Slim Jim Phantom | The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan

I just don't all imagine me being in a telecopter pilot.

“I couldn't imagine doing that, but the drums I could, I could be like...”

Dramors are a special breed. It wasn't pome, it wasn't new way, it wasn't metal, it wasn't southern fried rock, it wasn't anything, it was too weird, really. You guys kind of created this foundation for other lovers of rockability, to kind of find a welcome within the alternative space. There was wacky, I would bring my friends home. I had a pool table and a pool of the song and the next day for hangover, you know.

And I was just my house was a nice, you know, kind of a respectable party house.

Slim Jim Phantom, thank you for being on my show, was a real honor.

Let's start with Mousie Alexander, I found this in a intriguing way to jump into your musical journey. Mousie Alexander was a jazz drummer, and his fame came, he had played with Benny Goodman, Orchestra, he'd also play with Dina Washington, and where we grew up, Mousie Pickle on Island, he was a drumteacher. He lived like four or five train stops away, Mousie Pickle, Mousie Pickle Park, see if he had built more water, everybody knows it. He was in, I think, Valley Stream, so just like a few blocks away, and I heard he was a drumteacher from the back of a newspaper drum lessons, and he sounded cool.

“So I used to take the train over to his place, and he was, you have to remember, this is Long Island,”

1976, '77, and he was this big, hence his nickname, Mousie, and he had a go-ty, and a jazz patch, and he wore a beret, and a scarf, and he said, "Hep-cat," and he said, "Daddy, yo," and he really spoke that way, and he was a drumteacher. And I had taken lessons and learned a little bit before that, but when I met him, he was like, "Get straight into the room." And I said, "Yeah, but I can play this drumteacher, Jack, do good job." Yeah, he started from square one, had a sit, had a hope of sticks. Did you learn to play traditional? Yeah, he didn't really care about that, but like, I kind of like to go back and forth.

Yeah, there's one spin move I know, had to get from here to there, so it's the one move I know. So, on like, slow, so I don't think I do. But he was very proper guy, and then he would tell stories about the tea travel to the Far East, with Dino Washington. And like me, it was almost like it was proof. There was a guy that I know, that's cool, that got at it here. I had the same thing with my pop. I knew somebody who had been successful. Yeah, in the Buckinghams. Okay. Yeah. They were from Chicago, where you're from Chicago.

Yeah, that's my dad's friend. So it was like, I knew somebody who'd been there. Yeah. And I understand what you're talking about, it's like that feeling, like, "Well, if I know this guy, it's not as far away as it seems." Through television or whatever. Yeah. So that was one of my, and then I just loved the guy. Yeah. You know, I studied with him a couple of three years, and that was when we were,

you know, like it could have gone either way. If you found some future who was uninterested, or Yeah. But where I live, my father's a fireman, and my mother was, "Oh, maker, 100% Irish." If you were going to do something, like play the drums, and by that by the time I had, I'd now see I proven that I wasn't just in this for two seconds, and I had taken lessons, I had to, had a really cheap drum kit, and then I paid half of my father,

chipped him to get a nice, slinger-land drum kit, like a year before taking lessons. That I, like, proved that I was serious about it. Yeah. So, because taking lessons from him, back then,

the thing was always like, "This isn't a, there's no future in this." That was, that was,

nowadays, kids started 12, and they're going to school a rock. Back then, it was like,

“get a real job, and exactly. But what was it about? Because I think you traveled another”

musical instrument. But what was it about the drums that was initially attracted to you? Because you know, drummers are a special breed. Yes, positively. I think that, for me, I can't say it was ring-o, although I'd like to say that, but it, well, I'm a little bit too young for that. But for me, when I would see midnight special, or Dawn Kirsten's rock concert, or American bandstand, or sold, uh, sold town, or whatever it was that had music in it. I saw

the guitar player, I saw the keyboard player, so the singer, and I thought, "I can't do that." I saw the drummer, and I thought, you know, "I think I can probably do that." And then you experiment with sticks in the pots and pans, and you got a practice pad for five bucks from the local music store, and I could kind of do it. I could go, follow along to it a

like, there was no way that I could do that. Might as well imagine me being a helicopter pilot,

because I couldn't imagine doing that. Yeah. But the drums I could, I could relate. I seen where you talked about Elvis at Sun, that was kind of the record that sort of turned you on, but it's just a slightly different tangent pattern. What was it about rock ability, or the raw power of rock ability that was attractive to you? Because it's, you know, I want to say it's an acquired taste, but it's not for everybody. Sure. The thing about rock ability that got me

was that it seemed to be a built-in life. Like when you got turned on to this, and like we were unaware of it, it wasn't like we had a new about it, younger, maybe they did an England or

something, but like for us in 1970, eight on the island, it just wasn't on your trance, you know,

there was an old East Asian one on one point one, CBSFM, like that would have played Blueberry Hill, or Johnny B. Good, or maybe Blue Swade Shoes, that was good, you liked it, but it wasn't,

“I didn't know when it was. Yeah. And that's why Elvis came in, I discovered it. But, and then you”

find Gene Vincent in the blue caps, and it's a whole gang of these guys who were pink pants with diamonds down the side, but would also like kick your ass. Yeah. And you could just tell. Yeah. And it to me it seemed like a whole cool thing to belong to, and the more I found out about it, the more I just fell in love with it. Yeah, like there's a leopard skin couch involved in this thing, and it's in your house, and there's a 50s car, and to me it just was like a snowball for the whole

lifestyle of it. So, and I met two of the guys from school who were, I don't know if, I don't know things are already written in the stars, you know, you're supposed, these two are supposed to be your neighbors, you're supposed to be John and Paul are supposed to be on the same bus, you know, like that type of thing. When I got a friend George, I got a friend Lee, he could all neighborhood guys, who did this and fell in love with it, and then we became our own gang.

We were three guys in 1778 in a sea of, you know, did you go into the style part of it immediately? Just about. There was a brief couple of months before I, and I liked the music, and I started to wear the clothes a little bit, but then when I got turned on to Elvis Presley in the sun years, and I saw the, you know, the Hillbilly cat photograph, and I just said, I just have to look like this, even if I continue like I was I worked in a liquor store,

and I was going to be going to college because I graduated from high school, you're early, so, so I was working, taking lessons, but regardless of what I ever did in life, I was going to look like this. I was going to wear a pink pink pants with diamonds down the side,

“have my hair up, black and white shoes, and that's what I was going to, regardless of anything else.”

I just loved this whole mythical thing, and we're in law Island, and we're imagining what life was like a Memphis for Elvis Presley, so we tried to almost live that way. Okay. Can you, can you elaborate? I don't know that a little bit, because that, that intrigues me about, I love subculture, and I, I don't, yes, sub does not belong below. It just means where people go off on the tangent. I just love it. I think it's happily, the alternate, happily. So at that point, we were musician guys,

Brian Setser was always like legendary in the New York air. He was like the greatest guitar player

since we was seven years. He really is a subman. I will say, just as a guitar player. Since we were seven years old, the jazz teacher of the local music store where all started, he was like, you know, great, he just makes it look really easy. Yeah, he makes it look really easy. So, but he found out about rockability, and he started doing this by himself. Yeah, with the rhythm box, just by himself, because he had a band that was probably going to, at a record deal,

“they did Max's and CBGBs and all that. And Lee Rocker, who's, again, is very important. He was two”

years older than us, which now doesn't matter, but at the time, that's he was like, that's it, they've seen. I'm 15, 17, I'm 17, he's 19, currently. So, and Lee Rocker and I had a band that was kind of new wavy, yeah, 1978 again. We had a girl singer. We loved Steely Dan, but we loved Fleetwood Mac. What could have been, Mr. was the lead singer. Yeah. Had been a guitar was from Mania and our neighborhood, right? So, so it was like, we would do in that and Brian's thing was almost like the

Smith's early, very young, like ahead of the curve. Yeah. So, but we all found this rockability music in the style, and we just liked it. He was the guy in his new wave band that looked rockability Lee and I were the guy in our band that was playing like new wave rocks that looked

and he could really, let's say CBG music, Maxis Kennedy, once a month kind of thing, they were

afraid that he could dilute the draw. And so we didn't really play that much. And when we found the three of us into the same music. Yeah. And and a big one is the Buddy Holly Story come out that movie with Gary Moosie, which was, you know, beautiful around that time. So it was a little bit on the radar, American graffiti got re-assued or something, so it was a little bit on the back. Yeah, so after that, so they had the Jerry Loose movie was not that long after that.

So the three of us started, well, why don't we just go down to the bar on the corner or that

“bar over there? Or I think they have bands in that place over Belmore trains. So we just found,”

not established rock clubs, because we were a little bit too weird for that. It wasn't

poem, it wasn't new wave, it wasn't metal, it wasn't southern fried rock, it wasn't anything,

it was too weird, really. So we had to find our own bars to play in. And we just liked doing it, because we would come home and any cock and made two albums. Yeah. So we would learn all the songs on that. And so we started to make money at it. We were getting 18 years old, making five, six, seven, hundred bucks a week, because every gig would pay two, three, hundred bucks. We split the money in. We had five gigs a week, four sets a night, and we were just making money from playing

this. So we imagined how Elvis Presley lived in Memphis. We drive to the gigs of my old Pontiac with the bass, like sticking out the back, couldn't roll the window all the way up. We had the drum, with the tie down, we had a grudge guitar and an amp, and like we used to, and a little PA, we used to bring it to all these gaps. Wow. So eventually I was getting home, so late, four, five in the morning, every night, because we would play until two, and then hang out with you

to get paid. By the time you get home was very late. My parents asked me a dog with this thing, we could walk around my father knew. So I Brian and I got a little flat in Massapiqua. That's the size of this you and I were sitting right now. And we slept late. We woke up. We went to thrift stores, tried to find cool threads. We went to a diner and had like breakfast at three clock in the afternoon. We went to a few record stores that we knew that would have then old.

“Yeah. And a lot of the records were important, because they had gone away. Gene Vincent,”

Johnny Burnett, Eddie, a lot of them used to stay to live in Europe where it kind of died. So we're buying it on an import. I'm paying 20 bucks for a Gene Vincent record. So as we were very little to start with as far as that, we had five records all straight, as we had maybe five albums. Buddy Holly, Ricky Nelson, a Gene Vincent, Johnny Burnett, was it Scottie Morgan played with Ricky Nelson at this? Yes. James Burton played with Ricky Nelson.

Oh, that's might be a good idea. Scotty with with with with Elvis. So we were just trying to live how we thought Elvis Presley lived with Scotty and Bill like we're going to play, you know, like avoiding a real life. Yeah. Anyway, and like we were managing for about a year or so and and we did very well at it. Yeah. We were like local accentrics and it was hard to go out, go out into the real without getting a hassle. You had to get a little bit tougher. I'm a musician.

“I am. I'm not. Let me send you there because I am curious. So there's the real life part where”

you guys are in the gimmick as we would say wrestling. Yeah. Yeah. So you're getting have so much what's this about, right? But then where people treating you musically as a bit of a novelty or not taking it seriously? Well, we had about 100 kids, 150 kids that would come five, seven nights a week. Wow. We would leave one night like Mondays were audition night. So you go to see bees that you play once a month, Maxis Kansas City, Harak, the the

legendary clubs in New York City and then other big rock clubs on Long Island that we

were because you always try to move up a little bit, right? So yeah. That had a stage. When I

played for the stage, you know, not moving the pool table. Two lights and set up. And we never got hired, which to me is a foreign, can you imagine seeing the straight cast in 1970? Well, that's kind of what I mean, it's not hiring them. No, because when you guys burst on the scenes, it felt so intact, right? Yeah. So I'm jumping for it. Exactly. Going back and back and time, your, it strikes me at least the math in my mind that that it must have been hard to have guys take you seriously.

There's no, but you guys were taking it seriously. We were, that's obvious. Because of course, you know, I grew up with Shana Na, yeah, you know, which was this, you know, you know, they had the TV show. So, you know, I'm sure somebody could said, well, you guys doing Shana Na. I'm sure you've got some of that. Sure. And they didn't quite get it, but because we, not purposely, I suppose, but we were combining punk rock and flu. Oh, yeah. 99% musically was, you know, rock ability.

among the wrecks we had, we had Ricky Nelson record, but we had, I never mind the boxing, you know,

we had, like sun sessions, but we had the first clash album. That was part of our, like, in records that we had. And we thought, well, these pink, pink patterns are really cool, but so is that spiky belt. So we would try to come up with the, you know, the different things. So, but in the real world, if someone didn't know, or those are the guys that play every week, you know, yeah, and we had some hard kids, tough kids. But for the most part, it looked like days to confused.

“You know what I mean, the film, that's how most people around us look. And they were hostile,”

always to something that they didn't know. So you had to toughen up. We really went everywhere together,

even to the 7/11 to get beer, like, do you really want to have an argument, dude, you know,

I'm just getting some beer, you know, don't, hey, man, which, and we would have to get tough, but we managed to get a little bit of a front and verbally tough. Yeah, one of my favorites, it was, hey, man, you spend a lot of time looking at another guy's hair, don't you? And during that brief three seconds, where they were like, what, what? Yeah, you were gone. Yeah. So, you had to be willing, I suppose, to like, you know, get, you know, rumble a little bit,

but we were very, um, a depth at this point by disarming them. But the kids who liked this were like tough, almost criminal types, who would follow us everywhere. So if they happen to be with us, no one would mess with us. So, um, it's a set-up to you guys going to London, but I want to, it's very, you went to London, right? Yeah. But, uh, I thought to tell you this one thing, and I don't know if you ever saw this, and David Bowie's last tour, he was talking a lot way more than he

talked before. I think he knew it was his last tour. This 2004, I think he knew where he was going, health-wise. But he told this beautiful story about how he'd seen Gene Vincent, when he was like wearing the weird knee braces, or he had his accident. Oh, yeah. And he went in this whole story about explaining that Ziggy on stage is Gene Vincent. Yeah. And I thought it was such a cool tribute to Gene, because he said, "Look, when I stood like this in 73,

everybody thought I was doing like the Space Man, no, I was doing Gene Vincent." Totally. And I just love that. That he paid tribute in such a beautiful way. So you, I guess the set-up two guys going to England, I want you to explain a little bit. But the set-up is, there was this real appreciation for what you guys were already doing. Yes. In our heads, we would get an enemy from bleaker bobs, a melody maker, or timeout, or something like your bobs. Yeah. I still went

there and deal with that. Yeah. You know, okay, it's my show. So this is where I'm indulgent. But I go into bleaker bobs and I'd be like, I'm looking for this, you got anything by like a small faces. Well, which one do you want? And like, can I just, yeah, and it'd be like,

“we got to go into basement. Yeah. Remember that? Yes. He was like a visual like Haynes. To beg them,”

to sell you records. So anyway, you're pretty bad. He had things like that all along Island that he had Gene Vincent. And again, they were imports. So you were paying. But he had to know you were serious. Yeah. And he didn't care about Gene Vincent. But he was his guy like an enemy of dry cleaners or a record store or like a drug dealer thing. Yeah. It's like, I didn't wait for the man. Like, I've got the Gene Vincent, but you got a group to me that I

should sell you the Gene. No, no, no, no, no, no. It's so as a drag. How many of, and we would think, how many of the guys are coming in here, with nothing like shoes and bowling shirts, looking for Gene Vincent, that bad to be nobody. Yeah. And we're about to pay $12.99 for American record. That's an important. Had you go back to France on the purple capital able. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we would also

“get enemy Melody Maker. Yeah. Like a month or two late kind of thing. Right. Right. That's how”

they came in. So we would look. And it seemed like England was like rock and roll heaven, which kind of in a way it is. Yeah. It is. They if they like you. Yeah. But there was not just one or not two just like there was four like dedicated magazines to like rock. What was going on?

Oh, yeah. New bands that we've never heard of in the back. They had a gig guide. Right. It was all,

which was much more impressive than the one in the village voice. There was like three pages of five pages of gigs. Yeah. So, and then we met a few English people along the way and said, oh, you would love it over there. And like they, and I thought every, I thought the pilot was going to be wringo when, you know, this dude is just going to be twigy. And like, I just thought everyone was going to be cool. And then we find that book The Teds, which is the famous book. Okay.

any population or tipsters or seensters or tribal members. So, but we thought England is the place.

We had no plan. They, they King's Road and it was like famous picture. The Sex Pistols hang out at some clothing store there. And like, we just thought, and people know who Gene Vincent is there. And Eddie Cochran was, was a, was a died there and there's a memorial still there for him. We couldn't find two people. Like, well, these kids that came to see us, nobody knew that we didn't lie. Did Eddie Cochran saw them. And they thought, no, they didn't really know

even one layer down. So, we decided our hazard. We're going to move to England,

“become rock stars, great. So, who's idea was it first? Well, it was kind of all of us. I think really,”

really, a main goal was to get, I mean, I'd been my idea. I was good at like rallying the others. And I knew that I needed them. Is it just similar to the Walker Brothers? You know, they did the same thing. Yeah. And they were club band out there. Yeah. And they thought we got to get over there. And they just showed up there. Like, no, we know, but exactly. And that, that's kind of what we did. And we, we had a passport. And we asked a big post office. We had to take the picture.

Once there, completely tooled up. Like, hi, hair, blue velvet shoes. You know, pink and black loafers, pink paper, like the whole thing. And like three suitcases just filled with vintage duds we collected and the double base and the guitar. And in my suitcase was a rum at a symbol.

So we think this is great. We get there. And there's immigration. Same as it always.

Always has it. And someone comes and says to Brian and me, you go on this line.

“Leave managed to slip away. Then you get to the immigration. What are you doing here?”

I don't know. Did you come to be a band? No. Like, we didn't know that was against the law. So we were grilled. That we were going to come here and still money. Yeah, basically. Yeah. So Brian and I, Lisa, he was coming to study classical music. And he had a, and a friend of his mothers that was going to just put him up and, you know, and he had some part of London that he said, and he got in. Brian and I, the detained us finally gave us a like a special stamp

for two weeks. Because we said, we have to get back to somewhere we can call our parents to give us the money to get us home. And they let us into the country with two weeks. Fail you to leave and two weeks will be prosecuted with prejudice. I remember those words and a stamp that we get in and we vanished into the under world of London. Went to pick a dilly circus. We put the

“dear and a big giant bus locker that was this big. And we just hit the streets. Not knowing where to go.”

Not knowing a single soul. And then it gets into the three stages of, you said it was a good idea. No, you said it was a good idea. No, you said it was a good idea. We're fighting. Yeah. We had a few hundred pounds, which we thought was a lot of money. We stayed at a flea bag hotel. A few, a few nights. And we found ourselves homeless, slept in a hide park. We, we, we were homeless guys wearing velvet jackets. And luckily it was the summer. It was summer of 1980. And, but we had a bit of a plan.

We were reading the backs of these papers, time out and finding out where the, what sounded cool. The cockney rejects. That sounds cool. Yeah. We turned up. Good start. Three teddy boys. Yeah. At a, a hard course show. Okay. There was a riot broke out through four and bottles at us. The police came. And we had, we hit them to the bar. And the lady said, you guys better, the, the, the, the, you know, the lady, Bobby with the big hatches that you, you guys better get out of here. It was the

adventures like that. Me, but we had no food. We had no money. We, we made a couple of strangers who would help us. We'd flopped to your like sitting Nancy House for a while, like kind of thing. So,

we finally knocked on enough of these doors and turned up at enough of these parties that we just

found out about that. Then you realize that the full and grayhound, the full and golden lion, the, the, the, the marquee, the ding walls, all these famous clubs, they need bands to play there. They need five bands and seven nights. So we eat to play. So from hanging around enough of them, we finally got to, well, the club booked to the band. You might want to talk to him. So hey, clock, you know, all right, you could have next Tuesday, it's five o'clock in the afternoon. Where

this great band were from New York. We didn't have a demo. We didn't have a, we had nothing. Well, you are called the stray cats. Yes. Which, in New York, we were called the Tom Cats. And then we were in London. We had nowhere to live. Nothing to, and cats was, you know, hipster. Yeah. Yeah.

because we always something cats. And we used to go play New York City once a month,

“worrying about your draw. We were the Tom Cats. We were the blue cats. We were that we changed the name”

a few times. But we're in London. And we finally get to crack where we had lined up two, three, four of these little pub gigs. We want to foreign the afternoon. Yeah. So we'd been hanging around these clubs and parties, kind of making new sense of ourselves for two, three months now, saying how great we were. So the first couple of gigs we played, there was maybe 20 people who turned up to see the four clocks out at the rock pub. Not everyone played there.

Those four, five people were at Lamey, Chrissy Hein, Strummer, Matt Lock. You know, there was a few of them out. Because they were hipsters. And we were bothering them all the time, you know. So someday we're going to make, all right. So, so like, all right, there's crazy

guys from New York. I finally plan a gig. Let's check it out. I don't see. So we, we were on a

five o'clock in the afternoon. And a few hipsters from London. And then a few faces like Chrissy Hein, like I said, the other guys and the pretenders and the hell's angel who was hanging out there. Like, that was the first people we played for. And of course, it was really good. We had been playing four sets of night, five nights a week and we had that. And then had the handcuffs on for a couple of months while we were homeless. And we were really good. Hunger is a great actual hunger.

Yeah, I was just saying. Yeah. Hunger is a great motivator. Exactly right. So holy, macro. Chrissy Hein, her life boyfriend was Ray Davies back then. And she told him in the next time we played and the pub the next week. Ray Davies is at the show. And we had a guy who was helping with the equipment. So we met at the, at the one rehearsal place that we managed to spend five pounds and make sure we could play his sister was the boy at the girlfriend of Joe Stromer. So

“okay, I'll go down see my girlfriend's brother, home to guitarist or some band from New York, right?”

So he's so people start to talk. Next week in Melody Maker, they have Stromer. What are you doing? Well, I'm working on the clash album and I saw this band from New York. Oh my God. And Ray Davies, what are you doing, Ray? And then in me, well, I'm working on the New King's album. And I saw this guy. He reminded me of Eddie Cochran, this band from New York. So that starts to happen. Wow. And because of the five, six, seven music papers every week that

they have, then someone wants to come down and actually interview us, right? So one of these shows, we played a place called The Venue Victoria Station. I was known by Richard Bradson. It was like a

cool joint. We, again, we play our gig going on first. And the word has gotten out a little bit

and we knew, but we didn't quite know, we go on to play an editable, right smack in the middle with the rolling stones. All members of the rolling stones. Supermodel wives and toe, like paparazzi, a few of their minder types, just a party of ten or whatever, right in front of the stage. And it's them. And they're smart guys, man. Still to this day, they know the hippy young band to open up for them, you know. So they were good. We did half an hour of sets that on the drum,

spun the bass around, jumped off the end. They created the greatest sets. Yeah. The whole thing. And they knew it wasn't our song. And they knew that was a chain fence. Yeah, of course. They're rockabilly boys at heart, you know. And after the show, we were whisked to they wanted audience with us. And the paparazzi was there, he stands up and knocks the extra thing over and, you know, takes me by the, you know, like the whole thing happened, right?

The whole thing. And so just like you imagined. Yeah, it's just like I've just had me say, yeah, exactly. So the next day, the next couple of days, it's not in the melody maker. Joe Strummer is seeing that this band from New York. This is Mick Jagger and bracing Brian and, you know, Keith knocking over the champagne like in the daily mirror. Oh yeah, it's open. So it's not the melody maker. It's the daily mirror. Yeah. So you go from a few

100 hipsters reading these music mags to the national press. Yeah. Lady die, cutting a ribbon,

“and a band next there. And that's what it was. So that immediately set the frenzy of record”

companies. And so, so we played it over the two three weeks worth of gigs. And every label had come, every label corded us. And we loved all that because they took us to lunch. Right? And including the stones, they wanted us to be on their label. So we went to spend a weekend with Keith when we can in redlands, you know, it crazed the famous drug busts. Yeah. And then we would meet at their office with Sir Mick. And like in the daytime, he was wearing a robe

and like watching cricket and he had people coming and going, you know, and they like brought a plate of sand, which is, you guys want it to. I don't know, it's cool. Mick, you have a call

The mini left the room. We ate every sand with track every beer. And he came back out.

“It looked like volatious and gone over the two of his credit. He never said one word. He was”

cool guy. So we wanted to be with the stones to be great, but they could never get themself

together in the same place again. They came that one night and then we met with them individually. Yeah, a few times. Bill Wyman became my friend to this day. And so, but we needed money. We still had nowhere to live, nowhere to go. And we knew that you couldn't be the young talk of the town. To the town from venture, you know, like we were the whole. You got to play it. Cool it. Yeah, I mean, because if you can't blow it. So we finally met the people from Ares Direct, the BMG, Ares

Directers and they, they were great. They promised us to flat. They had the money the next day. And Dave Edmonds had been coming to our gigs and he wanted to produce us. He stumbled into a dressing room a little worse for where when maybe in the same night the stones were there.

“And I didn't know who it was, how would you, you know. And he said, I want to produce you guys”

before anyone screws it up and he compared himself to sand Phillips looking for Elvis Presley and like, wow, that's pretty cool. And we met with him, perfect guy, really. Yeah, exactly. And he had a little house. And you know, and England, everything is like mini kind of, you know, he had a little has that had a little basement that had a little pool table. If he had a little juice box, you know, anyway, like, where it's been like a finished basement, like, where we just found, but it was all

shrunk. And he had a little juice buck. And he had George Jones and Races on. Okay. And Brian and I saw that and like, and he was talking about he, he was the one to do us. That's someone would get a whole of us that didn't know where you were, his other work. Before. Well, we did, I mean, I knew I, I hear you knock in with a little bit of a crash course. And like, he's amazing. And he was part of that little gang in England that would come to his Elvis Costello and Stiff Records, that whole

little gang of Stiff Records people were coming to our gigs. And because the Stiff Records guy wanted to sign us. So when we met Edmunds, it was perfect. And just to, all the needles lined up, we met Edmunds. We liked him. Arresta said, here's the money. They let us pretty much do whatever we wanted. We just did our live set. So, but it happened like very quickly then. The next two days where in a studio, we moved. We had a flat. The three of us had walls and beds. It wasn't, I don't

never knew how anybody was getting paid for us. I still never knew. Yeah. I still don't know.

I never saw the bill or the lease or the, but we lived in a flat. Yeah. It was hard days and I kind of like, we, we, we helped. We all lived in a flat. And we were in the studio in Edmunds. Yeah. Very, very quickly. We had written runaway boys that was new. We had rock this tower. We had straight castrate when we came to England from the, from playing in these garage. We had that. But we felt ourselves in England and kind of knowing that we needed to do something to rock ability.

We love rock around the clock. We love heartbreak hotel, right? But if you made that record in an, in kind of layman's terms, it wouldn't be loud enough on the radio, right? Okay. If you're listening to music from the 70s or the early 80s and like, and you hear an old record come on, you'd have to turn it up to get it as loud as the one you just heard. It's just, I didn't know about producing. I didn't know about our recording. But I did know that we had to make something

for lack of a better word modern. Okay. So we wrote runaway boys and we wrote it about our own experience about, about being homeless and nowhere to go, borrowing from some real rough kids that we knew, you know, back in New York who were like shop blifters and like petty crime and we like molded it all into our own story and we quickly did that and they knew the label and Edmund's new and we knew that we had kind of just just rewritten a whole genre of music. Yeah, made it made it

different. Yeah. Like we did a little bit of our goals like take Johnny Burnett. We used to call it rock ability 2000. Okay. You know, we want to make rock ability 2000 now, 2026. Yeah. Well,

“I think that was one of the first songs I've heard from you guys and I remember thinking like”

on this is different because I knew enough about rock ability and son to know what you guys were doing but it didn't have this shun and not thing. Now it wasn't like it was like something's happening. But Edmund's new there's like kind of like the base, you know, we only knew like any

of those old records that basically just do it. His records always had a cool sound. Yeah. He kind of

had a feel for it. Yeah. He knew what to do. Like I didn't know he put my little drum kit in a giant room, even studios and London, some giant, you know, and add a mic on it. When you would record, would you place sitting down or stand? No, I stood up. We did the whole show. Okay.

big room when there was headphones and Lee was all the other down there and a fish tank. You know, and like we didn't, and I was a little bit, I let you sit at it in this right away and I liked them. He was really like our older brother in the room because I didn't really know how to record.

“That's the first time I was going to say and I said goofy things like what do you need a microphone for?”

I can hear it. Bam, bam, bam, bam, we need a microphone for. Well, the microphone takes that gentleman sense of to the tape and to like he explained the record. I'm 19 years old. He didn't

really know. And up to that point, you guys had never recorded? Not, not in a real studio. Maybe Brian

had. I'm not quite sure. And Lee and his house was always such just in four track stuff. I had little machines, but like the idea of a big giant, I get a room. And there was three guys making tea and you know, someone famous you heard of had made their last album there was just so this would have been October 1980. So we finished the record. So only three or four months after you guys had gotten in London. We got there in June, right? June the 10th, the 1980. And now this is

like October. And that's pretty, it's amazing. But we were prepared for the lock. You kind of said,

“you know, like we were we were ready. And so when someone said, you know, Ray Davies says that we”

weren't afraid of what we were like, well, let's, let's go and blow this guy. Yeah, let's go, yeah. So so Arizona, we had, we got the money, we got Edmunds, which was really the hook to it all, because if it had been whoever some of the top, you know, producer would have been 1980. I don't know if they would have known everything that Edmund said known. And Edmunds told us, I've been looking for someone like you. I can't do it. That's not in my blood so much to do that. But

a rock ability group that's willing, able, and wants to be modernized. Do I see the sound that's in his head? Because on the separate rock ability group I've ever seen is really more of a purest backwards. I can't think. Yeah. Right. And like we love that stuff too. We knew Johnny Burnett records inside and out too. But we knew that you couldn't exactly sound like that.

“That would be a dusty old record. Yeah. Competition with the new stones album or whatever, right?”

Yeah. You were going to be in that. And somehow we knew this without, I mean, I couldn't have a library and just to you back then. I would have said to this great, let's go to the pub. Yeah. That was as much as I could think. But I think organically we knew these things.

And so we let Edmunds, you know, have us. Yeah. And like we basically played the set live,

but it was in a set up that was foreign. And but it was good right away. And so they knew that would be the first single. So we got that out. And we did a first tour of England and started in between. They started to sprinkle release it in Europe. And then we would go back and forth. Within the same day we'd go to Amsterdam. Come back play a gig somewhere in England at night. Go to Paris. Play that card. You know, I like lipstick show. And back to London the next

that same night and play a gig somewhere. So it was breaking in Europe. Big time. They loved the jing Vincent, the whole idea of the stray cats. They loved it. And we would see the immigration lady. That Edmunds, Brian and me. Because after you know the same place enough time,

you can start to see from the faces. She hated us. And the first thing the record company

did was sort out our immigration. They sorted the whole thing out. We got new, we, we were enrolled in the, in the UK musicians union, we were legal, schmingle, 100% visas, everything. And this lady, I shouldn't have let you guys say we said lady, we employ like 20 English people now. It's an English company that's our boss, you know. And she hated us. So by the third time we were like, we talked to her. That's right lady. We got the line. He's working for us now. We were, we were terrible.

But so, so Christmas came. And what they do in English, they freeze the charts right before that's right. So like, so, so whatever the charts were on the 15th of December, it's like that until the fifth of January. However, they do it. And the last chart of the year came in and we were number nine. So we were top 10. Yeah. For the end. And then we just got busy we toured Europe. Yeah. And toured the. So I'm a little confused on this part of the story. So

was US interest organic at that point or what brought you back to, because that's where it gets a little dicey for me. What, what, what, what, what happened was, we, do you know we tried to get a recognition to New York, I just played Max's CB, but like they didn't calm. It was, I don't,

the USA is so big. Right. Back then you could still go to London and get a little bit of a buzz,

and that could lead to like being, being not all over England, because of the music papers and it's a national radio. But to this date, London still drives Europe. Yeah. And then from, from London we went to Yorkshire. Yeah. And we would BMG, that was a European company. Yeah. So, um, but it's,

“it's possible, because I think there's a few factors. His national radio, so if you get played”

on BBC, one, the whole country's hearing it, not just regional. And the same in France, Holland, there's a national radio. Yeah. And we were loved by those people. Like, there's an old DJ in the 80s, right? He's really from the 50s of sky, you know, cousin Broussey or they've done a lot of you in front of you in France. It seems like France was insane. Yeah. I think France where they must have it was not seen. It was the closest they I've ever had. It was Beetlemania in France. They loved.

Because Gene Vincent was a, yeah, that's right. So guys, we're already a bit over by, uh, by the late 50s. The ones that were still alive, right? Um, I mean, Eddie Cockham was touring England to make a living in 1960 when he was, how does that? Yeah. So, and the euros, they loved, which we didn't know any of this.

“They loved the idealized stylized conceptual version of America. They thought that we all had a”

sister named Ellie Mae, and that we all had a pink Cadillac with horns on it. And Marilyn Monroe was our neighbor that we looked over the fence set. And Fanzi was the heart of gold greaser that was everyone's friend and like they really thought that. And we did it, no, because we're from New York.

All right. We won't, I'd never been to the south. I'd, I'd been to Paris way before I ever went to

Memphis, you know. So we had a romantic idea of America ourselves. Yeah. We're from Long Island. But the Europeans, they really had the post war, beautiful vision of America. Post Elvis Presley. Well, they never got to see Elvis in the flesh. Exactly right. And they loved it. And we represented that. We were the first ones to like sense then to make a, to make a big splash with

“you. Yeah. So, so we went a lot to Europe and, and a lot in England for about maybe two,”

three years and to Australia, because it was part of the record contract. And to Japan, where, of course, you know, you know, it's insane. It was too crazy. Crazy. Now, our record contract, here's a big part of the, our record contract was was an X North America, not used to be from North, but excluding North America. So you didn't have a US record? You didn't have a, right, because they want to pay you for the US. Yes. And it was a big commitment to try to break

a ban. So, so a lot of the groups from our era, derand ran out of Indiana. It's a cultural, I'm sure they must have had a similar deal, because the record company wants to have the, you know, the decision of whether or not they want to try to crack you in the States. I see. It's, it's a big, investment, it's a big bite, you know. So, we went around Europe for two years. We made two albums, like success. It was very good. We household names in England. We had our own flats by then.

And we were kind of welcome in nightclubs in Paris. We could get around. I was a swell guy around

town. And, but we always wanted to come back and crack the States. This was American music.

We missed. We, we are Americans. It was cool to be in England. But we're Americans. We wanted to be back here. And at this point, the, the USA, Aristotle records, Klyve Davis, musical genius, visionary, decided to not release the straight cuts. He owned it. He didn't have to give us one penny. He already owned it. Just had to release the record. They didn't put that in the documentary. They left that part out. He had he owned the straight cuts. That's because it was, and he didn't see it.

Didn't get, oh, it's good for England. We made money there. Great. His, his age might have been part of the bias, right? So, we were, once again, homeless because we wanted to leave England and wanted to come to the States. We wanted to be, be here. And what had happened, which we didn't really know, was that we were getting played quite a bit on, on import radio because these were, this college, maybe, or this college radio. Like here in LA, they was K-rock. And they would have a,

like Sunday nights, two in the morning. They would be like Rodney playing you on K-rock. Kind of. Yeah. And like all the bands from England that weren't known, right? And some people probably

hear was flown Eddie to remember them. Oh, of course, from the truth. Yes. And from Frank's Apple's band. Yeah. We've done a gig or TV show or something that they were on and they got runaway boys and they loved it. And they were in New York, guys. So we met, you know, when you

“meet someone else in Europe and you knew, so that was the most I think. Well, these cool guys,”

you hung out with them today. They had taken our record home and they played it on their, their show in LA. So there was a little bit sprinkled everywhere around the country, but really in LA, we were popular and didn't know it. Yeah. Which is hard to happen now. If you get played once in Milwaukee, you somehow sound exchange tells you. Sure. Yeah. Like somebody knows, but we had a whole underground movement without knowing it. And we, uh, there was a guy in England who was at the summer

off the summer before, who was a big TV booker. He worked for Schokhal Fridays that was ABC's instrument SNL. Yeah, the guy from sign filled was on that show. Yeah. That's part of it. Yeah. And 18, whoever was the booker, maybe you knew them. But they tended to book more like alternative stuff. Like Debo was on there. The cars around there. I was watching. It's exactly. And they were

“bands that had record deals. We didn't have a record deal. But the guy had been in England on”

vacation or something like that. So you put you on TV without a record deal on Friday and part of the stick was the hill of the facade. This is an unsigned band. It was some part of their stick.

And we were there and we came to LA the first time like old macro. And we played the rocksy,

not knowing that we had been on import radio and all that. There was a little bit of a, like a bus. So we wound up being here for a week. We did a matinee show every day at the rocks. We wound up doing seven or eight shows matinee and evening line around the block. I met Jack Nicholson and like, wait, this is, this is my life, you know. So still with no record contract. So after that, we had to come back LA another time and play again at the rocksy where we did multiple nights

and Gary Gursch from EMI who he was smart guy. He saw the stray cats. We had, we were unattached. He went and bought us out of our European contract because we still owed Arista BMG another record that wasn't going to be released in the States. He bunched you out of your contract just for U.S. or for the whole world. He took the whole thing. He took the whole thing. He must have believed it.

And yeah, and our first album in the States was a compilation of the first two in England

with a couple new tracks that we did here in LA because we thought all this stuff just existed at some studios or in the south. But now we know that LA is the most rockabilly place on earth, right? And we found capital studios and radio recorders where Elvis Presley, and we wandered into these places unattended. Really, you want to book this place? Yeah, we went in the three of us and did did the title track for Bill for Speed by ourselves and they added that as a new track. So the first

straight guess album was really compilation of two British ones with a couple new tracks on it. And we just got on the bus. MTV called. Well, that's a good, a good, a good part of it because

“in England, everyone, that's why when MTV launched a lot of these bands that you saw were British bands.”

I think because part of your everyday life back in England would be you, everyone made a video because the record might be bubbling under in France and you're on touring England and every, every country had a solid gold or an American bandstand or those top of the pop, those types of shows. So if the band couldn't be there, they showed the video. It makes sense. So what MTV started to leave it or not, they didn't have enough content

in a needed video. I remember they're playing the weirdest stuff over. If you had a video, so a good track did chance you were going to get played on MTV. So we had a video because radio in the States was not playing. This was 1982 and there was no, what people don't understand is there was no alternative radio until the 90s. FM didn't catch on to new wave or until they were forced to buy MTV because kids would call these radio stations. I want to hear the new song by culture

club, some PD, KMMS, some place, what's that? So they had to start engaging the stuff that was getting played on MTV that their listeners were calling until we saw right? So the Straycast was very popular because we were meant to be visual things. Because I read some statistics on

your first U.S. release and in my mind it was huge. That's so bad memory because that was my

high school time and it was huge. But in terms of actual chart and sales, it wasn't that big a record here. It was big on MTV. Is it my memory accurate? I'm not saying it was just slow burn.

yeah, I guess I'm saying it poorly. But it, I was surprised it wasn't what I remember. Yeah, it

really wasn't out of the box. That was kind of what I'm trying to do. Yeah, because again, we're on the road and we're going every day and you know the grind as well as anyone you, your proper guy, you wake from the morning, you go to that madman in the morning, radio guy and you do him and then in the afternoon, you go to the more laid back DJ and you'll decide to town and then maybe you do the sound check and then maybe you go back to every town back then because MTV wasn't in

every town, right? Because of the cable system, that's right. Every town had their own little veins world kind of video show, right? Public access. Then you do that at five o'clock and then you get to the gig and then you do the gig and then of course you stay up all night and then the next. So we, he would get at it. We worked and yeah, of course you're young and we did that for a long time

and then finally radio was looking to MTV and it changed. I think everything changed with MTV.

“I think they were very, maybe not overlooked but very important kind of pop culture moment in our”

history. Oh yeah, it was and really changed and then you could see the change in these little towns where like they were, you know, people that were unwilling to accept alternative appearance or sound and go away, but like all of a sudden these people now had Billy Idol in their living room. Yeah. Durand, Durand, Durand, Strikas. They were more, I want to say they changed their way, but they were more open. They knew what it was at least. Sure. Some guy in a band, he's allowed to

live with that, you know? Yeah. So I think it was safe. MTV besides the bands, I think it made a safe for regular kids to kind of be themselves with it. Yeah. Yeah, certainly in that being in that particular generation watching at that time, it felt like a revolution, but it wasn't the one that wasn't the Elvis version. It wasn't the Beatles version. It was a different type of revolution, and certainly was so tied to the visual. And my memory is because everything about your world at

that moment was so closely linked together with who you were, how you talked, how you moved, how you dressed, and how you played. So it was like, wow, this is its own intact living movie.

“That's what we always said. That's got to be, you got to look good, you got to see, play good,”

you got to see, and we had some breaks along the way, like one day in England, 1980s, I'm going to go here and film this. Okay, we went. And it was Julie and Temple, who did show our videos. And I wouldn't have known who to choose to do a video or what a story they were. We organically went with things that we knew were going to be good in a funny way. Like Julie and Temple was cool. This is cool. That's a great, we're going to stand here. Yeah. Like, oh, that guy's going to

come down the alleyway with it. And it was cool. So we let it happen. Yeah. And when it came out, the States, it was like two years later. Yeah. Who would have known? What was the reaction at home in the old neighborhood and all that? Pride, prideful of us. Yes. Yes. They, my father still, he was New York City Fireman, and I was like smart in school. I was at biscuit beer in school and all that. He still thought I should have gone to college. And even when we were making it,

you know, like even when we played Madison Square Garden, it was like, yeah, you know, he was he grudgingly thought it was good, but like, and proud to be there, you know, but still thought I should have gone to college. My mother, who was fantastic, she, she was like an old, turn-a-classic movie, he's kind of fan. Like, I knew old actors and actresses from the just from her. It, like a thing I still have, she was thrilled. She thought it was great.

So we had cousin, we had a big gang and a lot of them sort as like, well, free beer at the team cousin Jim's show now. And but all in chat, all in all, I think everyone was proud of us. Yeah. And I know we did, I don't want to go back, I say, well, you really wouldn't have picked on me seven. Yeah. I didn't really want to have that experience with it all. But there was a few, who with us from day one, or of the little gang that I can really say, yeah, and it's true.

But I think we were adopted by the, by the town. Yeah. Yeah. So my angle to jump into this is not to get into the gossip park because I don't really care. I'm, I'm just, I was surprised because

my memory, of course, is always based on what you think you remember. Sure. I remember at

some point you guys broke up, which is, yeah, but not really, because you guys kept working in

“it in a different way. I mean, you were part and back together, but, but I don't, I remember that,”

but, but it, but it strikes me looking back now is 84. Yeah. So from 80, could need to, you're now

because I've lived it publicly. Oh, of course. The sense that I saw there, at least in, you tell me, but I saw some quote from Brian where he was talking about, you know, suddenly we're in a renaz,

“where we really more, more of a theater band and I don't know how true that is. I think that's true.”

And then I, I like to do my research. So I, I went out of my way to listen to both what you and you and lead did post straight cat breakup number one or whatever. And then what Brian did, and I was really surprised by Brian's record because there's suddenly like seem like he was kind of like went to Tom Pettyland or something. He certainly a talented guy. So I can understand the forces where maybe somebody was hearing his ear or maybe even he thought I could make this pivot.

Because we all know behind the scenes, there's always these other forces pulling you in different ways.

Can you just walk me through that a little bit? It killed me. Oh, I'm 25 years old. I'm thinking what it's over. Or what, you know, we're living well at that point. And I'm a drummer. I'm the guy in the band. That's my identity. And I, it's happily. I'm Ringo. I, that's all I ever wanted to be. I know it's all I ever wanted to be was Ringo. But he called, on the end, he wanted to do us all the well. And he felt that he couldn't do his vision with the strikeouts, which hurt

me on a few levels. Firstly, I thought, well, dude, I can play anything you want. You know,

“you play drum kit, you want me to do this, want me to do that. I think, and the strikeouts is a”

democratic thing. One person doesn't want to do what it doesn't happen. But it's also kind of rock and roll. The singer is kind of the boss. I, I accepted that as a, as a songwriter in my band. You end up with a certain amount of power because you're just that guy. Right. But I wasn't ever resisting that. I would have followed him to the, to the gates of hell. You know, he was my guy. He's talented guy. He's used a little bit older than me still. And I, I didn't think any of

this would have happened unless two of I actually, you know, played with the rhythm box and with cowboy boots and, you know, like, you know, pulling shirt and yeah. And I said, well, I got my drums in my car and it's a ring amount. So we did get just the two of us, you know, he knew I very close. And so to be rejected, I guess, by Tim, I was on like, you know, like, personal level. I was very hurt by it. And what do you mean? I can't be your vision,

you know what I mean? I thought with somebody in his ear, or, I mean, I don't even think I just don't want to know. I just wonder about those people. People can be in his ear. But he ultimately is a guy that follows his own instinct. Okay. So I was very hurt by very mad at him,

but also knew that we had to get busy. And, you know, Leon, I stuck together that Lee and I always

wrote songs. And we probably would have been the main song writers in any other band. We were good. I was good at words. I wrote Stricat's words. Lee was very good at music. He and Brian are both very, very, they know music. They know theory. They know counterpoint. They know harmony. They're musically trained guys. So Leon, I got busy. And all of us had a record deal, because we, with EMI, we just come off. Yeah. The Rent and Rave, which was a huge album in the States.

1617 got them number three in the charts. We were in very rare air. You were on fire as they say. We knew everyone, everyone liked the Stricat's. It's cool to like the Stricat's. It's really even less hard to love you guys. But it falls into a category where everyone wants to be perceived just like, I know about it at any time. I know about early Elvis. Everyone wants everyone else to

think they're hip to them. Yeah. So we were the ones that everyone liked the Stricat's. I've never

met a musician who doesn't really, you know, that it's not their bag. You kind of have to. I mean, is anyone say, I don't like it. You're a fool. Yeah. You say that. So we with a modern version,

“no one wants to be a fool. Yeah. Like if you're a fan, it's one thing. Yeah. But if you, you have to”

say you like to Stricat. Right. So, and we just come off a success. So EMI wanted us, each is, you know, leaving member claws of the contract. Right. So Leonai threw through through a few various things, met Earl Slick. Because he had just come off a torch Julian Lennon who was my friend. I got this guitar player and he had just done a thing with David, David Bowies. We thought it was very cool to have that connection. He's from New York. His dad was a cop. My dad was a fireman. So Earl Slick

Yeah. So we lead a couple of the songs on that record. Lee and I had written when we were 16 years old that we went through the demos. You know, the label had 20 songs to choose from. A few of the ones that they chose are ones that we wrote when we were kids. And then we did a news. And it was Slick. It was 1985, '86, so it was very... That's that sound. Yeah. Into guitar. Yeah. Kind of world. Which I was happy to do. I love guitar players and jealous guitar players. And it was

“I could go up to play the guitar. I wouldn't need anybody. So that's why I always say if I could play”

the drums, I wouldn't need anyone. So so we made a fantastic first record. I think we did it half in New York, half a capital. And during the making of the records, since we were kind of groovy at that point, we'd gone to a birthday party for Mick Jagger, who we turned 40 years old, sister Mick 40th birthday. And we met Keith Richard there again. And we had known them because we had gone on tour with them a little bit. Yeah, that's what they did do for us. On the 81 tour,

they took us out with them. Even though we were unknown and had to go in from 20,000 people in the

states who'd never heard of us. And we did very well. We never got food, we never got bottled,

we never, we were on that same tour in the famous scene with Princeton on the... They were French ladders. We were out the building, yeah. We were at that gig as their guest. And then we did part of that tour as that's what they could do for us. They didn't sign as they didn't, but they took us on that tour. So it's a beautiful opportunity. And we won the crowd every night. But it's been. Wait a minute. No, no, check these guys out. They look weird, but check, you know.

Yeah. So we were in with them a little bit. They were friends with us. So at Sir Mixed Party, we saw Keith. What do you guys up to now? Well, we're in New York, we're making a solo record, Brian Smith comes on. It's too bad about you guys. That kind of thing says, "No, everything's cool. We got a slick who he knew from David Bowie, I guess." So everyone was very, very friendly. And I said, "Why don't you come and play on our record?" And he said, "Yes."

I just followed up with his manager, Jane Rose, next couple of days. And she threw it through turned up at our session. That's my second. And played guitar. On my first single like a hot girl, like no one wants to ask him out. So they don't ever ask. Yeah. And I don't think if you look at his he's rarely played on any. Exactly. He doesn't do it. Because I was doing my research, and I was listening to that record. And I saw his name, and I thought, "Wow, he must know them because

he's never on anybody's records." No. And I just, and I paid him with the leproskin jacket

of mine that I liked. And you know, it's a different one. They tried it on. Yeah. I said, "Take it, man. It didn't fit them." So he walked away empty handed, but his manager, who he still would Jane Rose. Next time he was asleep in there, off of she measured on, and we got him his own leproskin jacket

“made. So that's how you pay key for it. Yeah. He's never in always had any pain with it. I paid him”

in leproskin jacket. Yeah. So unlike a lot of bands that have the break up, like you guys, you still had to do this one record. There was like a contractual fulfillment. And you guys were, you were broke up a little bit at a time, but not too long. It was, yeah. We did a contractual record with a, I was called Rock Therapy that we got together and capital records. And over the years, I think it's wound up being a gold album. I was up to, because I read about it

before I listened to it. And I kind of pressed, you know, in your press play, you think, "Oh, I don't want it this to be bad." And I was like, "Well, it was a really good record." We did some covers and both had a few songs that he had written. So the vibe was good, at least between you guys. Well, yeah. Good enough. It was magical. Like it was. Like even the first time we ever played, how Leo, we said this, that we, you know, that we played at the Mass People Public Library,

and it was like amazing right away. The first time that those three, well, the great bands have

had a chemistry. It's hard to explain. And, and he was, so when we were in capital studios, I was mad at Brian. He was probably like mad at me that I was mad in a kind of thing. So we were probably, I was probably with a bad attitude, but we made the album. But, you know, we did it. I had capital studios. And so okay. And then we each made another solar record, I think. We'd all did tours with the thing. And then, and then what happened was Brian moved to LA,

Brian had been living in New York. He, he went back to New York, I stayed in LA.

“And then, of course, just how life is, you start seeing people around at the same kind of,”

Dave Edmonds had a gig at the, at the Palace, one vine street. Brian was there. I'm trying to be all I see, you know, and I love bands. You know, bands and the greatest thing in the world. I really just want to see, come on, man, let's get the get the income on. It's us, come on, man. You know, almost crying to them. And I'm like, man, we need to. So, so we eventually, we, you know,

and I think it's, you know, I'm just curious because you were here living,

“during those, uh, house, the end days of, uh, hair metal. Yeah. The slow emergence of what became”

grunge. Yeah. You know, um, and as somebody who, who appreciates that type of music, I mean, what was your observation, both for the, and we're kind of way, the, the stray cats are sort of genre-proof, meaning, like, doesn't matter what's going on, because, well, you guys represent as timeless. But what was your perception of those times living here? I don't think any of the music ever got to me in the way that she invents and got to me. But I thought there was some good

songs and good, but I was a party guy, right? I lived to a teeny drive right behind, you know,

oh, you're over there. Yeah, I always live there. I sure want to. Um, uh, I had a pool table,

and I hung around the rainbow every night. You were married to a beautiful, I was married to Bridecland at the time, and she was cool. She knew, like, I was kind of wacky, but I was behaved. I was, I was home every night. You know, I would have slashed and towed with me, or you know, somebody took, but I was friends with all the guys. Yeah. Um, because I hung around the rainbow, and I didn't, you know, I was in a bad guy, the girls or anything. I was in my home, but it

was wacky. I would bring my friends home. I had a pool table and a pool and a song in the next day for hangover, you know, and I was just my life house was a nice, you know, kind of a respectable party house. I see. So I was friends with everybody. Anyone who was in town who was on the rocks, we can't go home at all, come to my house. They have all night and play pool and, you know, he crashed out here. Yeah. Um, so I was just friends with everybody, really. Um, I was rockabilly guy and all that,

but they thought the straight cast was cool. I thought the Cleans and Rose was cool. It didn't really matter. They were like, real the end of the day. And you know, this is just other musicians. Yeah,

you know, when the next generations coming in, it almost feels oppositional, but I never got

that feeling from you. No, I was just looking for somebody to do cats to hang out with. And then we invite me to their shows and like I would go to all these shows and like if anyone in town from England was in town, they would gravitate towards my place and it was just, it was just a good, a good natured party scene. Yeah. It wasn't anything dark. It was just, you know, a bunch of dudes jumping in the pool with their clothes on after party in all night. It was that it was kind of that.

Yeah. And my house was that, you know, like a center for that. And so I became, you know, slash is still one of my dearest pals, like we just stayed friends with a lot of people like that. And then the shrikers got very busy again, 88 to like 92. Yeah. We just toured all that. The records weren't the big hits that they were. Now they're classic, I suppose. But at the time,

“I think a few of those kind of other movements kind of kind of, you know, passed by what we would.”

So we were still releasing records, still like the odd man like at the same time is a lot of, no, no. Well, even in a weird kind of way, because we, we used to play a lot with Reverend Wharton Heath. Yeah. There were these, like, I don't want to say they were copying you, but you guys kind of created this foundation for other lovers of rockability to kind of find a welcome within the alternative space. Yeah. And I think that has everything to do with you guys, because

you were so lucky to be back did by the all community that there was this whole, and I feel like I saw a lot of those types of bands, but Reverend Wharton Heath, we knew like, but it was like a beautiful kind of descendant of what you guys had created positively. Our only bummer at that point was the records weren't exactly the same, but now I know, I met Bob Dylan a few times in my hero,

so don't take anything in rock and roll personally kid. And I've never taken any advice as much

to hard as I did that. So, so the records weren't as big as they were, like it wasn't like, oh, the trick is having a new record immediately gets to, you know, sure. That wasn't like that, but the industry had changed. Oh yeah. You might have gone out of business at that point. They became EMI America, and then the LA office closed, and if you had to talk so many at the good in New York, and they were less willing to like spend a hundred grand on a video, as they were,

oh, you remember this guy was walking in situation. Yeah. So, we got out of something happened with our contract with EMI, and then we wanted to do something completely different as

“this change. This was before it was your hot for sure. This is a lost record in there. Really?”

And it's called Let's Go Faster. And we were approached by a guy who owned a giant chain of

it, they all went away, right? And the guy gave us like too much money and all that to make a record.

“That it was supposed to be different from what the stray cats were. So, Nal Rogers came to LA.”

He was our bow. We picked him, and there's a record produced by Nal Rogers. I still think it sounds exactly like the stray cats that I'm sure. I'm not sure. But, I think that's the guy who was going to put it all in, decided he don't want to be in the record business. And his record store chain, I think, vanished overnight when CDs came out or something. And I figured out where the record did it. So, yeah, we've been trying. Yeah, Jack White must get fucked. Yeah, I wonder how close

of all people he's like beautiful. He's the perfect person. Yeah, he's beautiful guy. I love him. He's my friend. And he's him with the the stray cats management. We're trying to find his couple of things that are so we had a record that we were offering to the general public. This can be yours. The stray cats record that doesn't really sound like the strikers for the, the princely song of $500,000. It was the guy. Didn't want to give us the record.

“He wanted the money back. That's why he just never got released. He didn't want himself. He didn't want”

to release it, but he didn't want to, so papers. So, we went back at this point like no major is going to want to invest that kind of money and something that they didn't have any control of. And so we're looking now about 92, 92, like the whole business was completely different. Even MTV had lost. It just wasn't the same for the stray cats. So, and we wanted to make a record so we found some

small independent label, but they had enough money. We got Edmunds back. Again, always the return

of Dave Edmunds and we went to Chattanooga, Tennessee, and lived in the Chuchu Hotfish hotel. The Chattanooga Chuchu Hotel. There were still like train cars, motos, a few of those around. I've been there like roadside attraction America thing. And you went there sign, no exactly right. Yeah, so we lived in that hotel and went to some local recording studio because the guy was some local big shot from around that area. And that's who signed us. That's who said, okay,

it could be in my label. And Joe Walsh was on that label and he was a friend of ours. So he said, yeah, the guy's cool man. So, so we went on that. And that, and that was Chuchu Hotfish.

“And we made a beautiful video again. I think that's the Jeff Stein did it or Julian Temple.”

Those are the two guys that made all our videos on it. And again, just the world had changed.

And we were still doing well live. We never got back to our reeness, but I didn't.

I always agreed with Brian that we shouldn't have really been in reeness. The stray cats are perfect 3000 feet man. I think we're maybe the best one for that theater doing that thing. But that's worth of music bouncing off of those walls that make sense. Yeah, just the size of the stage and there's just the whole thing made. So we always continue to do that even during the reen album years. Don't jump for it because I want to talk to you about Chuchu Hotfish. Right.

I found myself thinking before I got to that record, which by the way, I didn't know exists. I'm not going to claim any prior knowledge. But I found myself thinking when you're so labeled into a particular genre. And then, of course, I listened to Brian's solar record where I felt like, okay, here's a guy trying to sort of see is this other space for Chuchu Hotfish. And you know, when you think of the great artists that you guys were inspired by, they didn't necessarily

turn into like, like, who am I thinking of Dionne? Like Dionne, how he had the later 60s hits where he was, he was, he was, he was, he would do up Dionne and then he was like Abraham Martin and John. Yep. Dionne. So I was, I found myself thinking, if there was an organic pivot for you guys to make was there in organic pivot. And so finding the Chuchu Hotfish record was really interesting me because I thought, well, here's, here's the only evidence I have that they had, there was a sort of a

wider width of the destroy cats. Am I making sense? Yeah. Yeah. Positively. There's some beautiful stuff. And there's like everything from like Martin, Denny, Exotic, uh, to almost like you guys stripping it down. Maybe it was the influence of Grunge, but like almost like more stripped down, you're still selling the stray cats. It's not like suddenly like Brian's playing through distortion pedals. Exactly. But it had a more of a kind of a club in your face feel. I was

surprised by the record. And I, now that I'm talking, I really need to go back and really listen to that record. And it's funny because that record, which we, you know, wasn't a success with some thinking label that couldn't really do what we needed them to do. And later life, that's the record that when I met Jack, the diner, Beverly Glenn, he said, hey, you're that guy. My son was with

album." That's the first time I met him. And I said, "Oh, well, you're the one that brought that

guy." Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So he and then later in life, I threw through, um, through Jenny V, my beautiful wife. She was involved with the Queens of the Stone Age gang. Sure. Yeah. Three reasons. When I meet, um, Josh Hammie, who's now our beautiful friend, he loved you to hot fish. It was like, maybe it was an ear for guys, not that much younger than me. Yeah. Ten years younger than me. But there's one thing I'm a fan of years from the beginning. So

I feel like I found this mystery record that I didn't know exists. I'm really excited to go back

“and listen to it. I think a lot of it was getting back with Edmunds. And that is,”

and I think you just may be been playing five years longer than the last time you worked with this. So, so we were, I thought we were playing very well at that point. And, uh, but you'm starting to interrupt you because I'm the worst director, but do you agree that there was a wider pivot in there for you guys to make? I mean, I feel there's the evidence of that. Yeah. And, uh, for the first time there was a couple of songs, which is good, I'm bad. I suppose, um, that we didn't

write that people were sending us songs and a couple of them we really liked and wound up doing. Elvis on velvet, the single, it's my wife, to her and her friends. They love that. They think it's great. We were very early on. The stray cats were the stray cats being the most primitive band. That song, we're playing to a, like, a drum loop. We, we have a drum loop and live drum games, which then would become like you too. A lot of people think that as a day record,

we were doing that in 91, like a bit of head of the game a little bit. And, um, there was something that was program, like a trigger that would come on a keyboard. And, like, a lot of this was

day veterans. And, a lot of that was us open to beat. Because Edmunds was always revolutionary,

cutting edge kind of guy was that. And we were, we were open to it because it was cool. Yeah.

“We didn't go too crazy with it, but we have, and then just to show everyone what, where I think”

you'll appreciate it about this is the, um, the first track on the record is one called Elvis on velvet. Uh, that's modern sounding. It sounds like modern straight cats. And, which I don't even how to define what that means. But I was like, oh, this is really cool. And the last track on it, we did a cover of, um, of a mystery train. Yeah, our, our verse was, which went straight to two track. Oh, okay. We did that once before on on rant and rave on a song called How Long You Want

to Live Anyway. I just, yeah, it's not life or death, death you go, it's going back and do it again. I suppose. But we challenged ourselves once a record on those two times. Well, that's very, that's just body how we in the world that you wrote, grew up loving. Yeah. Let's do this. No matter what happens, this is going to be on the album. I guess if I fell over on the drums, we would have stopped. And then it, but that last track on that record, that's completely live straight to, um,

“to track. So, um, so it was kind of a cool thing. So we said, well, if we're going to get a little”

tech, techy on this, let's show them at the end that we can, I see. You were still analog, the boys at heart. Yeah. Um, it strikes me because of the nature of the, the band's success and the type of music you're doing. And I saw that we're like, you did the Carl Palmer, and that Carl Palmer, Carl Perkins. Yes. Carl Palmer's, I love him too. David tribute, but I, but I, but it, because you love this music so much, it must have been a thrill to meet some of these

heroes of yours because they are the living embodiment of what inspires you positively. What was one of the great things about the straight castes was in the, uh, uh, the, you know, the earliest straightest was a lot of these people who we loved, our heroes found us, like Carl Perkins came

to see us play. Yeah. At, uh, when we finally made it to Nashville and toward America, because I

told the world like three, four times before I really knew America, right, which is what we wanted. We had that same romantic vision of America, that, that, that the, that the, that the British during the festival, we thought everyone was going to have the pink cattle act as well. So, uh, and one of those times we met Carl Perkins, um, he came to see us play. He, he came on stage as a grand old opera. It was beautiful. Um, and so we had met a bunch of

those people and really live music was kind of cool back that they had the Palamino here in LA, that, uh, that that was a country bar. How's that in the valley near here actually? It was up on, like, like, like a shim. Yeah. And, like, they're one, they're one time. Yeah, something. You know, all the country stars, all the rockabiles I was Jerry Lee Lewis wanted to jacks in, but then Johnny, Pete check and Freddie Fender, like, who's just like a place that you could, you went to

music, you go every night. And, uh, there, there was one place and then the, in Hollywood, there's a place called vine street barn grill that was by the Palatium up that way. And that's where I went

LA weekly dude, you can go and see all this stuff. Yeah. And I'm a nerd for all that. So I went

every time I could in these people knew me and they embraced me. I met Janice Martin and wanted jacks in and Glenn Glenn, Lee Lee Riley, like, all these, you know, maybe when they played, there was 25 people there. And, hey, boy, it's a straight cast. Thanks for bringing this thing back. Because I don't even think they had been doing even the Palamino for a few years. It was like, they plugged the whole thing in a little bit. And, and that was very nice. So we were, um, uh, we were thrilled

because Edmunds, at that point, had become a little bit of producer to the stars, a little bit people wanted to recapture that thing. He had done an Evelie Brothers record. Right. I was still

that we were able to go watch. Oh, that's right. I forgot about that. I got a little bit. And, um,

“I think he did a record with Dion. I think he, so he had became, like, people want to get back”

on that rock ability, you'll do his bandwagon. He's the modern guy to do it from, from, from the rightfully so because he is, so he was getting a bunch of those gigs at that, uh, time. And, I guess to call Perkins people, got touch with him to be the MD for this little TV show, they were trying to get together. And they called Lee Rocker and myself to be the, to be the rhythm section. Wow. That's an honor. Because we knew Edmunds and we knew Carl. And we're probably willing to

pay our own way to England to something. It was the, to tightest, like, it really wasn't a big extravaganza show. And now it's like a defining kind of moment in my life in a lot of ways because, um, because they had Beatles on it. Somehow George Harrison, yeah, is the biggest call Perkins fan ever. Oh, yeah. And love someone was influenced by him. I think stayed in touch with them. And

“somehow they got in touch with George to be, and I think George was, I don't want to say reclusive,”

but he was like not doing that much stuff. Yeah. He was still going out now. You know, and all that because he, but he wasn't really doing TV shows. So he was probably making his own albums. And that, and he had agreed to be on the show to honor Carl. Yeah. So he got his friend Eric Clapton, who I had met a couple times, but I did, George got his friend at every Clapton to be on the show. And they thought, well, why not? Let's get, so Richard of Starkey to come in. Yeah, if I had a ring

go to be the other drummer. And he had sang Honey Don't, of course, like the call Perkins also. So call Perkins was, again, something that everyone could agree on. And I was the young guy, and they hadn't asked me to be the part of the rhythm section along with Ringo and a lot of, also, and we threw the guys in Dave Edmund's solo band, sure. So, so we find ourselves in a rehearsal room in England. And we had been around a little bit. I'd been on tour with the stones, and I knew people,

I was Beatles are different. I don't know if it's Beatles are different. Yeah. It's just, it's another little, I don't know. I call Bill Wyman on the phone. He was a good guy. We met for lunch, you know. Yeah, Keith, he played on our record. It was Beatles, or even that. So, we had a few days rehearsing. And I didn't really say much at the George and Eric Clapton of you, you know, united as friends. And they weren't, you know, hanging out. There was a lot of it. And I was just,

nature, I played my songs correctly, whatever. So, during the last day of the rehearsal, I said, "When is this ever going to happen again?" I'm going to put Beatles in a room like that.

That was my inspiration. My mother had the first Beatles album, and that was my inspiration.

And that got me into corporate. I found call Perkins through Beatles. Yeah.

“You know, honey, don't see Perkins. Well, who see Perkins? You know, that's how I found”

a true love ways. Be Holly. Who's Be Holly? So, I found rockabilly through Beatles. Uh, and I just, you fanboyed. I went up to, and I said, probably the stupidest thing you could ever say to anyone. I didn't know what to say. But I wanted to know I was cool, and that I knew about, I mean, I've learned it's a life lesson we all share at the end of the story. I wanted to show them that I knew that I read shout.

I said, uh, there was a tea break kind of thing. I said, "What if I happen to, uh, to Pete best?" Oh, God. This is my moment. I've been around a little. This doesn't mean, yes. Jordan, that didn't mean, said, "I haven't thought about that guy in like 25 years." And he went back to what he was doing. Yeah. Yeah. Harfied. But those guys are very good at being them, and they know the power they have

over then, yeah, I would be carrying this around the rest of my life, and I would have never shared it with

“your, your cool guy. I'm not going to tell Billy. So he knows this. And as I'm walking away,”

they said, "Hey, kid, yes, yes, Jordan, kind of call your George." And I just didn't work out with him, you know, we found your friend Ringo, because I knew Ringo was a little bit, because it's a party guy like me. Yeah. And I said, "You know, I just didn't work out. I have a good show tomorrow." So we played the show the next day. It was great. Everybody liked to draw George like where, and he even, he loved doing it. You watched that show, you could see George Harrison with.

After that. Well, that's it, I know. Will Barry's very quickly after that. He got back into life for it. And for some reason, he liked me, because maybe I said this stupid thing. It could possibly, you survived that. You survived that. And he invited me to fry a park after the show. And like, I stayed in touch with them over the years. Every once in a while, the phone would ring

“in LA. Is this Slim Jim Phantom from the Straight Cats? You know, back in the day we were worried”

about someone getting your numbers. Yes. Hi, this is George Harrison from the Beatles. What are you doing, kid? Nothing now. So do you want to meet up and grab a sandwich? Of course. So I hung out with George like quite a bit. He would just call it, and then maybe a year would go by, and you wouldn't, but he was staying in touch. And like I said, we went to for our park a few times. And just, I was friends with the Beatles, and it was George who's my hero. I love the guy,

and I love the guy. And so, so we were in touch in life. And so my life lesson to that is even if you think you're cool, if you meet Eric Clapton or ring gore fissie Paul McCartney at the airport lounge or a few meet Robert Plant or Jimmy. If you don't ask them about song remains the same. Don't ask them about an obscure cream record that Ginger Baker said to you that ask Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, Keith Richard, ask them, you know, I really did call Perkins first

album. You're going to be friends with all of them. You're going to get yourself a moment. You couldn't get, you couldn't get that, you know, hey, by this guy, you're going to get that from all those guys. I knew Phil Spector a bit. I met him at a Lakers game. And he came up because his daughter was a fan. And I took care of his daughter in a, in a particular way, it's a long story,

but after that, then every time I saw him, he wanted to come say hello to me. We never talked about

“music. We talked about life. This is all before a struggle, you know. But I remember having that feeling,”

like I'm talking to Phil Spector. I mean, argue with the greatest producer in the history of the thing. You learned other things, probably. Come on, like talk to him. I learned from George Harrison. I had father was a good guy. I had nice upbringing. I was, you know, I had a band that we were like, I learned something when I had lunch with George Harrison every time. I would like, I would then when I thought I was back in nerd, I went back to nerd. Of course, after I knew it,

I said, no, when they recorded that, did you put the kick drum, my little, and like, he was saying, well, what do you want to know that for? Yeah. These French fries are awesome. And I would think to myself, yes, why do I want to know that? Who cares who the other guy, who Billy Scheers was, who was the other guy in Sergeant Pepper than the third in the background? I would ask these things.

And he would always say, well, what do you want to know that for? And I thought,

I don't really care. No, no, I don't. And what do you talk about the weather? Something exactly now. And then later on it was said, yeah, we took the front skin off and moved it back a little bit. But he would always kind of answer the nerd question a little bit later. You know, and I, I, I just love the guy. So you would, I'd learn a few life lessons in my 30s or whatever. Yeah. Okay. So I want to stop here, but I, I love this

lyric. So you guys have that tribute to Jean and Eddie. Yeah, this, um, and there's a line in there. I'm going to dance with the devil, maybe win. And I'm going to dance with Scamie Jim. Yeah. I was just thinking because, you know, you've lived in these guys beautiful world for so long, and they work great artists, you know. Um, it's like, it's, you know, the number one conversation in the music business, right now is AI. It's probably every segment of the entertainment

business is AI. It's like it feels like this marauding army is coming and we're not really sure how it's going to, um, for example, one thing I'm, I'm predicting is you're going to see ultimately

Beatles. And you're going to pump it through AI and you're going to be able to hear the record as if

“it was recorded yesterday. Like at some point, these arguments are all going to start, um, at least”

that's my sense. I agree completely. But I'm just curious, uh, not that you would speak for them, but because you sort of understand their, uh, ideology, um, those pure rockers, the, the body hollies and the gene events, it's like, um, the Johnny Burnett's, like, how they would perceive the world that we're in now with, you know, because because they're so diametrically opposed to what technology is bringing and has brought and we've all made records with Pro Tools. And instead of using

the old piece of gear, we're running it through a plug in and, you know, so I know you know what I'm saying, but it just seems to me like, I almost feel like they would have almost like future shock where they would be like, wow, I, if he's here for them, imagine a man on Mars, then it would be to understand

what Rock and Roll is turned into. We always had this discussion Brian and I, like, we think

that a few of the guys who were really smart, Eddie Cochran, buddy Holly, that they would have loved it because buddy Holly was learning how to multitrack. Eddie Cochran, a few of those records,

“a very technologically kind of ahead of the curve a little bit. Um, I think, I think they would have”

loved it. I think they would have used 48 tracks. And then I think in the 90s or the, or the 2000s, they would have loved Pro Tools. And then I think they would have learned to mix Pro Tools with analog and use the best parts of the old shirts with the best parts of their. I think Eddie Cochran, if he was allowed to be a record producer, like, buddy Holly might have produced the Beatles role we know, like, because they loved him. And if he was around, they wanted to get off the road,

maybe, who knows, we always like to imagine these things, that they would have come to the conclusion,

yeah, we can use, but let's dial up that, that capital microphone and the sun echo chamber, this dial that up with the new. I think the smarter guys, yeah, would have loved it. Yeah, because I guess the argument you're making is a beautiful one is, is they use technology

“to capture the spirit of what they were out. They were using the best they could at the time.”

Sun, Sam Phillips with the echo, you know, the, you know, what is that song that Elba sings, blue moon where it's like, it's got that, like, the echo so loud. But I'm saying, the echo so loud, it's almost obscene. But it's part of what makes it so magical. Elba sounds like he's floating in a cloud somewhere. Elfavourite argument. My favorite dream. Give it to me. My pal, now I'm saying everything, it's not the left. If Elba's perfectly heard the stray cats. Okay. He would have wanted

to make an album with us. It seems, it's a good bet to make. And we go to Sun Studios because he wanted to get back to the real, back to the real. Yeah. That's someone sort of MTV. Yeah. He was changing the channels in the satellite to gracefully. Yeah. He had healing in times. And so MTV is one of the stray cats who wanted to get in touch with us. Well, we're right. I'm sorry, I'm not trying to cut you off of you. But we want to think, like those old guys,

older, not old guys. The original American rock and roll stars. Sure. We love to think. Like call purpose. I met a few of them. Yeah. Would have loved the stray cats. And like if Elvis would love what butchers is your, your point is if you go super deep in it, Elvis's catalog or end of, end of Sam Phillips and to early RCA, there are some of that rock ability stuff. It's not maybe not even the most famous songs where Elvis is on fire. And he, and as great as he was at different

periods, Elvis has never better than when he's got that rock ability back be playing. And then he

got Burton back to the, to be the MD and those kind of Vegas shows. And it's always in there. I do a radio show for little Stephen on the series. This is my eighth or tenth year. It's have to come up with things to do. This year, I've been playing Elvis Presley's chronological single releases. Okay. I start with that's all right, Mama. I'm midway into the 60s now. He had like three, four hundred single readers. So next year, I'll do the, the besides of this year. You

cannot go wrong with it. So I know Elvis was pretty well. Of course, the early stuff is my Bible. But like middle period, movie soundtrack, there's like a lot of stuff. So I've been just playing chronological every single that is read these by him. And they're all amazing. There's not even one bad anything. Sometimes you can think something's okay. And then there's puppet on a string. But he's singing and he always has that. There's always the guy who did that. So right, Mama Son

time. So I think at some point he, if he was around long enough, he would have got got healthy and gone back to his roots and made a rock ability record. It's, it's a dream. I'll share with you a story that I've told a few times, but it's a perfect time to, to wrap is I was with Lisa Marie one night. Actually, at the sunset marquee, and it's kind of dark in there. And I was sitting next to her. And we were very close at this time. And I'm looking at her from the side. And it's like,

it's Elvis's profile. You know what I mean? I mean, yes, I know it's Elvis's daughter, but I'm looking at Elvis's profile in her. And she kind of does one of these and sees me staring at her and she goes,

“what? And you must have known Lisa, right? And so, you know, Lisa was like cut right to the chase.”

So I got two choices. I'm going to tell you the truth. I'm at a lie. I said, "Well, I was just thinking if you father." I said, "It's just hard sometimes to look at you and not get wrapped up in all that." And, and she kind of looked at me funny and she goes, what do you, what do you think of my father? And I said, "As a musician, or as like a celebrity." And she goes, "Well, both." And we had this long discussion where, just like you're talking about it, I gave her my kind of

20 minutes to look we on her father as an artist, which ultimately, in the to boil it down, I said, "He was a savant beyond savant." I mean, the talent level is shocking. The capability,

the feeling, the singing, and she was like, "I've never heard anybody put it that way." And it brought

us closer together because, as she often would point out, everybody always wants to talk to me about my father, and she always said my father, you know, but he, to me, is just my dad. And a beautiful connection that we had in that moment was, I gave her something back that it was about Elvis, but it was in a way where she understood it for her, not just a fan going on, I loved your father. Yeah. And, but yeah, I mean, it's a natural. And every hurricane and all the, all the,

all the, they thought he was a brilliant actor, natural. You watched those movies. I saw him back and I watched, he's excellent in every one of those movies. They couldn't make him that. They

meaning those establishments. He was never. And he saw any record, he made it great. Yeah.

Natural. Yeah, I found this website once where it was a breakdown of, it was inverses, but it was sort of comparing, because it was different areas. The success of being crawseby is an actor and as a singer and Elvis is an actor and a singer. And basically, kind of breaking it down to Rob OX office, adjusted for gross. And it was basically like, you know, in the 20th century, these two guys dominated to two medias and at the highest level, like, you know, it was kind of

shocking, because, you know, institutionally, you see, because the, to us, Elvis is rockin' or always, no matter what, what I mean it. You can do clam bake all day, but it's always going to be that Elvis for me. And I think it's, you feel that way too. But, but when you understand that in, in the, in the, in the Titanic scope of the 20th century, the two men dominated in a way that's almost, you, I don't, I don't think it's ever happened again that I can think of prints kind of

“came close there for a hot second. If you have one, maybe one there, but I think that's it, right?”

John that and whatever, but even though he did new movies, but we did some movies, but it was never,

I mean, the building to be a movie star and the rock star. Those movies that Elvis did, they made money. Well, that was, that was, that was they didn't Tom Parker's point, right? But they just didn't keep making, okay, let's make the 17th movie with this, yeah, God, unless they made money. Yeah, there's the boils down to that in the match. Yeah. Something is, whatever, it's got ultimately, so hokey, you know, sad, it doesn't matter. Those movies made money, MGM, or RCA, whoever,

and he was making the soundtracks, and there's a lot of good stuff on it, right? Yeah, there's a lot of, so. So give us one Elvis movie, we should watch that, maybe it's overlooked. That's overlooked. Yeah, you know, like, obviously there's the famous ones, but like, if I went down to watch an Elvis movie that maybe I wouldn't think of, because has I tend to fall on the camp of, like, it's really not for me, some of that's the right. Well, my favorite one's

loving you. So, but the other day I show Blue Hawaii and I could, I do like that. I do like that.

“I think flaming star, he's like a good actor. He's like very good. Yeah, you know, and I think that”

if he had given the time to get, you know, to, you know, have a step back from it, he would have come back and as an actor, too. He might have taken a role and been in, you know, Jack Nicholson movie, or, you know, that time. Well, he really wanted to, I know.

Yeah, and, and as a musician too, I, I think some time, like, it's all everyone,

told the straightest, told the clash, should have taken six months off, you guys, and then

“come back with them. Yeah, you know, with the fresh head, I think for Elvis that would have been”

really the same thing. Thank you, my friend. Thank you.