for Hitler, none of us would have been able to hear the mighty mighty boss tones album about George Floyd and what kind of America would that be? I so desperately want to take the time out. Five seconds story. I once went to a concert and you know, the guy that dances on stage, and that's his only job. Somebody threw a shoe in a hit him right in the fucking face. And it took him completely out and they stopped the concert and they were like, "We're not going to play."

And somebody goes, "Who cares?" Wow. Wow. That's my favorite mighty mighty boss. That's right. All right. So sorry. I was on a little tangent there. Hitler gave us recording. But it's very new. Recording is very new, right? So the way that they record is changing by the day, right? It's like people are discovering new things. We go from a single track on two record two. Now we have two tracks and you can bounce back and forth and now we have four tracks. And the next thing,

you know, they've got a whole console that they've made that, you know, and these guys are literally building them themselves. Like Bill Putnam was like building hand-building his own consoles and everything. And so they now have some technology. It opens up the world of recording. Prior to this,

“if you were a band, that was the only way to record music, right? You had to stand all around this horn”

and everybody like make their noise and whoever was like the loudest in the horn is the loudest. So you put the vocalist the closest and you put the drummer away the hell back and like, you know, you have to, it's complicated. It's, it's, it's, you're so concerned with just getting a recording that you don't have really time to think about the artistic direction of the recording. And so this moment in history, the late '50s, early 1960s, this is the moment that changes

all of recorded music. And why, obviously, I'm such a big fan of this. As someone who considers himself to be a stereo-filled specter, you know, I, I, I absorb a lot of his music and I think that this is like how I try and portray myself and a lot of this stuff. Without all the, you know, well, actually, we save number of x-wives. That's great. We have the same number of x-wives, three, we're crossing it. But without the other cries, without the other cries. Yeah. All right.

So rather than treating musicians as equal collaborator, specter increasingly saw them as interchangeable components in a larger sonic structure. If one player failed to achieve the desired result, another could replace them. If a vocalist lacked the emotional texture he wanted, he could manipulate arrangement, echo orchestration, reverb, all these things to compensate. And if it's all involved, sorry, go ahead. No, this is like, and it seems like this isn't

a lot of ways, the birth of the end of music transitioning away, a popular music transitioning away from these are people who like make something like art that they want to share with people too. This is a product. And we can, we can cut out pieces and slide in pieces wherever we need to. 100%. Yeah. This is absolutely the birth of that. This is the birth of like I am pitching this song to Ariana Grande because she might sing it great, but I don't care if Beyonce takes it.

It's good bidding on this music. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's no longer as much. I mean,

I still think people put as much love and passion into their music as always. But it's,

we're gonna say it's nothing but bad or whatever, but it's a big change. Yes. It is a very big change. Yeah. So, Spectre closely studied records that we're experimenting with dense layering

through instrumental doubling and echo chamber effects. Songs like under the boardwalk, you know,

“that song, under the boardwalk. If you listen to something, see, yeah. If you listen to that,”

you will absolutely hear what are the early, you know, phrases that that Spectre would draw from.

It sounds basically like a Phil Spectre song. It's got, you know, like the orchestration is

buried in there. It's like, you know, the vocal is very upfront and everything. But everything else is kind of a mesh behind it. And, and it's not nearly, there's a lot of reverb and everything. It's not nearly as clean and clear as some of like, because that was the goal, right? It was like for so long. They're like, we just want to make something that sounds good. And then all of a sudden they're like, oh, actually, we can make anything. So let's just make it sound crazy.

Let's make it sound reverb. Let's do like experimentation with this stuff. So he starts to get into that. What distinguished Spectre was not necessarily that he invented these techniques, but that he became obsessed with expanding them to their absolute extreme. Where earlier producers used layering to enhance song, Spectre began envisioning arrangements where individual instruments disappeared into a unified, emotional mass.

Precision gave way to density, clarity gave way to atmosphere. The recording was not meant to be dissected. It was meant to overwhelm you, right? And this is like the big principle of the wall of sound. Anybody who knows about Phil Spectre, like, seriously knows about the wall of sound. The wall of sound was Phil Spectre's creation in sorts. It's, it's a, it's a way of recording that makes the music like very Wagnerian, right? It's very, it's like a Wagner opera. It's a bunch

of noise coming at you, right? And it is meant to overwhelm you. There's often layers of percussion. It was all like layers of instrumentation that would be drummer on drummer on drummer, three piano players, like six guitars. And this is such a big change because, like I said,

“prior to this, it was like, we just put a band in a room and then you record the band, right?”

And so now it's all of a sudden like, I don't have to reproduce this on stage. It doesn't have to sound like this. I'm going to make this, I'm going to put 10 pianos on here. I'm going to go crazy with it. You know? Yeah. Yeah. Like, I can do anything. Okay. I want 10 pianos then. Bring it 10 pianos. Okay. It's also like kind of that like era of like that starts. There was like the money is actually in music where they're like, I need 10 pianos tonight. And like someone

goes out and picks up 10 pianos. Yeah. It's really amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So like this is also,

yeah, kind of the birth of the the insane expenditures for like crazy artistical wins. Yes. Yeah. It later transforms into a cocaine budget. But well, you little early. It's early for the cocaine budget. But it will eventually become a cocaine budget. Excited. So despite being signed a labor installer, those two mentors that he had, he eventually becomes enamored with the co-founder of Atlantic Records. I'm at Erdogan. And when given the opportunity to jump ship,

he wasted no time, right? Lieber installer are pissed. They're like, bro, what are you doing? Like, we gave you this opportunity. We tolerated your bitch ass. And you're just going to dip. Yes, we tolerated you. We let you come in and put up with your ass. And he's like, actually, I was underage when I signed your contract. So it doesn't matter. You guys can't do shit. And he just walks out, right? And and they're like, fair. That was true. Yeah. You get in fact sign an underage

person to a contract without having the proper legal authority. So whoops, we fucked up. So so he becomes friends with Ahmed Erdogan. Erdogan recognizes his talent. And he starts learning from him. It's he's just an old school record guy, right? And now so Phil's now learning the business, right? This is he was in the music thing. And now he's like, I'm going to learn the business. Phil would find some reasonable successes during this time remaining under the

two-to-litch of his friend, Leicester, so the old war were two veteran. But he would eventually desire more freedom to work as he please. And so he and Leicester formed fill-less records.

“A portment toe of their two names. I think that's the word portment toe, right?”

When it comes to words. Yeah. Thanks, nailed it. Look at me. Look at me. Look at, I just guessed on that one. Thanks. He was slowly becoming the king of girl groups. It was actually around this time that he was dubbed the Tycoon of Teen, which sounds very questionable. I don't like that. Don't like that. Nope. No visceral reaction. Yeah. So by the age of 21, he had become an undeniable force in the industry. He had produced a string of hits. Like, I think he had like

21 top 10 singles and like, he's three years or something. Yeah, it was like an insane amount.

Uh, yeah. The first major success was Spanish Harlem after his own Spanish Harlem by Benny King.

And then, uh, there's no one other like my baby by the crystals. Uh, he's a rebel by the crystals.

crazy crazy hits, right? Yeah. Here's a little, little piece though. The crystals

“are sitting there. They, they, they recorded. There's no one other like my baby. He did well in the”

charts. And then, you know, a few months later, they're sitting there listening to the radio one afternoon and they hear a song come on. They're like, oh, this is cool. Uh, it's an interesting song. They get done in the radio announced his own. And that was he's a rebel by the crystals. And they're like, wait, what? Phil had begun recording songs and then releasing them as band songs without any of them having been on the song. He didn't. He didn't care. He was just like,

they're all replaceable to me. Yeah. You're all just, you're all just singers. I don't care about you at all, especially you're all female singers. You were all female singers. I will just replace

you. He never does this to a man, not an isn't tire career. Oh, my God, women. He does this

be slightly obvious. Oh, but just like 2% less obvious, man. Yeah, I would have punched him too.

“I want to put, I don't care what day, I would have punched him in this face. I would have looked”

him that I love you and put him. I'm glad you bring that up. Yes. I'm glad you bring that up. Because another tick in the fill is seriously like uncomfortable without his, his gun comes from the leading or the crystals. And I forget her name. I'm sorry. I hack in a fraud just like you. So I forgot her name, but she tells a story in this documentary I watched, where she's like, yeah, I saw that and I was like, okay, so she goes into, she talks to this mobster that she

knows. And this mobster goes out and just beats the dog piss out of her. Hey, like, if you ever do comrade mobster. Yeah. Hey, man, sometimes organized crime has purpose. Let's be fair. You know, so I'll often more reliable than the government. Wait, what was the name of the documentary you were just talking about? This is from the agony in the ecstasy of fill specter. Okay. Cool. So he has a bunch of successes. Zipity Duda, uh, be my baby with the runnets. Uh, you've lost

that love and feeling with the righteous brothers. He is on top of the world. Yeah, Jesus. Yeah, be my baby. He has that one in an Uber last night, actually. Yeah, maybe he's on the my, I've a vinyl from the dirty dancing sound. It's on there. It's so good. Very funny story. Years later, Phil Specter, um, he, he was asked by Martin Scorsese to use be my baby for the opening of cocaine cowboy. I think it was. Anyway, he, it's the opening of it. It's be my baby. They do a

whole thing. And he's asked and he's like, no. And then they do it anyway. I mean, he, and he sees it. It comes out. John Lennon shows it to him and he sees it and he comes out and he's like, what the hell? I didn't tell him they could do that. You know, and so he gets all mad and then he sues him, of course, which you know is fair or whatever. That's fair. That's fair. You saw that information. That's fair. You suit him. But then he goes on for the rest of his life and tells everybody, I made Scorsese.

Without me. Yeah, okay. All right. That was a bit of a dick. That was a bit of a dick.

“That was a bit of a dick. The rest of his life. Oh, thick. That's why. And that at the pinnacle of”

Phil's success is where we will leave this episode, Robert. How do you feel about Phil so far? I mean, he's a little bit of a dick, but, you know, he's hit some bangers. He hit some bangers. So far, he just sounds like an asshole who's really good at his job. His, I didn't know all that shit about his mom. Oh, wait, no, in a huge misogynist who screws over female. Yeah. Yeah, I would have punched him in the wiener as what I'd say. Again, it's like, if this was, if this was the end,

right, you'd be like, yeah, I mean, not really bastard. Where are the, you like, he's yeah, he's kind of a dick. Yeah, sucks. But there's no shortage of those people in the music industry, right? It's like, there really is. Yeah, there's no shortage of horrible people in the music industry. And like, I meet them all the time. And then I'm like, cool, this is why I stop working with labels. I'm going back to my studio, see you later. Yeah. But it is, there's a lot of them, right? And

you know, it's, you know, it's tough to, for every awful person I meet in the music industry, I meet a legend that I'm like, you're the nicest person I've ever met. And like, how are you, this good in this cool? And this person, not that good and way shitty. Like, I don't understand it.

I'll never get it. It's, there's a weird proportion in that stuff. Wild.

Robert, you can be found it. I write okay, which I can't thank you for leading me in. Yeah. Uh, you, I like to think of it more as like, like you telling your parents back in like the,

And you're like, I write okay, you know, it's just, it's the, they mean, I kind of have read it.

“It was a little piece of the process of explaining what I do for a living. It's right. I write, okay.”

Yeah, just that. Go away. I can be found at, uh, at Greasy Will, Greasy At Greasy Will music. You can just Google me. I'm like on the internet. Uh, I have a recording course. If you want to learn about how to record from a Grammy award-winning engineer, I have one. It can be found at GreasyDazzet.com or you can just Google me or you go to my, I'm on the internet, man. I'm on the internet. It like, it can't be that hard. It's easy to find people. I feel like you guys will be

fine tracking it. It's a Z. It's not with an S. I get a lot of Greasy Wills and that kind of does make

me bad guy because of guy. I mean, if you told this on the podcast, who gave you the name,

“Greasy Will. For real, you can't just throw. Okay. So exactly. Yeah, it's very cool. It's fucking cool.”

Very cool. That is very cool. It's super cool. Yeah, you know. This is the end of the episode, friends. We'll be back. We'll be back. Behind the bastards is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the I-Hard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Full video episodes of Behind the Bastards are now streaming on Netflix dropping every Tuesday and Thursday.

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