#2550 - Rick Springfield

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I don't know what that's something else. The whole argument of species living long enough to surviving long enough to actually have fasted and light or at fasted light travel is a tough one. It is a tough one. Are we wrong? I think they probably have some unique propulsion system that has nothing to do with moving in one direction or another. I think they've fold space in time. This is what, yeah. The wormhole that brings it to things together, so you skip all this.

Yeah, I think that's the theory, but obviously it's them living. That's species existing long enough. Because we're like, we're getting close to, and we're nowhere near that. So the species living long enough to achieve that and then come here is the, you know, that's the stumbling block I have. Yeah. Well, a lot of people have that stumbling block. I think it's also the possibility that they didn't evolve in the same violent world that we did. But then this question will then

what gave them the motivation to innovate and move forward. Because for us, a lot of it is survival and competition. And that's the reason why people innovate in the first place. Oh, it's war, it's create, great innovation. I mean, the real, the, the more interesting theory is that they're monitoring us to make sure that we can successfully pass this sort of adolescent phase

“of evolution that we're currently in. Yeah. That's why they hover over a nuclear basis and shit.”

Yeah. We hope we hope we can get there. It's very debatable. Yeah. Well, listen, man. Thank you for being here. Yeah. This is kind of cool to meet you. It's fascinating. I mean, I've listened to your music when I was in high school, which is crazy. And to see you look as good as you look now, I mean, we played a video. I don't know if you ever saw what we were freaking out. We're like,

this guy's like, how old are you? 77. 77. That's fucking incredible, dude. Because a lot of

your contemporaries, when they've, you know, even got younger than you, they're falling apart and you were out there singing Jesse's girl like you wrote it a week ago. It was crazy. There was actually a great comment. I really appreciate that. Because that's, I'm, I'm still very passionate about playing music. And, you know, and they say, how do you, how can you deliver a song that you've played a million times? It's because the energy is the audience, you know? I mean, I wrote the song

to see an audience react like that to it. It's pretty difficult to just sit back and go, you know, so it charges me up, too. Well, it's nice that you still enjoyed and appreciate it, because I think even though it's the dream for everyone to become a rock star for some, I mean, for some people, something happens along the way and they just get so accustomed to it and they get, you know, worn out by it. And then they don't love it anymore, which is crazy.

I know. Well, I, I, obviously, it depends on the person, you know, and it depends on

whatever experiences they have. I've had pretty good experiences. And I just, I don't, I've always

wanted to do it. You know, I mean, I, since I was 11 years old when I first saw and held my first guitar, that was what I wanted to do. And really, it's kind of centered around playing guitar,

“although that's not what I'm necessarily known for, but that's what I enjoy the most, you know?”

And when I started to write that, that, that kind of changed everything from me to, you know, gave me a great, a forward focus rather than just playing, but going somewhere with the writing.

I, you know, I had a school band together. And then I, I got kicked out of school and I said,

“I got kicked out of 11th grade. And what happened? I didn't show up anymore. I just, you know,”

I just, I discovered the guitar. And, and I was, I had a serious depression when I was a kid. I still still deal with it. But, but it, I was failing in the only arena that was available to me at the time, which was school, you know, with friends and school and work and all that school work. And I just wasn't doing well. And it was really dragging me down. And I started, just to discover the guitar, started staying away from school, because I couldn't face going to school.

But, you know, instead of playing video games against song, which wasn't available to me at that point, I was reading, um, Robert Block and Olga Sterleth, and great writers, Cutlub's horror, and playing the guitar. And that was my education, really. After once I learned to read and write, you know, that was what all that would took out of school. Where were you living? I lived in Australia until I was 10. Then we moved to England

until I was about 13. And that was a big, that was a game changer for me.

Because your accent is weird. Yeah. So, like, it's all over the place. It's like, I'm trying to, I'm trying to lock it in and figure out what the hell's going on. I know, there's some words I can't say with American accent. I can't say Australia without, with an American accent. This is not possible. Um, yeah, we moved to England. That's when I discovered girls and guitars. And that was, like, this, the beginning for me.

It was a ban called Clifford and the Shadows, Clifford and the Shadows. They were before the Beatles. And, um, yeah, it was, uh, and then a move back to Australia. And then I went to Vietnam for a couple of months.

And then I was in Vietnam, uh, 68, 69. I was, um, there was a, uh, promoters in Saigon and Denang.

And then we're looking for the closer stocks in that whole country was Australia. So, the GIs wanted to see, you know, girls that reminded them of home. So, as long we had a couple of girls in the band, they would hire you. And you could two of Vietnam during the war zone. No, it was pretty insane. We were there for about four months. What was that like? Uh, it was insane. Uh, I, I, I've thought, oh, great. We'll make money.

You know, and of course we didn't make any money. We spent at all at the P.X. And, uh, uh, we weren't making much money anyway. But we based out of Saigon at Denang and we toured from Cameroon Bay up to, uh, the DMZ. We're at the DMZ the Tet after the Tet where they'd crossed over the Via Con and crossed into the cities and everything and like done the big, um, assault, you know, the Tet assault.

“We were there. I would two miles in the DMZ on that next Tet. And I remember New Year's Eve”

and the flares that the, you know, parachute flares still going off like this. And we're, and there's like a line of guys heading towards us. And it was freaking freaky. They, you know, they kept them the bay. But we got shot at and rocketed and we'd be planning to be mortars planning. Yes. State over and we, we befriended some, uh, Navy guys at Marble Mountain, which is outside Denang. And we went back there for, um, for, uh, to give them a free show, you know, because

they were so appreciative, you know, I mean, they, they love seeing the girls. But they, they wanted connection with home, you know, so they tell, take into the tents and we play Hendrix and get stoned and, and, you know, I mean, even though we're Australian, there still was, there was a connection there. And, uh, so we met these guys. Maybe we really got along well. We stayed overnight with them at the, um, and we went, uh, all got in the bunkers in the primitive bunkers. And I stayed in the

radio shack. And we got attacked and I'm throwing mortars down the weekend to the radio shack. It was. It was throwing mortars. It was freaky. Yes, it was before you couldn't do any of this now. This was, 96869. And it was, uh, the, you know, you see traces going off the guys, the rest of the bamboo and perimeter bunkers. And it was, uh, it was pretty insane. Holy shit. We actually went up a mission and no patchy helicopter too. Um, because they said, you guys want to come and we're like,

yeah. But it was, you know, it was, uh, it was, uh, pretty hairy. Holy shit, man. That's got to be insane.

“When you, when you, when you, when you're over there, we're like, what the fuck have I done?”

It was, what's fear? Sorry. I went down the wrong way.

we slept with, uh, yeah. Is you get all the, you get a dry throat. We slept with, uh, a lot

of the times where the guys slept in there, you know, their hooches and wake up with, with dust.

“Is that you over there? Oh, yeah, there we are. Holy shit, man. That's what we slept in, uh,”

the hooches a lot of the time. How old were you then? Um, as I, uh, 67, 68, 67. I was 18. Wow. Wow. Yeah, and those jeans hadn't been washed in about three months. Do you had to be like rethinking that decision to go over there? Um, I was there and it was okay. We make the best of it. I mean, there was, you kind of fall into a mindset, although I wasn't, you know, there wasn't going out, you know, shooting with the, you fall into a mindset there that everything's legal.

You know, anything, anything goes. We, um, we did some pretty nutty things. There were one point. We were standing in line with 40 other guys in a, you know, a hot and, uh, being service, but this is one, one Vietnamese hooker. And it was just 40 guys waiting for one hooker. Yeah. Holy shit. Um, and there was nothing much to do, but smoke, you know, I smoke,

start smoking dope there. That was the first time. Yeah. But I haven't, I didn't, I haven't,

not really been, I don't, but I did there. And it was kind of considered just a thing to do. Everybody was stone, all the soldiers was stone. All the time. Yeah. Wow. You know, the last thing

“I want to do is be high in a war zone. I, dude, I, we were in a, we're in the train, right?”

Which is this beautiful beach town. And they go there for R and R because they could serve, right? But it was still dangerous. And we were in a, uh, we say in these, sometimes if we weren't with the, staying on an army base, we're saying these old villas that were all French villas that were once beautiful. And now we're rat infested. You know, I mean, we'd be sleeping on

Cots and rats to be gone underneath. We, we got stone. And remember, one night we got stone.

And the next thing here, machine gun right outside the house. And here the guy goes hit the light, hit the floor. So the lights go out, my old hit the floor. And he didn't know what was going on. They, when you're stoned, it's like, oh my god, it could have been anything. Holy shit. But it was, it was freaky, but that's, that's being stoned helped you deal with it, you know, not have the constant fear, although when the fear hit, if you're stoned, it's like you go

“over the, over the top, you know. But it was just the way we deal with it. I mean, I remember,”

um, we'd be playing for the truth, you know, that we'd plan on the back of a truck. And we played in, um, uh, fire bases. We didn't, you know, I, we all thought it was going to be like a bob hope tour, you know, you're coming up to lead to helicopters. You play, you know, there was sitting in bleachers, they applaud, you're getting a helicopter fly away. It was nothing like that. It was just a, a guy out of Saigon that hired, hired us. And, um, um, uh, I'm what was I,

I was talking about. I get lost very easily. I have a ADHD and there's so much awesome shit around here to look at them. I'm going up with them. Um, we're talking about getting stoned. And, uh, oh, yeah, I'm, we were sitting on a plan on, on, on, on a, on a, back of a truck and there's the guys sitting there on their helmets with their M16s, right? Just watching the show. And if, and we finish, and this guy comes up to me, he's stoned out of me. He's here. He's got,

I'm going to go out and see what I can kill them out, man. And you put this helmet on and walks out into the jungle with a, with a company, but it was just bizarre experiences like that. But now I look back and go with the fuck was I thinking, you know, it was, uh, it was unreal. And, and it's so weird, because I, I remember Arthur C. Clark told him the story about how he's sitting with a guy on a plane, said, what do you do? He said, oh, you're in the war and he went

on for two hours about what happened during the war. And he says, what do you do? No, he says, I'm insurance salesman. And that was it, you know, like what he does now was a, yeah. But the whole, the war experience, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it could go on forever, because it's so much happens and it's such a, in a space, so much is lived, you know, and it, the fear is, uh, kind of when you, having that much, that much fear constantly is, is, is pretty taxing. And now it wasn't,

and we, and, um, you know, we'd be driving along and get shot out and, like I said, we'd be playing

“and the rockets or the mortars would start landing and they'd hustle us into a, into a bunker,”

but it was, uh, you know, we weren't actually going out like those guys were and walking point, you know. Well, that was also one of the strangest wars ever, because it didn't make any sense that why we were over there. And then when the soldiers came home, instead of being greeted like heroes, like they were in World War II. But on, yeah, I mean, it was, uh, it was really terrible for them, because I, no, I, it's meeting them over there. Like, oh, you know, you think, oh, when they get over there,

they're probably, yeah, we're here, we'll do a job. You know, all the ones I met, we're just, dude, I didn't know why we're here. I don't know what I'm doing here. All of them, while they were,

you know, fighting. So it's, uh, it was a, it was a bad war for sure.

Don't want the worst wars ever. And these guys coming back from that, it just, that, that experience just must have been so different, because you're over there. You're killing people. You don't know why you killed people. And then, then you're in the grocery store.

“Like, that scene from, uh, what's that movie? You know, the movie I'm talking about?”

No, buckle lips? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, um, hurt locker. Remember when the guy comes back, he was, uh, you know, uh, diffusing IEDs, he comes back and he's walking to the grocery store and he's just like, what the fuck am I doing? Like, the, the contrast between the two places is just too much. That's too crazy. Yeah,

it's, uh, my mom said when I came back and it picked me up at the airport,

uh, she said a car back fire and I like jumped and I don't remember it, but she said, you know, my eyes look kind of haunted. How could I only imagine it? Took me a while to kind of get through it. Did you see people die over there? What's that? Did you see people die over there? Um, we saw trophy albums, which were kind of scary. They could sell out the GI's kept trophy albums where they'd photograph like body parts or a

“guy that had a 50 millimeter shell. We said, you know, and it was, um, pretty freaky.”

Um, the, the leader of the band actually died when we got home from a disease. He picked over it, picked up over there along disease died at 25. What was it? Um, his name is Pete Watson. He was the leader of the band. I was a guitar player in the band. I wasn't a lead singer or anything. And he, um, we, he messed it on somewhere where we didn't go on the days off and, you know, picked up something. Just some jungle disease? Yeah, the, the doctor said you've been anywhere exotic lately,

said I just got back from Vietnam. Why? He said, well, you got this thing in your lungs, said this is pretty rare. So, you know, I don't know if it was Agent Orange or if it was something you picked up from, uh, from, you know, whatever it was in Vietnam, but, yeah, he lasted about a year. Oh, wow. Unfortunately, none of you guys got it. Yeah, we all, we don't race with the doctors and got, you know, chest X, right? Isn't that it was okay, but, yeah, he's weird. He, um,

I was looking at, looking up at the other day and it's, uh, didn't realize he was so young when he died. You know, he was older than me then. So, seemed like an older guy that he was only 25. Wow. How much time in total were you over there for? About four months. Holy shit, man. And there was a point where they wanted us to go play in North Vietnam. He said, well, keep the choppers going, uh, the troop over there that wants you to come and play, and we'll keep the choppers going.

So, if we have, if we're getting a trouble, you can get, you know, on luckily he said, no, we're not doing that. The weight is over, football is here and so is draft Kings. The draft King sports app is now live in all 50 states. That means from Texas to California to Florida. Every fan is in on the excitement and this September, draft Kings is giving customers the opportunity to get boosted every

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“What was the decompression like when you got back home?”

I don't really remember because it's just one of those. I mean, the hardest thing for me was that I'd thrown a mortar down and I'd hit somebody and they came in the next day and said, "Hey, you got one, you got one." And that was just still has a place hard place to land in me, you know? Yeah. That's really the kind of the one thing I brought back

with me that I couldn't really find a place for that to land. And still, it's still

seemed like years ago, another guy and another place. So, explained to me how this is happening, like where are you, where you're throwing these mortar down? There's no one. The place called Marble Mountain is outside Denang and it was a navy encampment on the beach. And I was in the radio shack and the band members who were in the perimeter, the perimeter boxes. I was like the movies. Radio came in. I was seeing movement over here,

check for friendlies. And they said, "No, no friendlies there." So, they said, "Hey, you want to throw some mortar down too?" And it was John Wayne time. I mean, the young kid, I didn't really understand what I was doing. I said, "Oh, yeah, let's fire a gun." So, I threw the mortar down about five or six mortar. Which I could have easily lost a hand. You know, if I mean, you kind of, that kind of thing. And then came in the next morning and said, "One of them had hit a VC."

“Wow. How long did that sit with you for? How long did that sit with you for?”

How long? I think it's still there. I mean, it doesn't. It's hard for me. To, you know, kind of face that I was responsible for the end of a life, even though it's distant and it's war and I didn't really have anything to do with it and didn't really know what I was doing. But, you know, as a kid and like I said, John Wayne, but it was um, it's pretty heavy when I, you know, when I think about the reality of that. Did you read any songs about that

experience? No, I wrote about it in my autobiography, but uh, it's not really, well, not yet, hasn't been so material. Yeah, because it seems like there's probably something there. Oh, yeah, there's definitely something there for sure. I have, I mean, not to to commercialize it, but I have a record, a record coming out that deals with, which probably could be elements from that of deals with getting older and, you know,

like my first album, working class dog was, was I was 29, 30, it was all about getting

“laid, you know, because that's all like I think so. And that's what you're right about. And”

but as you get older, there's not the things to think about. So there's, you know, getting older, you know, the thinking of death doesn't somewhere out there. And so you're right of, I are right about stuff that I think about. And that's what I've been thinking about. You know, sex is still in there, but not as much as it was when almost 29 of 30. Of course not.

Yeah. Well, it's kind of amazing because when you were young, and when you first

start on this musical journey, there were no 76 year old rock stars. It didn't exist. And it was thought to be a young man's game period. And when people got to be a certain age, they just stopped playing. And, you know, the Rolling Stones were like sort of the first to defy that. Yeah. And I remember in 88, they put out an album. And it was a big deal that got the Rolling Stones put out a new album. This is crazy. These guys are going to go on tour. This is crazy.

I know. And they just recently said, well, I don't know if I can do it anymore. Keith did, right? I know. Recently, now I found them at a circuit of the Americas. The racetrack out here was like

it was fucking incredible. Yeah. Nick has two trailers that are just jim equipment.

His two huge tractor trailers, and the inside of it is just a gym. That's awesome. And that guy works out every day just so he can keep doing it. Yeah. I mean, he's the the inspiration as far as how far you can push it because he's the canary in the coal mine. The last, I mean, they're the last album. He sounds incredible. He's kind of like he's 18. I mean, Pauli is now starting to, you know, I love Paul McCartney's. He was the guy I looked up to as a kid, you know,

and he's starting to get a little, you know, a little weaker. But Betty's still amazing. I mean, to me, he's one of the great rock voices. Oh, for sure. But Jagger is crazy. I mean, he still sounds amazing. Not just sounds the same, but when he's on stage, he's moving nonstop, nonstop and dancing and moving and singing with emotion. And it seems just like when I saw you perform Jesse's girl, like he's singing it like he still loves it, like he still appreciates

“experience and never got jaded by it all. Yeah, I think, I mean, I saw an interview recently with him,”

and he said, and the guy said, you know, do you feel different? Because, you know, you've been this all your life. Because, yeah, I feel different than other people because of it, you know, I feel separate from them. And I understand that there is a degree of that that just happens. Because it's not normal to get up in front of, you know, a thousand, a couple of thousand people and have them want to be there and to be with you and just say, you know, it's, I guess that's kind of the element of

everyone want to be a rock star is an actor. You're not an actor's done on film or whatever and then played, you know, but the rock star has it on record plus he's got a live, that live connection

“is I think what everybody kind of looks at in the end, as far as that's what I'd love to do,”

you have all those people go, yeah. Well, it's also that experience is such a positive experience

for everyone totally for you, for them. When I go to a live concert, I'm always amazed at how good

it feels like there's a, it's like you're on a drug, like you're feeling it, like it's like everyone is loving the music, the sound, the performers there, and the fact that they're actually right there, there's so much going on that it's like, you walk out, they're like, that was fucking awesome. I know, I feel like it's kind of taking the place of church, you know, where we go to commune with, with fellow, you know, humans and we're all, it's different those sports event,

because sports event is generally two sides, but when you're at a concert, everyone's pointing the same way. Also, it's all positive, like if your team loses, you don't leave their dejected, if you're there to see, you know, fill in the blank, whatever band, and you leave there, you're like, fuck that was awesome. Yeah, yeah, I, I say actually that our job is to give the audience 90 minutes, two hours of freedom from the crap that bothers them during the day,

yes. And it frees us too, you know, frees me when I don't think of all the shit that, you know, that the monkeys talk in my head, so it's mutual, you know, mutual good feeling. Yeah, 100% and it's also, it's like such a uniquely positive thing that you can give to people, and if you can perform to your fans every night, the amount of positivity you're spreading, and the amount they're receiving, and you're receiving is just what a unique life, because the average person

will never experience what you experience on a normal night. Yeah, that's probably true.

“I think they're different, very, you know, version of that. I mean, like you're, you know,”

you understand that, you get a lot of attention for what you do, you know, it's basically somewhere inside you going, someone's noticing me what I do. I'm not just, it's not just, you know, because we create art, art, we create art because we just have to, and art doesn't exist to be liked or ego wants it to be liked. And it's our ego, I think that that whole thing charges,

going to get into the business anyway. Right, and I think it feeds that, and I think it's the smart person who can try and put it into perspective, and not, you know, like certainly Mick Jagger has put it into perspective. He's certainly a time to put it into perspective, and his, you know, a huge

“experience. But I think Paul McCartney's the same way, it's very, it seems, you know, considering”

what he's done, he's amazingly grounded, I think. Yeah, for sure. I mean, just to be not completely insane when you're that famous for that many years, the most famous. I think everyone has to have an ego, and the ego kind of gets you to the dance, but if I think if you're objective about it, and if you're smart about it, you realize that like serving the ego is, uh, it's a fruitless effort, and there's, that's not the way to do it. No, I agree. I think the way to do it is to

eventually transfer from, I want all these people to like me to, I want to put all my energy into

whatever it is, the craft, whatever it is, and making an amazing. And don't think about anything

else, like, oh, they're going to love me for this. Right. That, I think that poisons the well.

“I think I agree, and I, and I think that's what I meant by, you know, art just is, if you just”

create art out of, you know, because you have to, because you need to, but a, but a ego that makes it want to be liked, you know, which is not, I don't mean that's a good thing, I just mean that's. It gets you to the dance. Yeah. There's no, without, you go without wanting that, and most, most people who start out in it, they start out from a place of being an outcast and feeling like they don't get enough attention. So I want me to. And then you decide, oh, this will get me way more

attention that I've ever had in my life, it'll fill that hole. Fill that hole, but it never does.

Never does. But I think once you become centered or grounded in this experience, then your focus should not be on you and attention. All of your energy should be into what you're doing, whether it's making songs or writing jokes and performing them, whatever it is. It's like, then it becomes, okay, now the new task with all this energy is just, let me do the best I can

“with whatever this thing is that I'm doing. Yeah. I agree. I think like the first, I always said”

the first couple of years when I went to first hit for me, I thought it was all about me. And then I realized it was all about the audience, all about the fans. Was Jesse's girl your first big hit? I had won when I first came over here in '72 from Australia. I had a song called "Speak to the Sky." That was, it got me the deal over here. It was the first hit solo hit I'd had in Australia. And it was like number 10, oh, I got the number 10 over here and it was a hit in

Canada. It was kind of a weird country, you know, holy roller kind of song. I wrote it from my mom. And I was very different than, you know, what I became known for, but it was, that was kind of the first hit. And then they kind of, they managed, I started getting picked up by teen magazines,

which I had never seen before. And Australia, they didn't have them, they had one music paper and

that was it. And they're asking me, you know, doing all, I'm doing all these interviews, music interviews. And I, I look at the, the finished article and it's like, you know, cut it up with Rick. You know, it is Rick to talk, Rick to talk to love. I'm just saying, this is not what we talked about. I talked about, you know, yeah, I come over here. I'm a songwriter. I know, I went up, you know, I always kind of stopped writing. What is this? So I started

you know, I, my ego got the better of me. And I started going, well, I'm, you know, I'm getting noticed in America. It's a big apple, you know. So I, like, should I kind of lean into this? I guess, you know, because I'm getting a little press. So I did for a little while, and it was going nowhere. I wasn't writing the music that, you know, I was writing songs about the guy, the committed suicide, writing songs about a woman that was trying to decide as she should leave her husband,

because he's cheating on her. And they're going, where's, you know, where is cherished? Where does somebody want to be wanted? We're giving them all this press, you know, when there's no hits here, I have to speak to this guy. So I eventually left my managers who were kind of pushing me in that direction, which is a drag, because I love one of the guys was Steve Bender, who actually I still talked to, who was the director of the other special, you know, the comeback special.

and you go, I love Steve, and you met Elvis on a plane? Yeah, yeah, going back to Australia,

because I was having trouble with, with getting a VC here, I had to prove I wasn't putting an American out of work, right? That was, that was the phrase. Who was President back then in America? Uh, what year was this? It was 71, 72, 73. So that was post-nixon. Was that Linda Johnson?

“Or was that Nixon? Why didn't Nixon get kicked out of here? I think, was it still Nixon?”

When was Watergate? Watergate was when I was over here, so 74. So it was next 70, yeah. Yeah, so we had the program, and we're taking all these, like, it was really where we're taking these scrapbooks, full of these, these crappy stories in the team magazine that didn't put it up with Rick. Yeah, look, here's the President. Look how much press I'm getting, you know, an American, this is not going to put an American out of work. Anyway, so I, uh, the plane stopped at Hawaii before

the kids had to refuel, because it couldn't go all the way to Australia back then. And they get on the plane, and I walked in and it was Elvis sitting, like, right there, I was in the back of the bus back then. Elvis sitting in the, in the first class, he looked great. He was skinny, jet black, hairy, skin looked great, uh, powder blue, suit on. Look, really, just, I got, I wasn't a fan,

“really back then, so I was more into the British invasion, everything. But he said, oh, that's Elvis.”

That's cool. So I go back there and, um, and I had a girlfriend, that's right, at the time,

who was a giant Elvis fan. So he did a thing I've never seen anybody do. Now when you get an

airplane, and you see it's a lab that got, like, I heard on the glasses, and they're like, they're looking down. He got up before the plane landed in Hawaii and walked back signing autographs and taking photos with all the, all the people in the plane. Wow. And we got to me, and I went, uh, hey, um, uh, steeping, my, my manager, yeah, because I know him and Steve got along really well on the, on the, on the, the other special, because it's a Colonel wanted it to be Elvis in a Christmas

sweater singing Christmas songs. And Steve walked into the dressing room one time and he's Elvis planned with these, but he, he's buddies, you know, and he was, I'm going to put that on film, which became the, you know, him jamming in the boxroom ring. And, uh, and the current's gone. Absolutely not. Absolutely not, but keeping it, you know, a family thing, and we, and so they butted heads like crazy. But Elvis was on Steve's side and for once, Elvis took, yeah, I want to do

this. You know, he didn't go with what the Colonel said. So, uh, I know he got along really well with Steve. So, anyway, I, I'd heard that before I met him and, uh, and I said, yeah, I was Steve. He's great guy. And I said, uh, would you sign this, uh, Allison, who was my girlfriend at the time. And he signed it, and I put, I had my little tape recorder that recorded all my songs, and then I put the autograph in there, and went through Australian customs, and they saw my tape recorder,

and said, oh, we're going to see what's in this. Might, might be pouring in here. We know it's you know, it's how they took it, and came back in the Elvis autograph was gone. They stole your Elvis autograph? These motherfuckers. Oh, no, don't trust them. They're bastards. Oh, back in the day, too, they didn't, they didn't have any cameras on them. No, I exactly right. Uh, I know. Dirty people. Uh, that must have been so wild. His relationship with the Colonel was so creepy.

That movie was fantastic. What, it Tom Hanks killed it as the Colonel? Mm-hmm. Well, it's just like what I don't know. Creepy relationship. And it's so common for whatever reason for these really talented people to have some person managing them. It's like fucking creepy

“character. Oh, let's, yeah. Yeah. And I think the people, the Beatles were, were rare in the”

respect that they had, uh, Epstein, Epstein, where the, however he pronounced his name, uh, Brian Epstein, that was, um, a smart guy and on the cusp of, like, pop really happening. And, and, and did good things with them, you know, cleaned him up, uh, told him, you know, bow and they stayed with the music or some music. But he was one of the really few that really, I don't think he knew what he was doing, but he had a good intent. And so he found ways to make, you know, do the right

thing. But I've never met anyone or read anything that the Colonel wasn't a friggin' jerk, you know?

Yeah, I just don't understand how Elvis had no one who was capable of separating him from the Colonel. Yeah. Well, if anyone could have stayed, Bender could, but, but he, I think him, you know, he felt secure around the Colonel. Yeah. Well, there's certain people that, especially because Elvis had a pill problem. Right. So it was probably, he was his enabler. Yeah. He was, you know,

How was the performance, you know, he was overweight. Yeah. I was great. Man, you were great.

One of my favorite performances of his was when he was really fat when he was singing in Vegas. And he sounds like he's mumbling and it's, and then what is the song that, do you remember the song, Jamie? We played it before. But once he starts, once he starts belting out the song, you're like,

“"My God, he's good." Oh, on the piano, he's on the piano. What is it? One chain melody?”

Yes. One chain melody. My God, that's good. Yeah. And you just realize, like, you see him, and the way he's talking, he's clearly highs a kite. Yeah. Something wrong. He's so fat. It's like so sweaty and he looks terrible. Like, "Oh, my God, poor Elvis, what's wrong with them?" And then he's, you hear him sing? He's seeing him sing. And it all goes away. You're like, "Who fucking cares? Who cares? My God, that's magic." That's magic. That is live performance.

Like, personified. There's something about the magic of an insanely talented person performing live. And that one Elvis song was that. And it came through all the drug you've seen

everything over. Yeah, it's pretty amazing. I mean, I know exactly the thing you're talking about.

Yeah, here it is. I can't play it. Yeah, we're getting harder and harder and harder.

“Yeah, we could get kicked off. You could do them, isn't it?”

It's we could copyright strikes and shit, you know, which is unfortunate, because like, look how fatty it is. Poor guy. And that's when he was performing. Was I was living in Vegas? Oh, I think it's probably, I think it might have been after that, but he was doing the Vegas things, right? To pay for the Colonel's gambling. Yeah, isn't that nuts? Wow. Well, I bet it also was probably easier for him to not have to go anywhere. Yeah, he didn't like playing.

I heard that. So, 1977. Wow. So that's right before he died, right? Didn't he die in like 78? When did he die? Yeah, I think that's uh, yeah, I know where I was when he died. Wait, what did I say that was? That was two months before he died.

“Two months before he died. I think that's how old was he like 40? 42 in that same. That's crazy.”

And look at you. Keep on trucking, Doc. What do you do to stay healthy? I work out every day or six days a week. I eat well. My dad died early. My dad died when he was we died twice, actually. The died when he was 51 and they brought him back. And he had an ulcer on his major artery and he's stomach. And he was worried about it and he thought it was cancer. And so he didn't want to go to the doctor. He didn't want to hear the bad news. You know, he thought

what you don't know, you know. Right. And he eventually, I was at home actually when he passed out and they took him into the hospital and he's in bed and he's but they also burst and he started bleeding, coming that blood coming out of her. Luckily, there was a doctor just down a couple of beds down. They rushed him into emergency. But he did die and his heart stopped and they took 15 minutes to get it going again. Oh my god. And he came back, he's a real and charged guy,

just really loving, really amazing person. He came back because he was basically a five-year-old.

And I remember sitting in the backyard trying to help him remember who was who in his life. And he go, so Michelle is married to George. Michelle is George's daughter. He's married to NAN. He go, okay, so NAN is a daughter. No, and it was just it was a hard break and trying to get him to remember his old friends. And so that stuck with me because he hadn't paid attention to it. And so I'm kind of the opposite now. I do pre-nouveau. I do blood draws. It's pre-nouveau.

Pre-nouveau was a body scan, MRI body scan. I mean, you were asking about, you know, just how it's changed. Yeah, but this is all part of it. There's knowing what is going on inside you, you know, not ignoring anything, which is not to say, you know, I won't sit off a curb and

Yeah, I have a blood draws since I get home, actually, just to keep an eye on things. And anyway, so he so he didn't pay attention. And that's that kind of state with me. And so I started focusing on what I ate. I started being aware that earlier maybe there's a normal that, you know, there is a use by a date, you know. Yeah. So I guess I started, I started running,

running just happened to be a new thing in the early 70s. So I started that. And I'd always

“loved running. There's the only thing I was good at at school was actually was running an English.”

So I started running and that kind of got me into the whole, well, if you're running, then you maybe miserable eat well. And then you want to get some upper body strength and work out. So I just started doing enough run all my life until about 15 years ago and my knees suddenly said, no, I'm not going to do that anymore. That's pretty good for something else. To get that long running is pretty incredible. Yeah, it was great. I did love running. I'd get like on the

tour bus side. We'd I'd get up to the tour bus and wherever we were, I'd just put on clothes, running clothes and start running around 20 minutes, one minute, 20 minutes back. Sometimes it's going to some pretty weird areas, you know, of a city. And you start worrying about who was around. But it was, you know, a great way to stay in shape. We actually went on, came off the road in more, better shape than we went on. We'd go to gyms and work out and I wasn't a big druggy or

or alcohol guy back then. And so it was, that was what I did in my time off. It was saying shape.

And watch what I eat and my wife's an amazing chef and we always eat real clean, organic and

and I have, you know, she turned me on to skin routine. Back when I was kind of too embarrassed to tell my band members that I took care of my skin, they'd call me a freak, you know. I thought skin was, you know, I thought, well, guys, skin, different from women's skin. You know, we got whiskers, if you don't need all that stuff. But skin is skin. And she's got me, my wife, she got me in my girlfriend and she got me into, you know, taking care of my skin. And I still do that. I still take care of my skin.

And I'm actually in a trial with a company called Beme that is really unique and I've been in the trial for four years with this stuff where they take a sample of yourselves from beyond your ear and they grow yourself and the growth serum, they pull the growth serum from that and put it into something that you put back on your face. And if you heard a skin medica has one, only they use a baby for skins. Baby for skins for new born for skins. Really?

“Yeah, that's what they get the growth factors from. But this is your own growth factor. So you're putting”

that back on your own body, back on your, you know, on your face. It's been pretty amazing. I would prefer your method. What's yeah? Yeah, I'm not into baby for skins on my face. I know they're doing it with different stem cells. They're doing it with what they do is they do micro needleing. Yeah. And so they kind of like micro needle your whole face and then they use exosomes and they also use something called mu cells, which is the latest and greatest version of it.

Right. But that's that's outside stuff. This is the famous stuff is your own cells, which is pretty great. You know, I think that's a different. I think the thing that's different is that with your own cells as you get older, they're just not as good, you know, and you think the younger ones work. Well, it's they certainly seem to like mu cells in particular, which is the newest iteration of stem cell technology. Seems to work much better than cells that they used to get

from either fat, these get it from your fat, right? Or these to get it from bone marrow. Yeah,

“I've had the bone marrow stem cell tunnel. I had that injected into my hips. Mm-hmm. What works?”

Yeah, it well, it definitely works. It just doesn't work as well. These mu cells. I mean,

there's people that are going over to Saudi Arabia and doing it in Dubai. That's right. It's always

just never here. I've gotten to a genocone, or the kind. Mm-hmm. I've done a genocone. Yeah. And because Colby used to have to go to Germany for it, right? Right. And now they've got by past the law somehow. And so I get that pretty regularly because it lasts a couple of years, but I'm due for it now in my my shoulders, because you know, it's lifting weights, you know,

happens. How long are you in town for? Leave an extra after this. Oh, okay. I was going to send you down. This is a great clinic that my friend owns in Austin called Ways to Well. And they do all the latest and greatest like state of the art, all the latest and greatest stem cell technology. They have hyperbaric chambers, red light therapy, all this. I mean, everything that's state of the art they have. Wow. Yeah. I wish I'd known that you had a bunch of injuries. Oh,

how'd you come in there? Oh, I'd make a trip back. Yeah, they did check that out. Uh, Russell Crow comes down all the time. He comes down specifically just for that. So, they do

“red light. Oh, everything. Hyperbaric. Yeah. I've done a hyperbaric. You should get one. You should”

get one in your house. It's a fucking game. Really? Yes. There was a study out of a university in Israel. They did these, they did the protocol is 60 sessions of 90 minutes over 90 days. And they show that it lengthens your telomeres. It's equivalent to a 20 year difference in biological age. I saw I read that to understand it. It feels different. Like when you do it, you feel better. I'd learn at home. Yes, I do. And if you have like a whoop strap or a or a ring or anything like that,

it'll show that you've had an incredible recovery. It'll like specifically show from one session,

you have an amazing recovery today. And it's specifically because of this hyper oxygen saturated environment of the hyperbaric chamber. I wonder if it helped me sleep. I have a trouble sleep and do you? Well, it's probably sleeping. Yeah. Why do you have trouble sleeping once a while? I don't know. I wake up every, you know, every couple of hours and having been able to sleep all the way through for quite a while, actually. Huh. This episode is sponsored by Better Help. Imagine

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“at betterhelp.com/JRE. That's BetterHEP.com/JRE. Do you ever do sauna before you go to bed?”

Do you do sauna at all? Do you do that? Uh, not a lot. No. Okay. That's another one. There was a study out of Finland that... Red light followed? No, no, no, no. Red light, yeah. The thing about Red light is like, I'm infrared. I don't think there's anything wrong with it. I think it's good for you. For sure. But there's not robust studies on it. Like there is with the dry sauna. So the finish have been using dry saunas forever and they did a study over 20 years

with quite a large sample group and they found that the people that use the sauna four times per week for 20 minutes had a 40% decrease in all cause mortality. 40% less strokes, cancer, heart attacks, everything. Wow. And it's because of heat shock proteins that your body develops when you're exposed to that. It's, uh, it also, it has an effect of increasing your endurance because it's essentially like static cardio because as you're sitting there in that heat, your heartbeat faster and it actually

literally increases your cardiovascular output. Wow. It's incredible. And one of the ways that they

use it is contrast therapy. So what they do is they'll go in the sauna for 20 minutes and then they usually have their saunas by a lake and they'll like go in the cold water of the lake and then back into the sauna. And so what I do is I have a cold plunge. So I have a cold plunge right next to my sauna and I go back and 34 degrees. Wow. And so I go back and forth. It seems cold, but I'm so used to it. It's not cold anymore. I mean, it is cold. No doubt about it. But I'm so used to it.

I just climb right in and it's nothing. In the beginning, I was like, I can't do this. This is crazy.

“I think the first time I did it, I did it for like a minute. I was like, this is this sucks so hard.”

I got to get out of this thing. And then, eventually, I got to the point where I do three minutes,

like it's nothing. Wow. Yeah. But if that's also incredible, not just for your body,

you don't want to do it after workout. So one of the things about after workout is it's not good. It's not terrible for you, but it's not good in that it decreases hypertrophy, which is like

exercise. So when you exercise and you break down your tissue, the strength comes because you're

“body heals after the exercise. So you blunt a little of that recovery by getting in the cold,”

right after exercise. Yeah. So the way I do it is I get in the cold before exercise.

So first thing in the morning, I hop in that thing every day. Yeah, I do three minutes. And then

after I do three minutes, then I start my workout. And the first thing I do is a series of mobility exercises. I usually do those right after I get out, I break outside, right after I get out, I start one. I do these like swings and twists and all these different things. These like golf swings. And it's all just loosening the body up and getting my heart rate up and warming my body up since it's been cooled down. And then I start my strength workout. So I do my workout after that.

And then after I'm done with my workout, then I get in this sauna. Wow. Yeah. It's awesome. You feel so much better. First of all, the just the cold when you get out of that cold, your endorphins are full lying. Your no-reppern efforts spikes, your dopamine spikes.

You feel fucking amazing. Yeah. It's worth it just for that. It's worth it just for the,

if you could sell a pill that makes you feel as good as I feel when I get out of that cold punch, that should be on every shelf without the cold punch. But it's available. You just do it. And also it, it gives you a certain amount of mental toughness. That's about it. Yeah. And like at that. Yeah. This is a plan of it. Perseverance. There's like, there's a thing where you don't want to do it, but you do it. And when you can just train your mind to just do things, you don't want to do

“routinely all the time. That's what I do with working effort. Yeah. I hate walking into a”

gym and I love walking out. Yes. Exactly. Everybody feels the same way. And that's so many people.

It's the daunting task is the first few steps. It's just so hard to get going. But once you get going,

then it's not hard at all. Yeah. I agree. I agree. It becomes the good habit. You know, rather than yes. And you make it, you know, I have a gym, I don't, I work, I've had a gym at home for a while, but I prefer going to a gym, so I work out, but I have a close buy, so I don't have an excuse, you know, to, oh, it's late. Right. Right. Right. Right. So yeah, I get, I get all that. I do. And being on stage when you said the endorphin hit is kind of, I get that on there too. It's for sure. Oh, for sure.

Like, wow. Yeah. The thing is, like, you can't live on that. Like, you can't perform every day, just to feel better. Well, you can't have a guess of your on tour, but it's nice to have that and your actual life as well as your performing life. I get it. Are you a supplement God? You take supplements? Yeah. I do, actually. I've been through a lot of different to ones, but right now, I'm doing, I am eight. Is it, I am eight? It's the one and, the one,

all in one. Okay. And I do, you know, create and before work out in the protein after. Creatine is actually good just for mental benefits. Creatine increases cognitive performance, and it's really good if you're tired. One of the studies that they've shown is that people that have sleep deficit, like if you sleep deprived, one of the very best things for performance mental performance is creatine. Uh-huh. Yeah. It says, well, take it before you work out.

“Oh, anyway. That's what it gets. It's good for just overall metabolic health, but”

taking it just as a regular part of your day, pre or postwork out doesn't matter. Just taking it as a regular part of your day will increase your mental performance. But like, if I'm flying and if I have to go somewhere and I'm on the road and I might be tired, I bring, I take it every day anyway, but I bring it with me everywhere. And like routinely, if I'm tired and I know I'm going to be tired, I take creatine, I can sore through. Really? Yeah. It doesn't feel right away.

It completely mitigates any of the sleep deficit brain fog. I take 10 milligrams, twice a day, or 10 grams or other twice a day. So I take 10 grams of the morning and I take 10 grams at 9. That's how I usually do it. Me? I eat mostly protein. My diet is more like 90% meat. That's mostly what I eat. Yeah, I eat meat and fermented vegetables. I'll fuck around and have a sandwich or a slice of pizza or some pasta. Like last night I had chicken parmesan. It was great.

But most of my diet, like 80% of the 90% is meat. Yeah. Which is chicken. That's off the, off the menu. Why? I had chickens when I was a kid. I named and then we ate them. I have chickens now,

wandered around the yard. I talked to them. I'm like, hey ladies, what do we do? Yeah, only my dad, every

“Sunday, and I was like a kid. Oh, I want to jump instead of that. So I mean, throw it and it would”

like flap around and then take them. And we had this laundry room and it throw it in the laundry room and like boil hot water in the laundry room to get the feathers would come out easier. And that smell, I walked into a group dinner somewhere and then we're having chicken and that smell came back to me about when I was about 30 and I have not been able to touch chicken ever since. Really? Wow. I have no problem eating chicken. Oh no, it'd be much easier for me. I eat turkey, which is weird,

because it's not much different, right? It's just a little stupider. But I just thought of chicken. I just can't. Well, I just can't. Do you think turkeys are stupider than chickens?

They're the one, not that the ones that will drown if they hold their look up at the rain and

rain will drown them. Really? Oh, they're stupid now. Well, they're very cautious and they have very good eyesight. I've turkey hunted before it's like, oh really? Oh, well, turkeys may be different from, you know, I mean, if they're on the wall, if they're wild, they're probably. Yeah. Well, there's a lot of them in my neighborhood, actually. But they see really

“well. You can't move at all if you're turkey hunting, you have to be very cautious. Wow.”

Yeah, they have some of the best eyesight of any wild animal. Really? Yeah. That's why you see guys and they turkey hunt, they have these crazy guilly suits where they're completely covered. And they sit with like they're back to a tree, they're like completely motionless. And then,

and they usually have like a fake turkey, like a turkey decoy sitting out there and they make noise.

And so they get rather and not go turkey hunting. If that's what I got to do, you'd probably like to go turkey hunting. I probably not go nuts. I'd like to sit there and go. Yeah, you have like a little box and I have this little box and it has like, it's almost like a fiddle. I don't think it's turkey nuts. Yeah, and you've done that. Yeah, I've only done it one. The thing about it is my thought was we hunted for a few days for one meal. And I'm like, I would rather go deer hunting or

elk hunting or a bunch of months and months of food. And, you know, and it's better food. Like, I'd rather way rather eat elk than I would turkey. It's not the wrong with wild turkey, and I certainly would do it again. It's just not what I prefer. I prefer mammals. I eat mammals.

“I think they're better for you. They're more nutrient dense. There's a lot more iron and a lot more”

amino acids and all the habitat kangaroo. I have had kangaroo, I think. I think I had it when I was in Australia. Let me make sure I did. No, I had, I've had an ostrich a bunch of times. I mean, I am you. I haven't had an e-mail. I don't think they-- I don't know if I had kangaroo. It was so long ago. The last time I was in Australia. Maybe I did. That's gamey. But I have some friends that live over there and they've had a bunch of times.

Oh, yes. There's an infestation. Australia. It's crazy how mammals have more camels in Australia now than there are in, and like, you know, any of the Arab states. But kangaroos for sure, and they had rabbit that infestations. They're bringing, except for the kangaroos. Everything's imported. You know, the kangaroos are like, you know, you've seen the videos among the golf course. Yeah. They come up and steer steer. It's you know, you're about to whack a ball.

It's written hilarious. Well, I've seen these videos of these fields where you have like thousands of kangaroos bouncing down these fields. That's a wild look. That's a wild. That's have so many wild animals in Australia. I didn't appreciate it when I lived there. But it's pretty freaky. They brought in Captain Cook who, you know, supposedly discovered Australia, brought back a platypus to England. They thought it was, they thought it's just together from three different

animals, because had a duck bill, a body like a beaver. No, a body like a, like, a, you know, you know, I guess like a beaver. I mean, web feet and a laid eggs. And they thought, this is not a real animal. Well, it doesn't seem like a real animal. Such a strange everything kills you on Australia. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Have a good buddy. My friend Adam Greentrue, he lives there. And it's, uh, uh, there's, there's so many weird things they've done in Australia

by bringing in invasive animals to cane toads. Yeah. They brought in a bunch of cats to deal with a bunch of different animals than the cats wanted to be on a native stuff. Something in for that. Yeah, as crazy. Yeah, the cane toads where they brought in to get rid of the varats in the, in the cane fields. And now they're the problem. Yeah. Like everywhere, uh, they did that with rabbits, rabbits can't, they English brought the rabbits in because they want to, you know,

percentage of the animals that are there are completely invasive. Yeah. The Asian water buffaloes, they have. Do they? Yeah, the North territory. Yeah. For the ones that kill you, all the local ones. Well, those water buffaloes would kill you too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But they're massive and they're

“everywhere. And, uh, you know, they, the only way they die is by people of hunting them. Yeah.”

Yeah. These are just, okay. I got a cola kangaroos too. I mean, no, I, I would, you'd often see a kangaroos line on the side of the road out in the bush because they get hit by a car with demolished your car. Oh, yeah. Some of them are huge. And you sent it to the guy defending his dog with the, yeah, we punched it. He's lucky that kangaroos didn't fuck him up. Oh, no, they, if they get the red kangaroos can stand on their tails and with their back legs, they can disembowl a guy.

Those are the big ones, right? Yeah. Some of those get like six feet tall. Yeah. What do they say? They're like, uh, deer that went to prison. That's a good way to describe it. Do you live in America now? What's that? You live in America now? Yeah. Yeah. I'm a citizen. I became a citizen bunch of years ago because I love this country and because I wanted to be available for a jury duty.

Have you done that yet? Yeah. I have actually always, I must have been weird for people.

You know, you're getting triathletes. Have you fucking room field? Oh, shit. Dude, I'm a fan. Please don't make me not guilty. Yeah, don't make me a fan. I didn't get selected because I was actually in a lawsuit at the time with this woman who claimed that I hit her, we called it butt gate. I'd hit her with my ass. Well, uh, because I go in the audience sometimes and she said, I'd hit her with my butt and she'd fallen and, like, heard a brain or something. So it was obviously

bullshit. But so I, they called me back twice to New Jersey to testify because I wasn't even going to go down, you know, pay this woman money to go while I was going to fight it. And how much did she want? Uh, she didn't have a figure because it didn't get that far. We, it was still

to find out of who would win the case first of all. And, uh, and so, um, yeah, it was like,

great, what was I talking about now? Totally lost. See, it's all this, but, yeah, shit. Oh, butt gate. This room is distracted. It's very distracted. It's very distracted. I love the whole you a full of thing, man. Anyway, I forget what I was talking about. And, um, you had to go back

“to go back and it was, it was, uh, uh, so that's how you got a jury duty. What's that? You were talking”

about jury duty. Yeah. Right. And, uh, oh, that's right. I was called up for jury. See, Kola region. You used to this room. I'm not used to this room too. Yeah. And, um, and I was called up for jury duty. I said, and they said, was there any reason you wouldn't, you would be, you know, not eligible for this. No, I said, oh, I just got called up. I mean, I just got in a lawsuit myself, and I think it's all bullshit. And they said, you're out of here. So it was great. It was good timing.

Yeah. Um, but no, that's not the reason I became a citizen. I make a, that's a joke. I just, I mean, I, uh, it's actually because, um, if I go first or if my wife goes first, uh, it gets

screwed by taxes. You mean, die first? Is that what you say? Yeah. Yeah. I don't always say good. I'm

always saying, you know, I'm going to go first. I don't want to be the one left. Oh, that's funny. Well, the last thing, I'm worried about if I was she goes first or I go first as taxes. Yeah.

“But no, I know. But I mean, no, that's not why we talk about, but that's why I became a citizen”

was for the tax thing, but yeah, no, it's what year was that when did you become a citizen? Um, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, and were you living over here the entire time? Yeah, yeah, I've been here in California too. I mean, except for the trips back, you know, to meet Elvis on the plane, I was, um, yeah, I've been here, you know, since 72 basically living here. Just for your career. Yeah. Well, I mean, this is my life, my family's here, my life friends are here, my life

is here. Now, um, yeah, I used to go back to Australia until my mom died. My mom lived until she was 96. So I'm hoping some of those genetics are in there. I am curious to see how long me can keep cracking because how long can you see how long Keith can keep. Right. That's the funny one, right? Because Keith is not doing any of the things that Mick is doing. He's still shredding. He was shredding. And drank a beer, smoking cigarettes, doing acid. I did a movie with, uh,

which we shall not name it. It was with, um, his girlfriend who was petty Hassan at the time. It was

And so Keith came down to the set to find out what was going on this Springfield guy and he's girlfriend. And he was, ah, he looked like fucking Dracula. There was like 83 or something. And then I got, we took photos and he looked so bizarre. And yet, here he is. Yep, here he's still cooking. Yeah, everyone's gone. Yeah, it's got to be this year. It'll be gone. No. And all these, you know, Bowie's gone. My god. That one hurt. Bowie gone. Yeah, that's enough. But you know, he was a

lifelong smoker and, uh, who's okay, you know, it's amazing. But I mean, it's got to something.

Got to be said for the love of what you do and that energy keeping you alive and the fact that they're still like I said, the circuit of the America show is over a hundred thousand people. I mean, they're still drawing giant crowd. Who is that? No, the stones. Yeah, the circuit of the America is the local race track. Okay. So circuit of the America is where they do formula once. It's huge racetrack. And they also have a giant theater out there, an amphitheater.

And then they do concerts out there where they have this massive concert venue. Like for huge acts like post-belong was there. It was like a hundred thousand M&M was there. It's, it's just a giant

performance theater. But seeing the stones there and seeing keep there. If he gets to do that all the time,

like just the energy from that is probably what's sustaining that. Absolutely. Yeah, I think

“it's really, really important for your longevity that you love what you do. Yeah, I think that”

has been the big driver for me. And I've seen that in other people and certainly in someone like, you know, Mick Jagger, he admits, you know, he still loves that the roar of the crowd. And a lot of, so many people do, I like, I have friends who did a job because the retirement was good. And I get that. But they don't love the job, you know, it's just something that they do. Yeah. You know, I'm, we're fortunate, you know, that we do something that we love.

Insanely fortunate. Yeah. And it's, I mean, there's a lot of luck. It really is a lot of luck. And I don't, I don't deny that. It's luck with everybody when they, they, they lucky enough to, don't you see a shooting star? Yes. Yes. You did. Oh, that's freaky. Sorry. I'm going to flash, but I should have told you. I should have told you. It does that. I've had a lot of people just go. What's going? Yeah. We have shooting stars on our ceiling. Yeah. That's freaky. Yeah.

“Yeah, I think it's a lot of luck. But it's also working really hard to make that luck. So that”

when, if luck does happen, you're ready for it. Exactly. And being able to capitalize on that luck. So, so many people get so terrified of the unknown and the possibility of success that the anxiety of whatever it is, they can't handle it. Yeah. And they'd rather just live a simple life and not have the pressure. Fear of success. Yeah. It's a real thing. It's a real thing. It's a real thing. Fear of success and maybe even more fear of failing to succeed when you're attempting to succeed.

You know, that cripples people. Yeah. Now I get that totally. Yeah. And it does hurt when things don't go your way. But it still drives me. You know, it's so, I mean, there's still things I want to do. And I think that's, you know, I mean, I love playing. But I do that. That's kind of my day job.

“You know, but the outside extracurricular self is this stuff. What do you do extracurricarily?”

I write, I've had a couple of novels out. I wrote, really. One autobiography. I'm writing a book on just, you know, what I've done with my life to, you know, be where I am, you know, health-wise and everything. Yeah, I do. And just, you know, there's all kinds of things on the side that you can do that. And I just, I just love to write. I mean, I consider myself a writer really before anything. I only started performing because no one would do my songs. I don't do them. Real? That's crazy.

We're in a band. If you go on YouTube and you look up "ZoT" and look up "L" on a Rigby. I was at guitar player in this band. It was like a three or four piece band. And now your range is

version of "L" on a Rigby. That was, to me now it sounds like black Sabbath, although I'd never

heard black Sabbath back then. But it's a lot of, like I did Billy Corgan's thing. And he was like focused on this, on this band because we were kind of like psychedelic before, as that was just starting, you know? Oh, there it is. Wow. And that Bee, he became a form little river band, actually,

But it was a great band. It was me. Look at you, dude. What year is this? 69, 70? Wow. Yeah, it was kind of very heavy. It was much heavier stuff than I'm doing now. Maybe not now that it was for, they'd been a pop band and they dressed in pink and I'd been in a band and my band split up because I got to sing the single and the bass player was so pissed off they didn't pick him that he broke the band up. So I was a free agent and they said, "Will you want to join us?" Because

I could start play is leaving. So I said, "Okay, so I wore the pink thing for a while," and I said, "This has got to go." He could deal with pink. Yeah. Oh, there's photos, it is horrible. But so I said, "I got this great idea. We'll get rid of the pink and we'll deal with photo of us, like looking over our shoulder, totally naked. Like, you know, our original pink suits. And we dump the pink thing. So we'll have a high contrast so they won't really see anything.

“But they printed it for the photo, like, full on. Oh, there we are. So what was up with the pink thing?”

Why? They had a theme called "Think Pink" "Think Zoot." And it was good for the little girls.

It was like, you know, oh, I was so pissed at that album. That was the first album. The only album we

did. And they cut out our heads to stick them. I was before a photo shop. And they miscut my hair and, like, a granny haircut. Like, it was horrible. What a horrible album cut. One of the worst ever made, I think. Well, at least you weren't wearing pink. So, but that was such a weird choice that that was a part of the theme. It was, yeah, it was this guy in Australia that thought it would be a good one. And it caught on for a while that lasted about six months. Yeah, six months. There was

about six months. Life of six months, and then everyone got sick of it. So I told, I said, we've got to lose that. So we had this photo taken and they printed it in full color of our

“bare asses and my mom lost her shit when she saw it. Oh, Mr. How could you do that? I said,”

no mom is supposed to be like, I contrast. You were supposed to see all the creases. You can still see it. It's still online. The photo's still online. I still signed it every now and then I get the sign one. Oh, that's funny. What you put our core fans bring you that? Yeah, that's funny. They must know how to pry bugs you, too. Oh, it's pretty bad. So I pushed them more, though, because Led Zeppelin was on the horizon. I pushed them more into the guitar. You know, I got play guitar

and I wanted to the guitar to be the kind of the center of the thing. So I pushed him into a much heavier thing. And this Elner Rigby was our first really big hit that we had over there that I arranged. You know, it was like, but I'd done it, done it, done it, done it, done it, done it, done it, done it, done it, done it, done it, done it, done it, kind of thing. And we actually got a deal.

“We had an EMI, we were interested in this over here. But I managed to kind of screw this”

by saying, oh, you still under contract here, which we weren't in Australia. Anyway, so we split up and I came over here and be went on to form a little river band. And the singer became a TV star in Australia. Oh, wow. So we all went on to other things, you know, but it was a guy, you've had such a great run, man. You've done so many different things. Yeah, I look back and I guess I have. I've

always sort of be a band guy, you know, and I had this when they split up. I said, I'll just join

another band, but I had this writer, woman writer who was a big fan and she said, no, you got to go solo. I said, I don't want to go solo and she's now you've got to, you've got to go solo. Why did she say that? I didn't know she just thought it was the next step for me. You know, she thought getting back in another band and being the guitar player was, she said, oh, she thought I had more to offer, you know, more going for me in a better career if I went solo. So I released this

speak to the sky song that I wrote from my mommy. No, it became a hit. No, that got me the deal over here and you know, when they were signing everybody in the 70s. So it was the weird time when you're the zoot time, 1969. So it's such a strange time, musically. It was changing pretty drastically.

Well, I mean, I always point to the difference between 59 and 69 is being like one of the most

radical changes in culture and music in all of human history. It's such a strange, if you go like from Buddy Holly to Jimmy Hendrix. I mean, is there a more radical transformation of rock and roll music than that time? Like there was something amazing. A lot of it was the drugs for sure. It was the whole psychedelic movement. It was the anti-war movement. It was, yeah, it was definitely

I mean, I think I think I know people think that it, I think it becomes a soundtrack of what's happening. I'd guess more that society drives what's happening in music and then they adopt what the music is because, you know, we got a tune, you know, and so on. But you're talking about 59 and you're talking

about 69 where the changes happen. Well, that 10-year period is just massive. It is just an incredible

transformation between the 50s and the 60s. Yeah, and that was considered kind of disposable, you know, while that's the kids do that. And by '69, '70, it was suddenly and had this more weight, you know, and people got older, and they were no almost adults, and they still liked it. Yes, well, it's also that music has had a shelf life that is above and beyond anything that came after it. Like stuff from, like there's a lot of rock and roll music from the 80s that just,

you know, it doesn't have the same feeling as like cashmere, you know what I mean? Like, if you go and listen to a whole lot of love, like to this day when a whole lot of love comes on, I'm like, "Oh, turn that up, turn that out." Because they were the originators of that. I mean, they were really pushed that whole. His idea to get the kind of the bluesy singer right now is the blues riffs, and that was all his idea, and it was so friggin' unique, and like you want to

“Terry Reed. You know, Terry, for me, for Terry Reed. No, he's great English singer. I think he's past now. I hope I'm not wrong”

and saying that because I hate it when they say, "Oh, very spring feels dead." You know, you look up someone, the first thing line that comes up on Google is, is so and so dead, right? Anybody, especially

when you get older. Yeah, yep, yep. And yeah, so it was amazing. Terry Reed had this great voice,

but he was going to actually tour with the stones. And Jimmy Page asked him if he'd be the singer and let's up, well, and he said, "I can, I got this good coming up with the stones." But I know this guy is just going down this club. And it was friggin' Robert Plant and John Bonham in the same band. Wow. Wow. Wow. And Jimmy Page walks in, he goes, "They might be the right ones." But, how amazing. I mean, Bonham, one of the, you know, just a unique feel. He wasn't just a drummer.

He was a just an incredible, he had sonnically, he was different. And the sound of his drums, what he did with him was, was unique. His feel was just so laid back, but so right on. And he's, it was just in the same band as Plant. And it was like, that's crazy. That is crazy. Like a little club band. And I, and you were saying, you know, music has more weight,

“had more certain music has more weight. And I think England is always amazed me, because this little”

tiny friggin' island, the Beatles, the Stones, Led Zeppelin, the Who, the Claps, yeah. I mean, well, Clapton actually was Canadian. Was he really? He's born in Canada. Oh, I thought he was ring. Or he had Canadian parents or something. But he, can you imagine that England? I bet he is, right? I like it when he, he's born there. Yes. Well, he's born in the UK. He's born in the UK and uh, Canadian parents, right? Let's see. Am I right on that? I'm right on that. I'm right on that,

aren't I? A, A, a, uh, born to Canadian soldier from October back. Anyway, but the little island that had all these amazing bands, incredible. And I think it's because everyone wanted to conquer Britain. The Romans, the, uh, they all, uh, uh, the Vikings, they all came in. The Germans, they all came

“in and spread their seed. First thing they did was, you know, have sex, where they came. And I think”

all that all that came together. And I think that's a lot of reason. There was so many great bands. Is it to, uh, a collection of all this genetic material from, you know, from Europe and all around the Romans? I mean, look what they did. Yeah. But it is interesting how Europe, if you look at it, the UK, uniquely contributed to music, to expose to all those other countries. Obviously, they're English speaking, which helps and how it spreads the word. But it's kind of amazing how

much of an impact they had in America. I mean, and how much, how long it didn't have an impact. You know, I mean, it was, it was, and it was because it was bottled up for so long. I think they did

explode. It's so much with the Beatles. It was never, it never crossed the Atlantic. It was always a

it was Australia. There was one Australian guy that had a hit when I was a kid in England and school, named Ralph Harris called, uh, time in Kangaroo Downsport, time in Kangaroo Downsport, time in Kangaroo. Downsport was horrible song, but it was a huge hit in England. And it was the only one that ever came over from Australia. And the same with England. It was really nothing that crossed over. And then suddenly Kennedy was killed. And America was looking away from America. They didn't want

“to look, I think, was a big part of the, with the Beatles. They didn't want to look at America”

right at that point. Suddenly, here were these four mop tops. And they came and smiled and sang

great music and took attention away from, you know, darkness. Well, they were probably the first

real super band, right? The Beatles? Yeah. That was just so huge that people would faint when they saw them and just scream when they saw them. They used to faint for Frank Sinatra. That's true. They used to faint for Mozart. I mean, they were, you know, they had groupies. It would pass out. There was, that they thought they were so hot. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And there were pop stars. You know, there were pop stars back then. And, um, but it wasn't on television. It was a, I mean,

radio internet stunned. Now you have it for your opinion. And now you can put it out there and

“welcome to this show. Yeah. That's what it is. Exactly. Yeah. It's just, um, it must have been very”

strange to be the first global super group like that. I just think, yeah. I don't think there's

it. I think Elvis was probably the first super famous individual, where, I mean, he got to a point. A lot first of all, I think that level of fame is almost unsustainable for a human being. I think it's just too crazy. I don't, I don't think it's manageable. And especially when there was no road map. And he was the first. Yeah. He was the first and then Michael Jackson was like, hold my beer. I'll show you the next level of this shit. Yeah. Michael Jackson took it to a place

that was totally totally agree. Yeah. Totally agree. Unbelievable. I mean, I'm just young, but the Jackson five and Beatles was starting off in 64 is crazy. Wow. Mark McCartney was 22 in Harrison was 21. Yeah. Wow. That's crazy. Do you think about what you were doing at 21? Wow. And Jackson five is same time. Wow. 64, the Jackson five. Wow. I guess they were meant to be here too.

I guess before they got famous, but still. Same time. Amazing. Yeah. I just saw, this is it.

This is it. This is it. Oh, the Michael Jackson five. I mean, he was preparing for the show. Yeah. It's pretty wild. It's just amazing. I mean, you see him just kind of going through it, like, you know, like it's nothing. I mean, he's cutting back, but he's still doing, you know, he knows what he's doing and just he's did seem kind of weak to me. I didn't know if he could sustain all of that by that point, but God, he was amazing. Well, I think the pressure in the

stress was probably just so overwhelming for him unbelievable. That guy couldn't go anywhere. He would get swarmed. He'd like like no one ever. People loved him in a way. He was so big that, I don't know if you're familiar with Boston radio, but they had a WC, I think it was WC, OZ, Rocco Boston. It was like the big Boston rock and roll station. And when Thrillard came out, it was such a big album. They go, look, the DJ goes, I know this isn't rock and roll, but this is

“so awesome. I'm going to play it anyway. And I think it was Billy Jean, they played. And I remember,”

like, thinking, this is crazy. They're playing this on the rock of Boston. I think this is nuts, but it was that big. It was that big. It transcended everything. Well, they wouldn't let him on MTV, right? They, they wouldn't play it. We don't play, we can't, you know, they were saying, come on, this is huge, you got to play it. Why would they playing with me? We don't play black artists. Really? Yeah, initially. And I forget it was one of the

Atlantic, someone at Atlantic Armored or you know, somebody called up and said, if you don't play this song and embellishing on the next, in the next 10 minutes, we're pulling all our artists. And they played it. And that was, that was it. That's crazy. Yeah. Because Thrillard was, obviously, the biggest music video of all time. I was a film. I mean, he got Rick Baker, the guy who did the American World off in London, the, you know, I know you're a horror fan. That wolf outside, by the way,

The reason why we have two of those is because Rick Baker saw the original one that Pat McGee did that we had back here and he said, the proportions were wrong. So Pat McGee, the guy who made

“that for me said, I'm going to make another one that has the right proportions. So Rick Baker saw that one?”

Yes, all of that. So Rick Baker came to my studio, did my podcast and said, that's great, but the legs are too long. The bodies too long. This is the wrong proportions. And Pat McGee went crazy, he's like, fuck. And so he made another one. And then the new one that he made those even better,

because it's all animal hair. Yeah, it's incredible. I'll show you the other one, the other one,

you're going to be the other one. The one that's not still good one. Right. It's in the other room. I bought, I still have both of them. But he saw it. I don't get rid of who I will. Yeah. I've been, I would give it to someone cool. But he did the special effects for thriller. When he turns into that cap monster thing, he turns in the girl's creams. I mean, then he says, oh, I'm be like, that fucking video was crazy. I remember everybody waiting for the

premiere. All my friends in high school, waiting around the TV for the premiere. It was incredible. There was nothing like it. Yeah. And you know, I mean, he was a superstar in a way that like, I don't think anybody's ever income close. Maybe Taylor Swift, like maybe she's in that sort of realm.

“Now. I mean, I think it's Elvis Beatles and Michael Jackson with a three that absolutely”

transcend. Yeah. I mean, you know, there's been people as famous, but they did something

so different. You know, a first of all, Elvis was Elvis. Yeah. And the Beatles, they wrote the best songs.

They were, you know, there's not many songs left to write now because the Beatles wrote them all. Right. And, you know, there's not such a different range of music. You know, you go from love, love me do to the works I cast the group. Oh, yeah. That's just, I mean, I don't even know if that's possible anymore. Because the audience is so fragmented now. Back then, it was, you know, your parents or you and your friends. So it was nothing in, you know, in between. There was no,

now it's like, well, if you're 13 years old, you like, you know, K-pop, if you're, you know, 15, 16. You're like, this, if you're like heavy stuff, then this, and everyone's, it's so fragmented. There's not like us against them anymore. Right. And it's been so, I don't know if it allows.

“I think Taylor Swift is actually the first one to really get that amount of gigantic following.”

And it seems to be a lot of like young girls still. Yes. But I mean, I like a lot of the songs. I think she's a great writer, lyrically. I think the girls are killing it in pop right now. I mean, you know, I miss rock and roll on the radio for sure. It's weird that rock rolls kind of faded.

What's that? It's weird that rock rolls, it's kind of faded. I never thought the guitar would kind

of become uncool. I thought once we got through disco, where it would just be like, we're in the back. And suddenly those AC, DC, and you go, oh, God, the guitar back, you know, it will never leave. It's left again. Unfortunately, but hopefully it'll, you know, I don't know if I'll come back. I think the window's open. What's that? The window is open. I think I still love the old music. Yeah, but there's, I mean, I hear great stuff from rock bands still, you know, but you don't hear it.

Unless someone sends it to you, really. Yeah. There's a specific rock, you know, I kind of know where you're here. You know, new food fighters, other than you certainly don't hear it on, you know, the AM stations anymore. Do you? Are there even AM stations? I know. I mean, I don't know what even plays. FM is what played real, played big music in this country. But I mean, there's no real radio presence anymore. As far, I don't know if any, my mechanic still listens to FM music. I know that because when he fixes my car, when I get it back, the radio's on the local FM rock station.

But it's all like there's no DJs anymore than if there is a DJ, they don't have control of the music anymore. Exactly right. And just his girl was a, was a product of the DJs. It wasn't released as a single really. Yeah. It was back when the DJs, if I liked a song, they, they play it. I like this song. It's put this on. And they started doing that with Jesse's girl and they started getting a lot of phones. And they called up the record, the record company said, you probably should put this out of the singles.

Get a lot of phones in the record company goes, "Oh, go." So he put it out. But it wasn't there at choice. I mean, it was, it was actually, on then, back then it was RCA was me and Elvis. That was pretty much it. Wow. It was all, all of the Elvis and, you know, what year was Jesse's girl?

Yeah, I was a freshman in high school. Yeah. I was 14 years old when that song. Oh my god, really?

Yeah. That's wild. Yeah. What was that like for you? That had to be insane. That song was so giant. Every girl in my high school was in love with you. It must have been nuts. Yeah. It was, it was, um, I mean, I, I was 29, 30 by the time that happened. 31 and I, and I was, I'd imagined it for so long because I'm very, I, one of the things I'd really believe in is, you know, what I'm sure you do to manifestation, believing, you know, visualization, seeing what

you want and, and committing to it. And, um, and I'd seen it so much so many times in my head that

“when I happened, I went, yeah, that's how it is. Okay. Really? So you expected it. Yeah, I always expected”

something. I knew something would happen. And I had faith, you know, I was, there was times then I was, because of the teen magazines, I get letters sometimes. I can't wait to come over and meet you and visit you in your mansion. And at the time I was living in a $180 a month apartment in a CD area of Hollywood, feeding TV, man dinners and fishing, you know, quarters out of my goofy piggy banks or I could go down and, you know, buy milk. Um, so, uh, yeah, I was, um, quite a dichotomy.

You might say. So when it first started happening, it started happening because of DJs. And

like how long was that before it became like a massive hit? It was quite a, quite a haul. It was actually a long time on the charts crawling up. And it was, uh, I thought I should have again, make it, you know, it's going so slow. Usually they go boom, boom, boom. Right. And it crawled and crawled and

“crawled and crawled. And I remember Joe, um, uh, gottory, who on sound city, which is why, one of the”

reasons that I happened to be in the, and the Dave Grove, uh, sound city documentary, he was because I used to hang out there all the time. And, um, and he came in with this cheap bottle of champagne, said, we just made number one. Wow. And it was, uh, yeah, it was a long time that, uh, that it climbed. And they weren't going to release it. I actually, uh, I took general hospital, because I didn't think they were going to release the album. That's right. I forgot you were on general hospital. You

want to fucking soap opera. I can still. And, uh, and it was, by the way, the biggest soap opera, well, it happened to me. Don't you? Luke and Dorothy was crazy. Yeah, it was the biggest soap operas ever got, and I just happened to be on it. That's summer. And it was, um, but I, I got, I, this guy called me up. I just, I hadn't worked as an actor in like nine months. And this guy called me up and it seemed me, uh, for, they were trying to do a male Charlie's angels. Thankfully,

“thankfully I didn't get that, and that didn't work out. But I got up on audition for it, right?”

And, and it didn't work out, but this guy obviously remembered me, and he, he called up my agent, who hadn't done a fucking thing for me in 12 months and said, uh, I remember this guy, springfield. We'd like to see him for this part on general hospital. And I said, general, the fucking soap opera, I wanted to do that. And he said, go on, just go on. And I, and I'm thinking, well, it's mostly old ladies ironing, and they have to do this. You can have any effect on my music

career, I guess, because they told, you know, it's apples and oranges. So I went up and I wasn't interested that interested, and I did the reading, and then he calls up and says, you got the part. And Keith Olson, who was a big producer at the time in who'd produced Jesse's girl, he'd done me a favor, because he was of, because the sounds city connection. He'd done a fleet with Mac, and, and Pat Benettar, and, um, um, foreigner, and a lot of big hits.

And so I said, I'll do a favor for, for Joe and all, and he actually cut together my very first album. He'd been a guy that cut all the clicks out of my first album where they punched me in the vocals. And, uh, and so he did that. And he said, you don't need to do this. This is a great record. You don't need to do this soap opera. And I said, I didn't know. Man, I've had four albums, and they've done nothing. So I don't know what this one's going to do. So I mean, I had no money.

I said, I'm going to take it for the money, because it was 500 bucks an episode.

It was like mind-blowing money to me back then. Wow. I've never seen regular money,

and I've never seen that much regular. That was a hell of a lot of money to me back in 1980. So I said, I'm going to take this show. So I took it. And, uh, and the record company was not releasing the album. I got it. It's going to happen again. And, you know, it's going to hit 100 and the top 100 and go away, because it was just going there with ballads on the, on the right.

And, uh, and that the whole DJ thing happened. And then, uh, you know, what was the single that they released? What's that? What were the singles that they released from that album? They released, I've done everything for you, actually, because Sammy was a known quantity, and I wasn't, you know, and they, and, um, it, uh, it didn't do that Sammy Hager? Yeah, Sammy. Yeah. That's right. Yeah, he wrote it and Keith had worked with Keith also had worked with Sammy on a bunch of his solo albums,

and he really liked the song. And he brought, and he said, I'll do two songs just Springfield. So he picked one of mine, just as he's grown up, I had my, my demos that I'd done on my little

four track, you know, and I, I just pissed that he didn't pick a second one. He said, I'm going to

bring him outside song, and I went off. Fuck. Because I know, I'm a writer. I wanted to do my songs. Right. And he brought this song in. I went, okay, you know, he must know what he's talking about. He's got a lot of hits and everything. So I did it, and it was, happened to be the right second song. It was absolutely the right second song. But, but that was the first one, and, and then I thought I was, you know, and then they picked Jesse's girl. So fortunately, it was the DJ's call,

and I'm, forever thankful for, for that. And I don't know what would happen if, you know, if they hadn't picked it, or if they were still like now, they're on, you know, you play these

“ten songs, and that's why we don't deviate. Well, it seems like now it's all sort of pre-programmed”

by executives. They just decide what is going to be pushed in what's going to be famous. Yeah, I mean, I don't really understand it, and I don't know if anybody does, why it's summer, I pushed in others aren't, but, well, there's no taste makers anymore. That's the thing, without DJ's without Wolf Man Jack, and these big DJ guys, he was awesome.

He was so good. I didn't interview with him with my first album.

Yeah, you got it. I don't know Rick. I don't, I said this was a song about a woman, a guy that commits suicide. Oh, I don't, I don't think so. Not in my radio station. He puts it on. And he, and he listened to it. And he ended up playing it. That was really great. We got she got along really well. And he would introduce me occasionally. It shows and things. He's a lovely guy. The funny is hell, man. Well, there were taste makers back then. Yeah, there were people that you

believed in that were DJs that were cool and could call it. Yeah, and they were kind of cool guys who liked cool things. Like that had personalities, people, you know, yeah. They had personalities, and they were interesting to listen to, and they would tell you why, like you're going to dig this and they

play it and you're like, "Ooh, what is this?" And they noticed it about the song. Yeah, they were

real music officials, and they were, you know, sort of like the Cisco and Ebert of music. Like, they would tell you what was cool and slowly but surely that all just completely went away.

“I can't name a DJ currently. And I think that's nuts. When I was a kid that you do every”

Marc Parento and all these different people and Charles Lockwood era, those are the guys in Boston. Yeah, everybody knew who they were. And it was a national thing and every city, they had your morning DJ guy, you know, and these morning channels. Yeah, and all these guys would play Kevin and Bean and L.A. All these guys would play cool music and they knew cool stuff. And it was like, you know, you learned about culture from these people pre-internet. They were the taste makers.

Yeah, that's trippy. I mean, I don't know how you fall in love with an artist anymore, you know, because, you know, it's a whole story. You get the record, you know, when it happened and you could, as it's playing, you read whose who's playing, what, who wrote what, and you read about them, and yeah, and I remember years ago I had a copy of the record, like I know doubt CD or something anyway. And this young girl, a daughter of a friend of mine, I said, "Oh, I'll get the no doubt CD,

“the new CD if you want to." Oh, no, it's okay. I download it. Well, you forgot the album cover and”

everything. You said, "No, it's okay. I just download it." No, it's weird. Yeah. Yeah. Why used to buy albums based on the cover? Yeah. I go to the record store and I like this. Oh, it's big. I know. It's impossible. But you had to go and see an album and I like, "Wow, this looks cool. Your cool artwork. Some of those that have no success." Whatever they've spelled it. Oh, they've been brilliant. I don't look at the, you know, I mean, the pink Floyd mine is still an epic image. Yeah. The still,

they still, you see it everywhere, you know. Well, when I was a kid, my uncle Vinny was a, he was an artist and he worked for Howard Marks advertising, which was a company that did all of the album covers for Kiss. Oh. And so, when I was a kid, I was really, no, it was like seven or something like that. I got to see, I got to go to his office with him and he would take me around and, you know,

I've ever seen in my life. He has no makeup on. This is not, this is back before Kiss had taken

a minute. It was, it was, it was so insane. Like he came into the office and everybody was like,

“what's up Ace? I was like, what? That's him. Because I was, God, I don't remember how old I was. I”

couldn't have been more than 10, but it was, it was so strange to me. I was like, this is crazy. I can't believe it's right there. This is not. Actually, I might have been a little older. I might be an 11 or 12. But either way, it was like blown away, but I couldn't believe it was actually meeting Ace Freely with no makeup on. But their advertisement company would do all the album covers.

And the album covers were a work of art. There's so much going on inside of them. You would open

up the albums, artwork inside. It was like, even like, when they had their solo albums, the albums themselves had an image of each individual band member printed on the album. Really? Yes. Like the album itself. Like when you look at the record, you saw the image of their faces on the record. It was

“great. I remember when they came out, I think this has got to be huge. I got the photo. Ace Freely”

actually came back to see us at a gig with doing, and I had a photo taken with him. And my drummer was a stunt, you know, the kiss with his Beatles. So I had, I was selling guitars at the time, like these, just these red Fernandez that we had a bunch off. So I, he had Ace Sina. He did, you know, the Ace card, and everything to, to Roger, rock on whatever Ace Freely. I copied it exactly onto another one, exactly like the time. And in the middle of the show, I got a guitar

tech brought it out to me and I smashed a shit out of my ass. Oh, Roger, lost his shirt. He got it all my, he thought it was a real one. Oh, that was, he played so many terrible prank songs that it was fucking worth it. That's hilarious. That's hilarious. So you kind of knew that eventually it was gonna hit, but when it did hit, what was the feeling like to go from being someone, you know, you'd been in pop magazines, but then all of a sudden you are the guy, like for a year or two,

whatever it was in the early 80s, you were so huge man. I mean, it was crazy. What was that feeling like? I was, I was, it was exciting. It drove me to write more and more. You know, I mean, I directed it in the performing and writing. I really don't know what else, you know, I didn't party a lot, you know. I mean, we did a little bit on the road, but it wasn't, I directed it into what I was

“doing. And it was exciting, you know, I remember getting on the fall with DJs and, oh yeah,”

the record's gonna be, it's going up and up and you know, it was all real exciting stuff, but it was kind of, like I said, I expected it, you know, and it was like, oh my god, this is so weird. It was like, yeah, about fucking time. I've been here for 10 years. That's crazy that you like totally labor comfortable with it and expected it. Yeah, it was, you know, there were, you know, like 4,000 fans around a police car trying to tip it over. I know, it was like, okay, this is what

it feels like. I got it so wild. It's so wild that you were like, okay, this is what, this happened. It was exciting, you know, I mean, I didn't lessen the excitement, but it was, uh, I prepared myself

for, you know, do you remember what it was like, the first time you started playing the first few

chords of Jesse's girl and the whole crowd knew what it was? Yeah, I do, actually, because I'd, I'd seen, uh, what we saw on these English bands in Australia because they all came to Australia. I saw the Stones twice in '65 and '66. I saw the Beatles in '64, and I saw the Kinks in like '65. I saw the Who in '65. And they started out with you really, Kinks started out there, no, no, no, no, no, no, did I, I know that audience, yeah, I said, "Oh, man, that is so fucking cool. I want to feel what that's like

to remember the first time you felt it?" And was that? You remember the first time you felt that? Yeah, and I would, we would, we would, we did the beat boys, uh, for the July show from the Queen Mary, and I was like the new artist. In Long Beach? On the middle, yeah, on Long Beach. It was the beat boys, three dog night, and I had Brian Wilson was still with the beat, it was, it'd come back with the beat boys, right? And, and I, we started, we were on there, start playing. And the audience went

"Not. Oh, and that's it!" And it was so weird, because we came on after after the show,

god, right? And I'm walking on stage, he's at the piano, and he goes, he follows me like this,

“I'm going, he was a rope and what he followed me for. He was a giant soap opera fan, him and his wife”

used to sit all, and what's in general, that's crazy. He's right, Wilson, with these mouth open, following me across the stage. That's when I'm doing the same thing, guys. That's Brian Wilson, called me fuck, wow. It was pretty, and, and the same thing with Samy Davis Jr., we did, I was done the first night of a hundred stars, and, and I'm walking, we're walking along the red carpet, and I feel someone tugging on my jacket. I look around, and Samy Davis Jr., hey man, loving on this show,

and I'm going, what the fuck! That was a stuff that was weird for me, was that kind of thing. And, like, I met Paul McCartney later, like, or maybe 2015 years ago, at a thing, and I went to see him, because I was a giant fan, and he said, "Oh, what are you here for?" Meaning, you know, he obviously knew who I was, and what was I coming to the event for, because everyone was

announcing a new project. I just said, "I'm here to see you." You know, so, and I never, no one

was taking photos, and I didn't realize it was time, and said, "I want to get a photo." So I said, "That'll be ten quid." I said, "No, I'm only joking, I'm only joking." So, we had a photo. It was one of my, I keep that photo. That's pretty cool, photo. Wow, that's awesome. And speaking of album covers, the Sergeant Pepper's cover was, was, "Oh, yeah." I have the,

“because, um, war the world, time machine, H.G. Wells, one of my favorite writers, right?”

Aloha loves sci-fi. Always love H.G. Wells. They're very political too, and he wrote some great, great, great novels and articles about the war and the possibility of atomic war, and I mean, he was really deep guy, and he was one of the cutouts, right? H.G. Wells, on the Sergeant Pepper's figure, thing, you know, all the cutouts, the heads on the front. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm. Yeah. And so I got that actual H.G. Wells. I got that actual cutout and Paul had signed it.

So I got one of my favorite writers and my favorite artists, and it's a really cool thing, not that my studio. Wow. The people don't understand today, the general hospital thing. General hospital was a soap opera, but it was a soap opera that transcended regular television show, somehow, and it was a film, the summer. Very strange. It was very strange, and it was a completely, it was a organic viral moment for whatever reason. No idea, still. Never happened again.

No, never happened. Only happened once. The most popular soap now has about a third of the

viewership that General Hospital had at the time, and it was, you know, like I was on it, I'm this one, and you're talking about, you know, new fame and all that kind of stuff. And I was, um, I was, uh, had a little house that I bought on BMI advances, because I had a record deal, and it was there don't do anymore. But, um, in Montrose in, in, in like a center, and I'm walking down the street one day. And, you know, nobody's looking at me. I'm going, yeah, I was walking

out in two weeks later, after being on the shelf for two weeks. I'm walking down the same street. People are gone. Isn't that, you know, I was like, so sudden that that was like, you know, if it was before MTV, so you had to have at least three albums out before a musician was recognized. So to get at that fast was, that was kind of odd, and I wasn't ready for that, for that amount of recognition. Well, it was just so strange. My whole family was watching General Hospital. I was

watching it. My sister was watching it. It was like, it was a television show, but it was a soap opera. And soap operas were like, housewives of watch. Yeah, it was, it was, you know, you're, yeah, you're cousin in the, we invented the tooth. It was like low production value, very shitty writing, bad acting, terrible writing, terrible writing, terrible acting, something about that Luke and Laura storyline for whatever reason caught the nation.

“Yeah. And how the captive? And I believe he raped her and then they became boyfriend and girlfriend.”

Is that really the story line? Yeah, that's, and Elizabeth Taylor was on the show too. And I got to do a scene a couple of scenes with her. And that was weird. I'm walking down the stairs as she's walking up. You know, and then I come going, like, stop. It was a bit terror. And we're walking,

Till they say cut. And she goes, this is an acting stupid.

“Antoni Giri actually did the best thing. He's doing the same with her in rehearsal. And, and he goes,”

"Oh my god, it's a little bit Taylor!" And he went, "Yeah, it's all we all wanted to say, right?"

But it's amazing that people who were fans of this show, it's, you know, crazy.

It was literally the biggest show in the country. Yeah. And it was a soap opera. And it was on "During the Day." And it was sucked. And the writing sucked. And the writing sucked. If you got through the scene, they printed it. I mean, I got really good, because they, they handed us a three-page scene once. I mean, character, I was working with, said, "We're shooting this in 20 minutes." So I got really good. I'd have the camera here,

and they'd have the words right, you know, coming down the, the teleprompter. Yeah, the teleprompter down the screen. And it read light. And I got good at looking at them while I was talking. And as soon as they went, as soon as I saw the light go off, I'd look at this, it's green to memorize the words for the next line and look back at them and go, "Yeah." You know, it was something, it wasn't about acting for me then. It was about line memorization.

But there were people on it, like my best friend, actually Doug Davis, and was on, young and the rest of us is Paul, I've seen his name. Sorry, Dougie. But anyway, Paul Drake. No, wait.

“Oh, there's me in Liz. Wow. Yeah, babe. Yeah, how are you? What do you think about the game?”

Oh, that was it. Isn't acting stupid? That's the scene. Wow. That's nuts. Is an acting stupid. That's so great. Oh, yeah. So he was really good. Doug Davis to play Paul Drake. I think that was he's not sure. Sorry, I forgot it. But he was great on it. You know, he would cry and get angry and it was really very, very good. And there are some great people that can do it. Not everybody can. And they picked, you know, a bit young, pretty people,

who are necessarily the best actors, but they have a presence, you know, and I remember walking by the phones went to me more was on the show. And they were take calls from everybody and listen to everything and walk by as a woman's going, oh, doesn't like to me more's voice. They would take calls from the audience. Yeah, I know what they thought. I'm going to call women and say, oh, we really like this guy or we don't like this guy or hate this storyline. They'd listen and

and glory and Monty was, she was the, oh, Tristan Moore passed away. Brian, for instance, and together. That shows Tristan Moore. He just passed away. He's a good, a cool guy.

He's never losty. He's never losty. And that's crazy. Wow. Lovely, lovely guy. Funny guy.

Is that the main range? Wow. Yeah, 1982. Wow. Trippy. Trippy. Yeah. That's amazing. I can't believe Elizabeth Taylor was doing a soap opera. That's so strange. Yeah, but they were fans. And it was a big show. And it was like, it was like, um, kind of like

“Baywatch. How Baywatch became this big cultural thing. And I remember reading Paul McCartney saying,”

yeah, my daughter's love Baywatch. I'm going, fuck that man. It's just so strange that it never happened again. That general hospital moment is like, I've a strange anomaly in culture. Totally was. Yeah. And it was a combination, probably, the characters. You know, I mean, it was kind of the best of the worst stories, you know. And, um, and, uh, there was, you know, a lot of characters, good characters on a plus, you know, they were aware. But at that point that I had a recording career,

you know, and they wanted me to sing on the show. And I, there it is. There it is. Wow.

And Tony took us around and we are an answer to them. 30 million viewers for Luke and Laura's wedding

on general hospital. I mean, what is even come close to that? Yeah. What has even come close to that in terms of soap operas? Is there anything even close? No. No. That was a golden age. Fucking bananas. Yeah. It's kind of insane. Yeah. And you too. Yeah. You still have no real explanation, you know. I don't know what time it was on. But I remember it was like right after high school. Yeah. They used to cancel, um, rearrange, uh, uh, classes in, and universities because

any of the people wouldn't show up. That's not. And I had no idea that these people, you know, they were the same people that come into concerts. Wow. And I had no idea that it would there

also has the number one song of the country? Yeah. I know I do. I don't know the show for like

“six weeks in glory of the producer who is really responsible for that, for this success of”

achievers so smart. Her and Tony used to get together and go over the scripts at night and, you know, they, that is something to do with it. And Nick, she came up and said, "I hear you're also a singer." I mean, yeah, I was not happening on this show. I've already gotten enough shit that I'm on the show. So, oh, they wanted you to sing on the show? Oh, gosh. Which I did. I did this kind of a, a call back the later on, way later on, you know,

after I'd left the show and then I came back for like the 50th anniversary or something and did.

But yeah, that when it was, you know, she wanted me to like go up there and sing

Jesse's girl is a doctor suddenly, you know, that, we'll make it work, you know. How weird must have been for those Luke and Laura actors, because like, no one had ever done that before, no, no, no soap opera had ever gotten that huge before and then after it was over, nothing. Yeah, the girl who played Laura was 21 and still lived at home. Wow. That's all. That's she was 21 and still lived at home at the time. It was a lot of work. Yeah. Wow,

“wasn't allowed to drink the bubbly because she was under age. How's she under age?”

Oh, not even 21. It says not yet. Not yet 21. Wow. Wow. Wow. That didn't stop him from getting drink and we got so drunk on the set one. We had a party. It was supposed to be this party and the professor from Gilligan's Island played my father. I'm going, wow, that's very cool. And we're sitting around this and we're supposed to be drinking and we all drank and it was so bad. They had to reshoot at the next day. You're all drunk. But you know,

everyone kind of, let's cut loose at the end of the day. Wow. Wow. That's nuts, man. Tell me about your writing, like the novels. Like what have you written novels about? They're very bizarre. They're, the ones that both about a plague that comes to the world and takes out like two-thirds of the people. Both of them are about that. Yeah, the other is a continuation of it. One's called the Magnificent of Vibration. The other one's called World On Fire.

And it's dark humor, very dark humor. Had you written before that? And I want your monography by myself. But you had you written any fiction?

“Yeah, as a kid, that was the only thing I was any good at. It's cool. It was, I got great marks”

to my essays. Nothing else was any, I was terrible at everything else. Math, geography, history, all that shit. So, you know, I was already doing what I was planning on doing anyway, so yeah, I started writing poems. And you know, and I songwriting to me, the lyrics are something I really take time, music just comes through with either is there or it isn't there. But the lyrics you have time to sit back and go, does that work? Where is the music? It's kind of instantaneous,

or it doesn't happen. So, yeah, I've always kind of written. And when did you write these novels?

I don't know. Can you tell me that, my friend? He don't remember. I don't know. It could have been the 90s could have been the 2000s. It was probably 2014 and 2021. What is it? 2014 is the first one, follow up 2021. Oh, so 2021, it's recent. Yeah, it was, yeah, fairly recent. Yeah. The first one was on the New York Times best seller. Wow. I signed them all the time, you know, fans bring them in that. But, yeah, I like writing, I like

writing something now, but it's just something that I do when I'm not writing songs, you know, I kind of gravitate towards, I've got to be doing something. And it was like I take a guitar to the beach to go to Borabora and I take a little guitar when I sit on the beach because I can't just sit on the beach. It feels like kind of wasted time. That's wild. So you just relax, but I got to have a guitar or I've got to be doing something either writing or, you know, whatever.

And when do you write, do you write long hand, do you write with it? No, I write in computer. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the thing, like I have, I have a bunch of beetle lyrics, handwritten beetle lyrics, right? And they don't exist anymore because they have one right side of the computer. Mm-hmm. I like, I have Jessie's girl, they have the original paper that I wrote,

somewhere or something. Really? Yeah. Oh, God, you should frame that. Yeah, I probably should.

“Yeah, I have all of us, all my songs, really. The ones that made it, the ones that didn't. I have”

them all. So I got interested in that. And I started collecting beetle lyrics because I love that moment of creation. How did you get those? Two, friend, I've a friend who trades, he's the guy that validates them all for crises and for, you know, so the bees and all the big auction houses. And he, you know, he knows where all the bodies are buried. So I collect stuff like you obviously do, you know, I have the Titanic number two lifeboat pluck. This is the

plaque that says SS Titanic on it, and that in a show now in Branson or somewhere, where we branded it out. Wow. I loved collecting stuff. I have robots and all 50s robots and well, there's something about collecting something like beetles lyrics that you know were written by the beetles. They're hand-touched that paper and wrote that down. No, it's a huge fan. It's

very powerful stuff. The coolest one I have is Lucien the Skywood Diamonds. Wow. They both

have written on it, which it didn't happen much, you know, towards, they mostly they wrote their own songs. You know, but they both got their hand on this, and there's even Wednesday morning at nine o'clock, written at the bottom, too. First line from, she's leaving home. But Paul did a drawing of the, the Sergeant Pepper cover when he still pictured it as them in Victorian, you know, with curtains. He, that was his original idea, and there's a drawing of that, and there's a drawing

of a rock and horse people, which is really good, because they're really good artists, him and John, and that's really cool. It's got a lot of mojo, you know, and it looks like there's

time been spent on it. What was the origin Lucien the Skywood Diamonds? Wasn't that supposedly

about LSD? No, no, it's not. There was a room that was painting that actually Dave Gilmore owns. David Gilmore owns the painting that Julian Lennon did of a painting that a girl, Lucy, his friend at school who recently passed away, but he brought at home and his dad said, "What's that?" And Julian said, "Does Lucy in the Skywood Diamonds?" And John took that, and it just happened to be almost, you know, an anagram for LSD, which is crazy, but it's one of the millions of

things that happened in the Beatles' lives that you went, that didn't really happen. They had to manufacture that. But no, it really friggin happened, and that's part of what made them, you know, almost like angels, that it was just so supposed to be. And that was one of the things, and it was better everyone thought it was LSD, because Lucy in the Skywood Diamonds. Right, right, right. But it was really about the painting that Julian did, and John just took it, you know,

he was doing drugs at the time, but he really loved Lewis Carroll, and it's really what it is, Lewis Carroll, is the lyrics or Lewis Carroll. Wow, that's crazy, but Lewis Carroll, who wrote

“Allison Wonderland, and Allison Wonderland was also about LSD. I don't know, I mean, I think there”

is a lot of influence that caterpillar was probably high, you know, and I don't know how much how aware that they all were, then, but I know that the Beatles, John loved him, and loved his writing, and he would, I mean, I'm sure he had a wink in there somewhere, that would be dope, you know, but... Well, there was all these substances. Where's that? There was all these substances. Yeah, yeah, sure. Oh, he was, yeah, there were definitely, you know, high at the time,

and high a lot of the time. Yeah. But they had that talent, and you know, a lot of people think that y'all are at the drugs, but it wasn't, it was, they had the talent, but the drugs just maybe took that talent somewhere that they maybe wouldn't have gone, if they hadn't had done the drugs, but it wasn't drugs that make people creative. It's what they have inside them, that the drug, you know, freeze at whatever the resistance is. It was the talent, and there's also the volume.

Do you read Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers? No. Well, one of the things it talks about, it's just talks about, it's great book, and one of the things in the book it talks about why something became extraordinary, and he talks about the Beatles, and with the Beatles did, they were in Hamburg,

“and they got a gig. I think it was at a strip club, and so they were like playing every night,”

like five, six hours a night, six days a week, and they were constantly playing. And so they

what the fuck happened to you guys? They were just tight. They were just so locked in, and so good, that that's when they really became the Beatles, and it's just volume. It's where he came up with the concept of 10,000 hours to achieve mastery in something. Right. You know, I've heard that,

I mean, they're a great example of that. It's just an incredible amount of volume of work.

It's like Robert Johnson, too. He was an okay guitar player, and he went away like for a year, or something that came back, and suddenly he was this amazing slide player, you know, crossroads. Yeah. So that's where everybody thought he sold a soul in the devil. Yeah. Yeah. And he just happened, you know, but, but they, I don't really, I don't know if they realized they were a wood shedding for the great moment, but that's absolutely what they were doing.

“I think they were just doing it to stay alive. Yeah. It wasn't paying much. It was just, I mean,”

they're working at a strip club. Paul, yeah. One of the greatest bass players of all time, he said, I got lumbered with the bass, because he was a guitar player, and Stuart Sutcliffe was the bass player, right? And he fell in love with Astrid, what's her name? He gave them the haircuts, and he said, I'm leaving the band, and they said, and Johnson on a plan, bass, and George said, I'm not playing bass, so Paul said, I guess I'll play it. So he got the beetle found the beetle

bass in Germany, and there's a photo where you can see it, and they're still in his case up against the wall, and where they're playing, and he's playing the piano in the strip club, and what he became, you know, with that is just frequently unbelievable. Incredible. Yeah, it's just, uh, it's just, so strange how after the fact, you go back and look back on all the different events that had to take place in order for them to become the beetles, and many bands would become what they became.

“It's so, it's just so fascinating to me to see that. I think everyone's life has that, you know,”

you can look back, like I look at my marriage, I've been married for 42 years now, and, you know, I was in Australia, and my wife was over here in Beloit, Wisconsin, and I went to England, and she moved to California, and I'm back to Australia, and she moved back to Beloit, and I came over here, and I happened to hook up with a manager at Sound City, and the same time she happened to meet this woman, who she liked her accent, she was an English woman, and she became friends, and she

was at Sound City, so Barbara came in to work at Sound City, and I met her there, and, you know, there's all these, I mean, to happen in everybody's life, and it's just amazing that we have

successful lives. It all seems like it's meant to be, but I always wonder if that's like,

just, you're looking back, and you're looking for a pattern why make sense.

“He's just tracing what happened by happenstance, you know, but that ended up in a good way, you know?”

Well, it seems like whenever anyone has had an extraordinary life, there's always this fortuitous series of events that take place, that enable this, to just become one it became. Yeah, and I think, you know, you said a lot of it's luck, but the luck happens when you stay in the game, and I think that is the core of it, is staying in the game, so that, you know, when the moment's happened, that you are ready. It's certainly not just luck.

No, it's certainly a lot of other options. You've got to be ready, I mean, you've got to have your craft down, you've got to be competent, you've got to have something to offer. And you've got to be able to believe in yourself enough to perform when the moment is there, and that's this daunting for a lot of people. Yeah, anxiety and emotions. Very, I play with my back to the audience for the first three months of being in the first band I was

ever really? Why? I got nervous. I was a blues band. I mean, I kind of raised my guitar playing was based on, you know, because a clapped and all those guys was based on a lot of the blues players, BB King, and you know, all the early players, and I was in a blues band, and I was like 15, and they were like 25. And one of them had been in, it was a really rough group, one of them had been in prison, and there was one guy that had been in prison a couple of times, and then all the kind of

guys that would go to pubs in the weekend and go out and fight, which was an Australian tradition. It's the only place that has ever been where you go into the men's restroom, and there's a

sign says, "This is what you do if your body gets into a fight." I could never be bad to remember.

So I play, and I was, you know, I was in shy. They were all like, seem like adults to me. And they went to my mom and they said, "Why is Richard play with these back to the audience?" My mom goes, "Oh, it's probably shy!"

Do you remember the first day you turned around?

“No, I wish I did, but it must have been a girl or something that I was like, "I'm sure it was."”

Wow. I was the last virgin in the band to be in the youngest, and believed me, did they give me shit because of that? I'm sure. This man, you've had a hell of a life. It's just awesome to see you out there kicking ass. It really is. Like, that video of you that went viral with your shirt off singing Jesse's girl, like, "That pump me up." I watched how I was like, "Fuck, yeah, good for him."

Like, "Oh, good he looks." Like, this kind of crazy. I just love, I love first of all, that the passion that you had for singing that song was really like, it was a new song. And the fact that you've been, I mean, even singing that song for how many fucking years, man, 40, what? 46 years? Yeah, that's closer to the, when that was released, it was written, it was closer to the end of World

War II than it is now. That's crazy. And she is probably in early late 60s.

“Now. Wow. The girl I wrote about. Who is the girl that you wrote about?”

Well, I never learned our names. She was at a stained glass class. It was one of those moments

where I was between record deals. And I always wanted to do things with my hand. I would make things out of clay, I was making mirrors out of clay, like sci-fi things, and selling them at the local, you know, swamp meat. And I started thinking about stained glass, and I thought, "I could support my family doing stained glass," which was bullshit. But so I went to this class, and there was this girl, and she was hot. Yeah, it's just another girl that I found hot,

and she had a boyfriend there, and I would try and chat with. I never really had chat with girls.

When the reasons the guitar really helped there, I was never could go up and go, "Hey, babe." You know, there was not that, there was never that guy. So, um, and I tried to talk to her, she had nothing, didn't want anything to do with me, because she had a boyfriend. So I went home and wrote about her, and this song, his name is Gary. And I tried Gary and didn't sing. So I tried Randy. Yeah, and that didn't sing right either. So I ended up with Jesse, and that seemed to work, so.

Wow. But yes, he, um, Oprah went looking for her, actually. She was looking for the women behind the songs, and they found this stained glass guy, and he died two years before, and they thrown all the paperwork out of a year after that. So they could have found it, they missed her band. But I'd be, be wild to me. I'd, I don't know if I'd recognize her. Now,

“I remember her, her, what she looked like, but, um, I wonder if she loved that song.”

No, yeah, I mean, she, that no idea. She has no idea it was about us. No one's ever come up and said, that was me, right? That's crazy. Wow. Listen, man. There's been awesome meetings. Yeah, I really enjoyed this very much. Thank you very much. And thanks for everything. Congratulations. Thank you. And you're, you're a bad mother fucker. All right. Go see Rick Springfield in concert, ladies and gentlemen. He's still out there kicking

ass. I love it. All right. Thank you very much. Bye, everybody.