The Fuzzy Mic
After retiring from a 30-year, major market morning radio career, I'm often asked what I miss the most about the job. I miss 3 C's...camaraderie, creativity but most of all, conversation.
The Fuzzy Mic is built around creativity and conversation to develop camaraderie. The 4 focus areas are: Mental Health, True Crime, Music and Sports.
So, while The Fuzzy Mic allows me to fill some professional voids, it's my sincere hope that maybe you'll find something personally fulfilling in it too.
The Fuzzy Mic
Music Stories With Hall of Fame Bassist, Phil Soussan
Strap in for a wild ride alongside Phil Soussan, the rock legend whose bass lines powered the iconic Ozzy Osbourne and who now thunders with Last In Line. As Phil gets candid about his illustrious journey, he transports us from his Rock Gods Hall of Fame induction to his current project, "Last in Line". We'll also chuckle over a classic anecdote – beware of magnets near your electronics!
Phil doesn't just pluck strings; he strikes chords of advocacy within the music industry, fighting for the rights and royalties of artists in the digital age, and ensuring the FAA understands the importance of a musician's most precious cargo—their instruments. The conversation takes a personal turn as he reminisces about influential bassists, the unique camaraderie on tours with rock's elite, and the Japanese fans' unwavering dedication to American rock. It's a harmonious blend of humor, homage, and the transformative power of music that spans cultures and generations.
Finishing on a high note, Phil shares the serendipity behind his collaboration with Ozzy, the making of "Shot in the Dark," and his upcoming autobiography that promises to resonate deeply with the cultural zeitgeist. Anticipation builds for his fresh solo material, offering a window into his perspective on today's world. It's a heart-to-heart with a bassist who's not just part of music history but continues to make it, and you're front row for the bass line that runs through it all.
Hey FU.
Speaker 2:Excuse me, Zzy, it's the Fuzzy Mike with Kevin Klein. The Fuzzy Mike podcast.
Speaker 1:Hello and thank you for joining me for this exciting episode. A while back I went to my 30-second tool concert, went with my longtime friend, jeff, whom I met while I was living in Texas, and Jeff works in the Houston Astros front office. It's so strange for me to refer to him as Jeff. I don't think I've ever called him that since the day we met for lunch in 2005, because he showed up with a man purse. He's just always been merc to me.
Speaker 1:Anyway, merc, knowing my love for music, thought it would be an interesting episode if I had his friend Phil on to talk about Phil's amazing career in music. Friend Phil yeah, he's Phil Suzan, former bassist for Ozzy, big Noise, billy Idol, vince, neal, many other artists, and he's currently touring on the road with his band Last In Line. Phil's prolific career, what's garnered him induction into the Rock Gods Hall of Fame and something else that he's done in his life that I find incredibly cool. He was the vice president of the Grammy awards for a couple of years. After a couple of technical difficulties, we were finally able to hook up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just discovered something interesting, which is that if you put a laptop anywhere near a magnet, it kicks you back out to the sleep screen. Is that right? Well, all these years, who knew it right?
Speaker 1:Exactly, we have a difficult time with you know they don't use keys anymore in your hotel rooms to give you those cards that are, yeah, whenever you put it near a magnet it's. You got to go back down to the front desk.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I know that all too well. I'm sure you do Keep your credit cards away from that magnet, that's all.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. How many, how many times a year do you sleep in your own bed? Gosh four, I was going to say it's got to be low man.
Speaker 2:You know, I've been home quite a bit lately. So you know we've been doing a lot of this weekend warrior type of shows. So you know it's not like it used to be, where you wave goodbye to all your loved ones and then said I'll see you in about 15 months, when you went on to a bus and there was no cell phones and no one could get hold of you.
Speaker 1:Very true. Yeah, it was a simpler time, Phil. It was also a much more pleasant time, Absolutely yeah, we'll get into your travels with all of the bands that you're a part of. I know you're out with Last in Line right now. You're getting ready to go on a cruise. You're going to be in Houston on April the 4th and then two nights later you're going to be near my house and I'm hoping to get over to Tulsa to see you guys.
Speaker 2:Oh, that would be fantastic?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it would be awesome. So let's talk a little bit about Houston, because you and I, as I mentioned before you came on, we have a mutual friend. How did you meet Jeff, oh?
Speaker 2:wow. Well, I think I met him. I think he was friendly with Andrew actually, but he came to our shows. He would come to our shows and you know, he's such a warm and hospitable guy and he would always bring one of his friends who would end up catering the whole thing with like a bunch of Tex Max food.
Speaker 2:And he's just a sweet guy and we started talking and we stayed in touch, and every time he comes to Vegas, we make a point of getting together, and every time I find myself in Houston it's the same thing as well, and we both have a great love of food, so we've got that in common.
Speaker 1:I need to ask you about your time on the Guy Fieri show.
Speaker 2:Well, he likes food as well, but Jeff does too. I'm not, so I don't know too much about baseball. I'll be honest with you. I'm not a huge sports person, but I'm a friend to pretend I am so but I have a lot of respect to see what they do over there.
Speaker 1:So Well sure, it's not much different than what you do. You're an entertainer, they're entertainers. They're gone 162 days out of the year and you're pretty much the same.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they throw a bunch of shit around. We do the same thing, yeah.
Speaker 1:What happened to the days where breaking the guitar on stage that ended? Oh, it got very expensive, I bet it did.
Speaker 2:I don't know. I mean, I think you know, once two or three people have done that, it's like what are you going to do If you did that? Somebody accused you of plagiarizing somebody else's stage antics, right, very true.
Speaker 1:That kind of leads me to something that I think about all the time, and I'm not talking about influential, I'm talking about innovative, I'm talking about people who changed the instrument. So who, in your opinion, changed the bass, who took it to a new level? I've got my list. I think Geyser was you had to be at the forefront right Geyser Butler.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Geyser is just a phenomenal bass player and I remember I was blown away when I went to see him. Actually, I remember one time I went with Ozzie to see him. They were playing at the Marquis in London and we went just to see him and Ozzie said to me you know, what would you think of Geyser? And I said well, the thing that blew me away was what he used to play just using fingers, because I'm a finger player as well. But I would usually reserve that for sort of more laid back kind of music, certainly not for when you're trying to compete against Bill Ward and Tony Iommi at that kind of level of music. I would find it's quite difficult. But he manages to do it. He has a great sound as well, so it's cool. I love Terry Butler. He's a great guy and every time I see him he's just a super, super guy, a great gentleman, and it was always nice to see him.
Speaker 1:That's the same thing people say about you Very humble, very kind gentleman. Well, that's very nice.
Speaker 2:I'll take that as a compliment.
Speaker 1:As you should, sir, as you should. So you were getting ready to say your list.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, the people who changed it. I suppose you know the bass has always been for me. I have a classical background, so bass is what's called figured bass. It's basically something you would find in if you went back to four-part harmony, to Bach music or stuff like that. It's a very key point that you have a melody line, you have a bass line and these two things interact in a certain way, and then everything that happens in between is subject to some degree of interpretation and that's really how it's constructed. So your bass lines are very, very important. They're very tied to a melody line.
Speaker 2:But what would be different would be somebody who took that and maybe brought it to the forefront to somebody who would treat it as a solo instrument. So I would have to say it's the jack of the story. Isn't the Stanley Clarks and people of that ilk who actually came out and said, look, I can, we can play. You know, we can use this as a lead instrument? Maybe that's the best example of somebody who's really made a big, a big difference to the bass changing the role of what it does.
Speaker 1:But if you, if you use that as the criteria, I have to think then that Justin Chancellor from Tool would be right up there, because he's doing solos in live performances that sound like a lead guitar. That's crazy. How do you get your bass to do that?
Speaker 2:Well, you have to have a certain sound that will do it. And I know he uses wall basses. I've been using wall basses since Ian Waller made my first one for me years and years ago. Sadly he's not around anymore and these are very, very coveted instruments. They're hard to find and they have a unique sound. I mean, anyone who hears Tool knows exactly what I'm talking about and also the way that he plays, because he does play incredible solo stuff.
Speaker 2:But the whole construction of the music in that band is almost mathematical. It is, it really is. I've looked at it, I've learned some of those tracks because I've jammed them with people and you know it's definitely a lot of stuff going on and it's and it's, it's. It's a lot of fun for a bass player. Of course, you know. Last thing you want to do is, you know, while there's a lot of catharsis in playing, you know playing along, playing root notes and playing simple stuff in great ballads, for example, there's also a lot of joy in playing that kind of stuff where you get to the forefront and really you know, expand and start to push the envelope with what it is that you can do.
Speaker 1:Well, I think you're doing kind of both with last in line, I think you're you're.
Speaker 2:There's aggressiveness to it, but there's also some really great melody, yeah there is, and I've been trying to play just really what comes to mind as what's appropriate. I always play for the song. I've always said that I think the most important thing you can do is is to do so and not to play for yourself. So whatever the song calls for, but within that there are things that you hear that in your head that you want to sort of put across. I have a lot of influences. For example, you know, I had a great deal of post punk influence growing up where I, where I grew up in London, and so there was a lot, of, a lot of influences and things that would come out, that sort of creep out sometimes. I mean I love bands like Killing Joke, I love bands that, all those kinds of sort of darker post punk things, and there were some amazing baselines in these, in these, in these, in these tracks, and so I'll do something. That doesn't always come to mind and I always try to merge something. I'll think outside the box, I'll say, well, would what? Would something completely random? You know, what would? What would I do if this was a seal track and then play that and then find a way to make that heavy so that it has some kind of influence, Like when people say to me, especially people who are, you know, young bass players, they say, hey, you know how can I start to develop my style or whatever.
Speaker 2:I use the analogy of a folder. You know, just say you've got to build your folder, but what you can do is go to this big library which has everybody's folders in it. You can take a page out of it, the other one, put it together and that becomes your folder. So use those influences and you know, we all inspire each other, we all influence each other. We've all, we've all heard stuff that you say wow, man, I wish I could, I had thought of that, or I wish I could play that. We'll take some, you know, learn it and take some influence from it.
Speaker 1:All right, this is going to be a tough question, then, for you. But what is that one song or that one bass line that you like? Oh my God, I wish I did. I wish I did come up with that.
Speaker 2:Well, you talk about Last in Line, for example. I would have to say you know the song Last in Line. I mean, what Jimmy did on that was fantastic. It's such a simple, straightforward bass line but it's really cool and it's the sort of thing I wish I would have come up with, and it incorporates a lot of stuff that I relate to. You know, I hear a lot of Andy Fraser in that. I mean, I knew Jimmy so I know where his influences came from. But definitely Andy Fraser and just the ideas of how he you know how he would create a repeating pattern but then started halfway through or changed something about it. Use a high octave instead of a low octave the first time and then fall down to the low octave, and it gives it a just a different feel, because you think that the bass line sort of started half a bar before it actually did. It's just clever, it's just clever.
Speaker 1:So you're talking about? You're talking about Jimmy, jimmy Bain, and he was the bass player for Ronnie James Dio. Last in line is the project that you're heavily involved in now, and it started because Vivian Campbell Def Leppard Ronnie James Dio and then Jimmy decided that they wanted to carry on the music of Ronnie James Dio after he passed away. Now take us to the progression, please.
Speaker 2:Well, I don't know if that's what they were motivated to do, according to Veer, if they just sort of had talked at some point and they said, hey, why don't we just go in a room, just for old times sake, and just jam and bang through some of these songs we haven't played in 20 years? Just just. I think it was just a fun. And they did that and from what I understand they they got off at a couple of gigs and they did a couple of gigs and then they got off at a big gig in Japan, which they did, and then they said, well, you know, maybe we should I don't know write an original album or something. And they started working on the first album, the album that became Heavy Crown, and the time Jimmy, of course, was working with them, and just prior to the release, literally just prior to the release of that album, it was when Jimmy passed away.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when it was on a cruise, wasn't?
Speaker 2:it. It was indeed on a cruise. It was on the. I think it was on Def Leppard cruise, wasn't?
Speaker 1:it, it was yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:That's an appropriate name as well, something drama on the high seas or something like that.
Speaker 1:So Yep, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Not totally off the off the mark was it, but the after that happened. You know, vinny and I have worked together since, I don't know, 2005 or something.
Speaker 1:Vinny, vinny Apasey he's just those names around like they're nobody you know. Vinny Ozzy Viv yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:That is so cool. There's only one, vinny, but there's two ways of pronouncing his last name.
Speaker 1:And those two are what.
Speaker 2:Well, there's Apasey, it's Vinny Apasey and it's Carmine Apice. That's right. Because you got to get it right. I like to say that they're two brothers separated by a common family name, you know, but it's quite funny because they do get very attached to the pronunciation of their names and I work with both of them. So you know I have to check myself, I have to take a quick, you know, split second pause and go Apasey.
Speaker 1:Which one? Which one? Which one you were just talking about, last in line going over to Japan? How does music translate universally? I don't understand Japanese lyrics. How do they understand English lyrics as rapidly and as passionately as they do?
Speaker 2:I don't know, they're very passionate about stuff like that. I think it's a. I think it's an incredibly arrogant of English and English speaking people to expect the entire world is going to speak English when you go there, and so for that reason, I've always tried to sort of learn languages. I love I actually get a lot of pleasure out of that kind of stuff. So, you know, I started learning Japanese at one time after I've gone there several times and I can get by Really Absolutely I speak other language.
Speaker 2:So it's, it's that kind of fun, and I think that they were very much enthralled with anything that was Americana in Japan. For a long, long time there's no secret about that They've always been, you know, very dedicated fans and they want to find out as much as possible. I mean, having said that, I'm actually really good with our friends, with Don Wilson's daughter, stacy, and Stacy Lane Wilson, who Don was, of course, in the Ventures, and the Ventures to this day are probably the biggest foreign band in Japan, wow, the Bigger than Beatles, bigger than anything else, huge, and one of the and nobody really understands it, you see, like a pop fiction, you can see, it's just this. There's this whole Japanese thing about this kind of surf music that they just lap up, and one supposition was that maybe it's just because there weren't any lyrics and so it was just maybe.
Speaker 1:I don't know, it could very well be.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, some of the best songs that I've heard are instrumentals, you know, and that's that's kind of what you started doing with classical music.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and, and you know, I mean to this day I think it'd be hard pressed to find a guitar player who wasn't influenced by the Ventures. I mean every legend, from Jimmy Page to Billy Gibbons, I mean it was. You know this, this is a band that really it was a bit like this, like like the shadows in Britain, that kind of really influenced a lot of you know, melodic guitar playing solos, the idea that you would carry an entire song as an instrumental.
Speaker 1:You don't often hear them cited as such a prominent band in people's musical education.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, I mean, I recently was at an award show, a ceremony, and a couple of the guitar players. They actually cited the Ventures as their early influences.
Speaker 1:That's awesome.
Speaker 2:You know, first time I heard the Ventures, I knew there was going to do and I don't. You know, I I don't know the answer to that. I think that they're, they have an incredible brand. I think that the Ventures to me is synonymous with everything that was, you know, 60s American music. You know, just the same way, that Elvis was synonymous with 50s American rock and roll and it was a very I mean, you know, I can't think about the Beach Boys without thinking of that era. Sure, I can't think about you know those types of music, and so I think maybe they do have it. It's definitely something that that could be, that could be revived at some point, re-discovered.
Speaker 1:Dick Dale's not around anymore. So yeah, there's a definite opening.
Speaker 2:No, he's not around. I used to see him every single year at the Nam show because he was a Dean Markley string artist, like I was for years and years, and he was a wonderful, wonderful guy he's. He'd chat with his son all the time. That there's another great legend of that era, right.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, oh for sure. So you talked about some guitarists citing the ventures. Is what made them want to get into music? What was it that got you?
Speaker 2:into it. Well, I, I've had a passion for music since I could ever remember. I mean, maybe you know I have. I have recollections, I actually have memory recollections of when I was a year old, which is pretty weird, that is phenomenal, yeah. But very, very few of them. But I still have them and I remember checking them with my mom and she was like, oh my gosh, but when I was very young I think probably just over two years old I had my mom's cousins who lived in France, who were both musicians, and they came over and they bought me a little record player, which kids record player and you could put records on.
Speaker 2:I would apparently sit there and play records, just sit in my arms folded, and sing along to these records, and that's how it all sort of began. And then it progressed to. They also brought me my, bought me my first guitar, a little miniature wooden guitar, and I really didn't know what to do with it. And shortly thereafter, I mean, I started with other instruments, normal childhood instruments, recorders, melodicas, all these things, things that you could actually have lessons for, and I became active with that at my primary school and then, of course, I just just developed this thing for music.
Speaker 2:My mom would play music around the house. She always had radio to going and she would listen to a lot of pop music. I heard a lot of Beatles, I heard a lot of sixties music and I was just surrounded with music all the time, and it's just something I became very passionate about. As I went to school, I started learning, taking more and more music classes, and eventually I think I was probably about 10 or 11 years old when I started playing violin, and I played violin for 12, 12, 14 years after that, and classical.
Speaker 1:Did you really make a makeshift violin out of that guitar and you took your grandfather's cane or anything? Okay, so that's what I want to talk to you about how much of your bio on PhilSusancom is true and how much of its comedy and fiction.
Speaker 2:Well, what happened was that I did take my dad's cane. Okay, I saw people doing this with violin and I thought I tried doing with the cane to make any sound. I thought, being the scientific guy that I was, I was like this I need to create more friction. So I started carving little notches in it. So I didn't make a violin out of it, I just used the cane on the guitar, and I think that was the inspiration for Jimmy Page using the violin bow on the guitar later in later years. But I wouldn't swear to it.
Speaker 1:Okay, boy, you bring up Jimmy Page. I want to talk about that story. This is probably the longest you've ever gone into conversation without having to talk about shot in the dark and Ozzy days. But I want to also talk about it's something that really fascinates me, and you were the vice president of the Grammy awards for two years. Take me through the Grammy awards. How much music do you have to listen to to adjudicate those awards?
Speaker 2:Well, I didn't really do that much on the Grammy awards, but because the Grammys is a recording academy and as a recording academy they have built pillars on four or five different things, and one of them is the awards show, which happens once a year, but for the other 364 days there's an awful lot of other stuff that goes on that I was very much involved in. So to me, the awards show was not something I was particularly. You know that's not the reason I went to do this. You know, the other pillars that they had were, of course, archiving and preservation, there was advocacy, there was music cares and then, of course, the awards show as well, and some of these other things I was much more interested in.
Speaker 2:The reason I went onto the board was actually to pay back.
Speaker 2:My dear friend was Randy Castillo, who you know passed away and during his bout of cancer music cares did help him quite a bit.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately it didn't help him enough, but I don't think anyone could have helped him enough, but it certainly helped him to the point where I said you know, maybe I'd like to do something for this organization as well, because I could see what good they were doing for other people, and so that was my motivation to go on the recording academy. And I remember I was at a name show and walking past the narress the Grammys is also known as narress as well Right Walking past the narress booth and I was with my wife and I said, you know, I'd love to go on the board with that, I'd love to see what I could do. And you know, so I did a couple of things, reached out to some people, got on a ballot and then got basically elected to be on the board, and so I was on the governing board for six years I think, and at the end of that six year period I then put myself up to run as vice president and there was a little bit of an election. Never heard that word before, right.
Speaker 1:Right never.
Speaker 2:And I managed to. I was voted to vice president of the LA chapter, which is the biggest chapter, so I worked there for two years.
Speaker 1:So what's your proudest accomplishment on narress and in the Grammy board?
Speaker 2:Well, we did a lot of work in the rebranding of the Grammys. We rebranded everything it's about 2012, 2013,. Because it needed bringing up and we needed to have a new face of the Grammys. We needed to have a new reputation. We needed to invite and make our presence well known to new artists, new types of artists, et cetera. The other things that I did was a lot of advocacy stuff.
Speaker 2:I'm really fascinated by that. We're in a business where everything is in a constant state of flux and changing. I mean, just in the last 10 years, nobody knew what streaming was. Now it's the de facto method by which people acquire and listen to music. We had lots and lots of things we were wrestling with bootlegging CDs back then and while all the industry changes and things change, well, the music has to keep up with it, because people are going to start to want things. They're going to want to establish their business models within and incorporate the music that we create, and if we're not there at the table having a voice, we're gonna get taken advantage of. It's as simple as that. So, while everything is changing, when people start talking about streaming, we have to say, okay, well, streaming, we need a new royalty. So one of the things that happened, for example. I don't know if I want to bore you with details, but no.
Speaker 1:I'm fascinated by this.
Speaker 2:There are two basic sources for royalties for musicians and I'm talking about writers right now and one of them is called performances and one of them is called mechanicals. So performance is for the performance of the music that you hear on the radio or on the TV, or a live show or in a bar, and the mechanicals are things that you generate from the actual sale of a recording, so an album, a CD, a tape, a cassette, whatever, and then you have to download. So now all of a sudden.
Speaker 2:Well, no, no, no, no. Now they're downloading it and they're streaming it, and now everybody's fighting going hold on a second. That's a performance, right? No, it's not, it's a mechanical. And the arguments are fantastic Well, it must be. Streaming must be a mechanical because it buffers, so it takes about a quarter of a second to buffer. During that quarter of a second, you actually own the music, so therefore it must be a mechanical. No, no, no, it's a performance because it's actually being broadcast.
Speaker 2:And these arguments are taking place because there is no definition. So you have to get in the middle. And we've put together the Music First Coalition. We put together organizations which would come together and say let's have a debate about this, let's figure out exactly what it is, and if it turns out to be a completely new and unique royalty, then perhaps we have to have a new and unique royalty collection agency for it. Age of it pretty much what's happened. So some of those things are pretty cool. I was also instrumental in helping to pass the FAA instrument flight rule, which dictates that people be allowed to take instruments into the cabinet flights and not be forced not to. So that was already a huge victory.
Speaker 1:That didn't happen until recently.
Speaker 2:No, I was involved in that.
Speaker 1:My goodness, I never knew that.
Speaker 2:That's fascinating. They can't you know. At one time it was like no, you can't bring that. What would it be? You're gonna have to check it, but I can't. It's a priceless guitar, it's gonna get thrown around.
Speaker 1:Yeah exactly.
Speaker 2:Well, sorry you can't get on the flight Now they have to. They have to try to accommodate you and for any viewers watching out there, if you ever get into an altercation, don't fight with the gate staff, it's not up to them. Ask very nicely and politely if you can ask permission from the flight crew, because they're the ones who have the final law and they do understand that law, so they're the ones that have full jurisdiction on that and unfortunately it only applies in the United States. But they absolutely have the worst reputation. I'm not mentioning any names, but the initials begin with British Airways and they are just I refuse to fly. British Airways, never, will, never, will, ever again. Horrible airline. It's so rude and so disrespectful to musicians they pretty much have in their small print that they refuse to humor anybody that has a musical instrument. Wow. And they kind of have to do stuff according to the FAA in the United States, but outside the US they're subject to their own.
Speaker 1:They can be there they can be themselves.
Speaker 2:They can be themselves, they can show their colors for their true colors.
Speaker 1:How is AI going to influence music? Is it dangerous? Is it a dangerous slope?
Speaker 2:I don't know I'm not terribly worried. Okay, I've tried AI to lyrics and stuff like that, just to see what happens. And you can say hey, write me a song which has this title, in the style of this band. And I tried to do that, I think. With it I said I'm just curious, write me a song. I can't remember the title I used. I went the style of Rolling Stones or something right, and I put as much information as I could into this thing, into this engine, and it comes back with this lyric. And I read the lyric and I go okay, and it does. It rhymes and there's a whole load of stuff about night and light and bright and fight, which words which I pour. I pour because that's the most cliched rhymes that you could ever find and it's full of it and there's nothing technically wrong, but there's. You know, the whole idea writing a song is to try to put a feeling across.
Speaker 1:Yeah, songs have to be personal right. It has to be personal, yeah.
Speaker 2:So some of this stuff is. You get the feeling like who wrote this stuff? It's not really personal. I mean, I would have more respect if it said geez, you know my diodes are burning and you know my capacitors are full charge, and you know, at least I'd say, okay, the machine feels something. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1:So what about? What about the? What happened not too long ago with Taylor Swift, where they were copying her voice and using it in kind of weird and awkward ways? Are we gonna see a day where a well, we already saw it with Millie Vanilly at the Grammys, but are we gonna see a day where an AI generated voice wins a Grammy?
Speaker 2:Or we have to be in an AI category, wouldn't it?
Speaker 1:It would have to be. Yeah, it would have to be. But then how would you know the difference?
Speaker 2:I can't imagine that. I can't imagine that's gonna be the case. But the whole AI thing, I think, is a little bit reminiscent of the dot com bubble in 2000, where you just had to put dot com next to anything and it was gonna be worth a fortune overnight. It's currency went up and it's value it's imagined value went up. In retrospect, only a few companies actually managed to run with that ball that are around today and they are very, very successful companies, but it's actually taken them 20 years to fill back into the value they had back then and then lost and then regained it.
Speaker 2:So a good example, for example, just off the top of my head, would be the idea that internet cybersecurity that's a big thing. Ai is huge for cybersecurity because what you can do is you can take a website or a web-based business or whatever it is, and you can really analyze it with AI and you can find out every possible loophole and find out everything to defend against any kind of cyber attacks. So this is the greatest thing that's ever been invented. This is the panacea, this is the primary rule, except for the fact that the criminals also have access to AI. So now we've got AI people, ai looking for holes, other AI. You basically have the same problem. It's just now on a different level.
Speaker 2:So there's always a trade-off to these things and people don't always think about, well, what's the downside here, what's the trade-off? So it's very easy for right now. I'm sure if you've been watching the news you've seen some of these computer companies, these chip companies, that are just going sky high because there's the potential of AI. Reminds me that Donald Fagan, the nightfly, where he talks about the IGY and how things are going to be great in the future and how incredible it's all going to be. And it's all a dream from the 60s. Nobody really could have anticipated the downside to it. It all sounds like a panacea.
Speaker 1:Yes, it does. Well, it kind of reminds me of the movie Oppenheimer. Nobody I don't know if anybody really realized the downside, except for the scientists themselves.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so take me to let me get the date correct here, the date of October 26th 2017, when you became immortal, inducted into the Rock Gods Hall of Fame. See, that's how little it meant to Phil, right there. He had to think about it. I, on the other hand, would have been jumping up and down, going dude, Rock Hall of Fame. I'm a rock god. Is that not an impressive thing for you?
Speaker 2:I'm not belittling it. It was a really, it was a great honor. And I was very surprised that I got a phone call asking me and saying, hey, we've decided that we're going to induct you in the Rock and Roll, the Rock Gods Hall of Fame. And I was like, wow, really me, why me? And so, yeah, I went to the this is a fantastic ceremony and it was in LA at the time and at the same time my dear friend Richie Cartes, and got inducted as well, right, yep, yeah, there's a few of us did. We played a great show. It was a very sort of impromptu jam show. Had some really had the presentations that were taking place. It was just a fantastic evening.
Speaker 1:That's great. Do you have a? Do you get a plaque or a, a bust or anything?
Speaker 2:I've got a big platinum album looking presentation thing downstairs which-.
Speaker 1:Have you ever sat down and thought about how many albums you've sold as an artist? Collectively total.
Speaker 2:No, no, I haven't. I mean it's. It's gotta be in the millions.
Speaker 1:Absolutely gotta be in the millions. Oh, for sure.
Speaker 2:It's not something I usually think about, but yeah, I'm sure it's. It's a, you know, contributed in many. I mean I was, I was at a, I was at Eddie Trunks birthday, the 40th, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, jeff told me all about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and Kevin Cronin was there from RS Bigwagon and he introduced him as somebody who had a diamond album, which means it sold over 10 million copies. Yeah, and I was like, wow, I didn't know what a diamond album was.
Speaker 1:Yep, yep, not many of them floating around, but the ones that are. I mean, thriller is obviously one of them. Yeah, taylor Swift got a couple, but yeah, I mean that's a whole another level right there, man, yeah. Whole another level. Yeah, what is? I hesitate to ask you this because you are so humble, but was there a? Hey, mom and dad, I made it moment.
Speaker 2:Oh, yes, yes, there was it's. It's not something I usually talk too much about, but I Could talk about it in a way that most people might relate to it, which is that when I, when I was Figuring out what I was gonna do the rest of my life I mean originally this is kind of weird. I was actually a pre-made, so that's what I was gonna do.
Speaker 1:Oh, so that's not BS on your on your web page. See, I thought that was too. I'm like man, this guy's just hilarious. You were really going into medicine. That's what I want to do.
Speaker 2:I have a level degrees in physics, chemistry and biology and that's what I was doing, and and then, for whatever reason, one day I decided that what I was really passionate about was music, and, and I was sort of doing everything else in order to facilitate me being able to play music. And certain points in time I couldn't do both anymore and I had to make an adult decision. So telling my parents that was not really the greatest news that they wanted here in the world, so they were not terribly supportive and I think most people would find that you know, I mean, it was. It was funny. My dad said to me one time he said he'd had a pep talk with me and said you know, it's to find something that you really love doing, because if you can find something you love doing, you'll never work a day in your life and something that you would do even after you retire. And somebody and I said yeah. So when I went and told him I said I'm gonna be a musician and his response was anything but that. So anyway, it wasn't. You know, I didn't get exactly have a overwhelming support from my, my parents, and it's understandable that they weren't bad or anything. They just were not terribly thrilled about it.
Speaker 2:So I think that that kind of gave me a little bit of motivation, but that I had to find some way to succeed. And what I did and for me the success was not how many albums I sold or how many millions, or figuring out how many records I'd sold or whatever, or For me, I mean I, I set myself a very attainable goal. I said, look, if I can, if I can pay my bills and I can live Doing what I love doing, I will consider that to be success, and anything else that happens beyond that is bonus. In doing so it's, it's an attainable level of success. It's not an unrealistic, you know, a vision. And if you can do that well, then it's quite easy to sort of up the up the the ante a little bit more as you go along and raise the bar. That's not a problem.
Speaker 2:But I always advise people to set, you know, attainable levels. You can't just go out there and say, hey, I don't want to play in the World series, we're talking about ball right. Yeah, you can't come out there because you know it's too, it's not attainable. I mean, maybe one day you will play in the world series, but that is a goal is not going to help you. You can go out there and say, hey, I want to, I want to be able to hit that ball Perfectly with this and we for the right pitch. That is something that you might be able to work towards, and if you continue to do that every single time, well then guess what? Maybe one day you will be playing the world series.
Speaker 2:A series of little baby steps, and that's what I tell people. You know, and it's very important because you have. You have to always remain confident, you have to be positive and you cannot be harboring disappointments. It's just, it's going to work against you. So you've always got to be doing things that say, oh man, I managed to do that, that's really cool. And then, and then you, you're happy with what you do.
Speaker 1:So it's it's a little bit of a life coach it's a lot of life coach and Basically, the overriding thing that you said in your baseball analogy, without actually saying it, is Control the things you can control getting to a world series. There's so much out of your hands, you know, but you are the one that controls. Can I hit the ball better? Can I hit the ball further? Can I, you know? Can I play that note differently? Can I, you know? Not how many people can I bring into the stadium, but what can I do to better myself?
Speaker 2:and then that goal becomes achievable and if you do that, you, I have found that Fame and fortune are the byproducts of that. They spin off, they will come by themselves absolutely. And so you don't have to worry too much about that. Just just worry about doing, worry about hitting that ball exactly Um you brought up.
Speaker 1:Let disappointment go and you know, be prepared for disappointment. In an industry where you're constantly critiqued, you're you. People have opinions all the time. How do you, how do you, let that go?
Speaker 2:Most of the time I don't care. Yeah, sometimes it bothers me if people say things or you know, there's. You know, listen, you can't go through life and think that you're gonna have, um, uh, that everybody is going to think you know you're gonna have a friend in every single person that you meet. There's, they're gonna people, people who like you, people who don't like you, and that's just normal. So you know, again, you have to focus on the people that do like you, it's? There's a funny story of an anecdote about Critic critics, music critics where somebody goes to a show and plays a show and then somebody jumps up and says Something shitty about you. You know how you sucked, you know, and, and it happens all the time, and, and and and you. You see artists that go Clambering over the fans to find that person, to convince them otherwise, and and disrespecting all the fans that actually do love you and love what you do, in order to get to that person. But that's an ego thing, isn't it? Yes, it is. It's an ego thing, for sure.
Speaker 2:So sometimes the better things to do is to focus on those fans, those people who do like what you do, spend time with them because they're thrilled to be there You're the reason that they're the reason that you're there and and let those other people say, hey, you know what. You're entitled to your own opinion, and that's just fine, but I'm curious as to why you paid for a ticket to come and see me suck. That's a great question.
Speaker 1:That's a great question. There are three telephone calls I want to talk with you about, and Because what we've already talked about one, it's getting the call for the rock guys hall of fame. Talk to me about the, the telephone call with uh, with jimmy page.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it was. It was not that. Um that, that bizarre.
Speaker 2:I was in a band uh, simon Kirk's solo band after bad company, the bank of wildlife, and I played. We did an album on swan song records which was Led Zeppelin's label. We originally were going to sign it to another label, but Bad company were managed by Peter Grant and so Simon was, and so it was deemed that this band should be on swan song. Peter Grant should manage us. So that's what happened, um, and then when that band kind of petered out, I Was unique in the band because I was a huge Zeppelin fan and I don't know that anyone else was. So I was always, you know, wanting to meet Jimmy. I was always going to the swan song offices hoping to see somebody down there. This, this band, was a very reclusive band back then. You know that right? Uh-huh, I absolutely. I mean, you couldn't even find photographs and it's like Somebody might have walked in and you wouldn't even known it, and but I was just in tune with that stuff.
Speaker 2:I remember we, um, we recorded the album at the soul studios, which is the studio that jimmy page bought from gus dodd dodgeon. Um, it's the guy who wrote the album. Um, it's the guy who produced the genesis albums and stuff Anyway. And so we were down there and there was always this never ending rumor that Jimmy was gonna pop by. So for days and days and days I would say in that studio they would go out, everyone would go out for a treat, drink, whatever, and I'd be none, I'm gonna hang here. And they never showed up. And then one day I said, oh, fuck it, let's just go. So we went to this pub around the corner, came back and Peter Grant called next day. I said, yeah, jimmy came by the studio and no one was there.
Speaker 2:Anyway, so the guy who worked for us from Swan Song is still one of my dearest friends, phil Carlo His name is. He was. He was Zeppelin's tour manager towards the end and he worked at that company for years and he was the swanson liaison guy and he was looking after Jimmy. And one day I got a call and he said Jimmy wants to know if you want to put a band together With him. And I said with me what do you mean with me? And I don't think it was with me as much as Jimmy wants to put a Band together. And Phil had said hey, what about Phil? He's a big fan. Jimmy probably said okay, well, let's try and get together and make some noise. I think that's what how about. And we went to, we got together in NoMu Studios, very famous studio in London and.
Speaker 2:Three of us. It was Chris, slade, myself and Jimmy. I knew Chris and and I think we were really nervous Waiting for him to show up, and he shows up after a short while and it was just, it was just nerve-wracking even though he wanted you to be there.
Speaker 2:Well, I guess I he did. But again, I hasten to add, it was probably that Phil had suggested why don't I give Phil a call? And yeah, you know, see what happens. So I don't know if he wanted me to be there as much as because that's just the way it panned out and and we started playing. And you know, we I don't know that it was very clear what we were trying to do, but we will definitely make it some noise.
Speaker 2:And I'll share one thing with you at one point Jimmy kind of stopped and he said look, and he just gave us this little talk. He said look, I know you guys are probably quite nervous playing with me, you know. But however nervous you are, you know I'm probably ten times as nervous I haven't played in the last few years. So with that you kind of just broke the ice. Yeah, suddenly started playing favorite songs. I have a Background in in 50s Americana rock and roll which I loved. I love Bill Black, I loved that kind of music early, elvis and I studied it, rockabilly, all of that, all of those styles of music. So of course, things like rockabilly, classics, like train kept rolling and stuff like that, yeah, we just had fun, we just started playing the songs that we love playing.
Speaker 1:Well Zeppelin was a blues band at heart. Yeah, so I can totally get in, get into you guys gravitating towards that and Jimmy's just having a blast with it for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then we were playing communication breakdown. We were playing and I am playing these songs and I'm going, oh my god. Bob dad, I made it, wasn't that I mean it would have been for me.
Speaker 2:It was fun we were having, we were just having fun doing it and we we got together and we jammed for quite some time. Every day we get together and play and sometimes we go out at night and we go out to see a band or something and that's somebody say I'd say, oh, that's Jimmy Page, yeah right, it was funny. I had a friend, frank Cole, who was an Irish guy who ran an illegal speak easy in London Called the funny farm. Any English musician you talk to will know the funny fun so and One day he said to me you know, just for fun I would go work there. Sometimes I'd the guy go ten, you know, go go mix cocktails behind the bar.
Speaker 2:It was a completely outrageous, just noisy, full of crazy Wacky music and if they didn't know who you were, that you couldn't get in. If they did, you could get in. It was it was just a who's who of the whole music industry was in the basement of this Greek hotel and so I would go after playing with Jimmy and I'd take Jimmy down there we go the funny farm and he would sit in the corner talking to people and I'd be sitting there mixing drinks and I'm going this is crazy. Here I'm mixing drinks and playing with Jimmy during the day.
Speaker 2:That's absolutely crazy, insane nuts Frank lives in New York now he's I talked to him about as to this day I talked to him, you know, at least once a week we have a call and he's a phenomenal chef. You've been, you know, bartender and he's a great chef.
Speaker 1:I understand you are too.
Speaker 2:Oh, I like cooking. Yeah, what's your specialty? I don't know anything. Anything I Make. I do a lot of Mediterranean inspired stuff, I do a lot of Asian inspired stuff, I do a lot of roasts, things like that. But I think it's my. My childhood love of chemistry Manifested itself Creating things. What happens if I put this in here?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm buying flavors, I think it's. It's just, you know, the food industry and the music industry. I consider to be the same industry, and they're both the hospitality industry. Yeah, taking people away from the ordinary events of their day and showing them a little bit of a, you know it's a scapeism, it's a little escape, exactly, and I find it as cathartic as they both is as much fun as each other.
Speaker 2:I'm a resident and when I had the restaurant, there was nothing that gave me more pleasure than walking around the restaurant, meeting people, buying them a drink, you know, just chatting with them, and it was. It was the same Experience and feeling that I have going on a stage and entertaining people. Same thing.
Speaker 1:That is very cool. I never I really never thought of it that way. You know that they're both intertwined, so but that makes perfect sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we were talking about this with the. I went to see Night Ranger nightfall last and my friend Kerry Kelly plays guitar and then he has, he has two restaurants. You know, uh-huh, there's two bars, and so we, you know, we always talk about the singing things in commons, but it is, it's true.
Speaker 1:Jeff's supposed to be hooking me up with some interviews for Night Ranger because they're coming to Branson Later on this summer and I want to talk to them about their, about their show. And you know who else was coming to that show is your buddy, vince, vince Neil.
Speaker 2:Oh right.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So in talking to you now, I'm so excited about this bill because I am now one degree of separation from the first three bands I ever saw in concert which were. My very first concert was death leopard power mania tour. So we got Viv now. Okay, second tour, the second concert I ever saw, the one after that was Ozzy bark the moon Okay. So we got Ozzy here and then Motley crew was in support of shout at the devil and they opened up for Ozzy on bark at the moon that's right, they did.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and my mom wouldn't let me get a tattoo, so I just wrote CRUE in black magic marker on my, on my, on my knuckles.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, that's funny. Yeah, tell me what's that? Is it still there?
Speaker 1:No, no, it was in black Mars here. Yeah, you watch your hands since then. Right, I have watched my end of kid I'm, I'm OCD. So yeah, I've watched my hands considerably between now and then whether you need it to or not exactly right, sir. Tell me about the call that Ozzy gave you and when you became a part of that band.
Speaker 2:It wasn't so much. Oh, actually there was a call. I knew Ozzy and I knew Sharon and I knew their secretary very well. If England was a very, very small music scene, you have to understand that. And so everybody sort of knows everybody, at least in passing, and so, yeah, I knew people at their management and so Really, I've been playing, I've been working with Jimmy, and then I went and did a couple of shows With some other people and somebody asked me to do a TV show. That was a live TV show. It's called show, is called ECT, I think it was and I said that I would do it and I went off to do this live show and it would broadcast in London and at the end it was great.
Speaker 2:I went back to with my friends to my apartment, well staying, and we said, oh, let's go hang, we'll go and do something. Whatever it was. You know You're a little euphoric because you've just done a good, cool show and used your friends around, and so, and all of a sudden the phone rings and it was a Sharon, secretary Lynn, and she said, yeah, phil, I've got somebody who wants to have a word with you. And I said okay, and and somebody gets on the phone says it's Aussie and he says I just saw that show and I'm looking for a base player. You need to come and meet me. It was set it up with Lynn and my friends at the time said what was that? I said I was Aussie. He said he saw the show and he wants to meet. He's gonna go to spirals. There's a wine bar in Hampstead. I Said okay. So all right, let's go and see what happens, what's gonna happen. So we said we'll go over there, I don't know, trying to get our shit together. About 20, 25 minutes later the phone rings again and it's like and it was like you, what a fuck are you? I mean, there's fucking wine bar, you know. So I said oh, we gotta go, we gotta go, we gotta go. So we went along and and I met with arsy and talked with him and out of that came the opportunity to go out and have a Supposedly have a jam, have a rehearsal with them, and then I was very excited about it.
Speaker 2:The next day I got a call from Sharon saying that she didn't know what Ozzie had said to me. But whatever it was, he was probably didn't mean anything, he was probably drunk or whatever, and forget about it. I went oh, okay, so that was the end of it, that was the start in the end of it, and it wasn't by pure chance, my friend, phil Carlo, who I'd mentioned before, I went to visit him and his wife and his kids. They lived in Brighton and so I went down there for the weekend and while I was down there we decided to take a walk up and down the pier up with another beach, and we walk around, we go past a shop it was a joke shop. They have these joke shops in England, which is shops that sell either magic tricks or stuff, or practical joke stuff or, you know, stink bombs or something. They have tons of them and Bangs.
Speaker 2:Some guy walks out the store, bang straight into me and it's Ozzie, and and he says what are you doing there? I said I don't know. Maybe I could ask you the same thing. I don't know, visiting Phil. What are you doing here? Oh, around the corner rehearsing and I'm trying to find a base player. Why don't you come down? I said because I've got a call from Sharon. Tell me not to come down there because it wasn't.
Speaker 2:Now we're still looking for somebody, and he was with this to a manager, jimmy Ayres, who ended up as deaf leopards to a manager. And so Jimmy says well, why don't you go back to London and pick up a base? I'll tell you where we are, come down, have a play. And I said, okay, well, as long as I don't get a call when I'm in London, say Right. So I went and got up, got my base and brought it back down. He gave me a tape of three songs to learn and I came back down, started playing and we played together for I don't know About a couple of weeks during that the course of that time I got the gig. Yeah, so that's how that happened and how did you pitch?
Speaker 1:How'd you pitch? Shot in the dark to him.
Speaker 2:I didn't really. I mean it was it was we had, that album, was already done, was already pretty much sad. We'd been in rehearsals for quite some time and then the producer came down, the record company came down, we moved our rehearsals to London and and Then there was this thing that they just didn't feel that there was the right. There was a single on there, and so they started throwing ideas around of cover songs and All different you know, suggestions. Everyone had a suggestion and I don't think Ozzy was really into a lot of those ideas either. They weren't terrific ideas, uh-huh. So it was really Really dreadful. They were born to be wild, it's like really Anyway.
Speaker 2:And so then they turn around to you know, to ask the new guys, to Randy and to myself, and said hey, well, do you guys have any songs? Randy didn't really like songs and I said, yeah, I've got some songs. I have three songs I can play you and. And that was one of them and they loved it. And so we Set about changing some sections. Actually, ozzy did change one of the sections. It was the. It was the beginning of the solo that he changed. He came up with that and we wanted to do something different for the pre-chorus.
Speaker 1:When you wrote that, did you know it was going to be a big, big hit like that?
Speaker 2:No, no, I didn't. I mean I, you know, I wrote a lot of stuff which you, you, you kind of write things that are influenced by by other music. As we said at the beginning of this conversation, it's just something that I wrote. I would. We did do a version of it in in wildlife as well, but they didn't like Parts of it. They wanted to rewrite lyrics, so they rewrote the, the guys in that band rewrote lyrics and and Then we never released anything with it, and then afterwards the version that I did with Ozzy, as obviously it's a different version. That's the original version, the original idea, and but I presented it to at least three other bands really yeah, I think it was the only one that bit huh Well.
Speaker 2:I don't know about bit, I mean it. They just, you know, decided it was something we should, we should do, and when we started playing it straight away, it was pretty evident there was something cool going on.
Speaker 1:It's really cool.
Speaker 2:Going on it's one of my all-time favorite.
Speaker 1:Ozzy songs.
Speaker 2:Well, it was. It's basically a part. I mean basically a pop writer, I suppose that's my lot of my influences come from, and so, you know, the influences for that song were, were quite unusual. I mean one, the chord progression. So what were things that I was listening to a lot at the time, though I was hearing in music by Algero, for example. I was this I love that. That album and those kind of seventh chords. The whole thing was written in the beef. I was written on a piano, so I wrote that on piano wasn't a guitar song, so which that's which is why it's such a bizarre key. Now Jake had to retune his guitar to play it. But, um, yeah, I mean that those are the kind of influences that I was, you know, bringing into rock and saying, well, this is kind of different. Yeah, people are using these chords, people aren't doing that kind of stuff, and so maybe this will be kind of cool.
Speaker 1:So a very, very crossover type of type of music.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, but I still think that that's the smartest thing to do. Take it, you take a sort of concept of Song and he translated into, or you adapt it for a certain style, because a good song is a good song. I don't need to, you know, make that case. So many times you hear cover songs being done by bands that are very unlikely. Uh-huh and and it usually comes out great. I mean it's like wow, that's a really cool interpretation of that song.
Speaker 1:I don't know if you're familiar with this Mongolian band called the who H you. All they do is Mongolian throat singing and they did a version of a Metallica song. Sad but true. It's incredible, but you would never expect Mongolian throat singers to do Metallica.
Speaker 2:Mongolian throat. I just like the way that says I would actually call the band the Mongolian throat singers. I think that sounds better than who that would be cool.
Speaker 1:And then one of my all-time favorite songs in is is from John weight missing you oh gosh. I love that song and in John you and your bio with oh gotta go. John weights Colin, yeah, that's phenomenal, you just get calls all the time from these. I.
Speaker 2:Mean their friends obviously get special calls. John weight is a special call. I love John. I have so much respect for him as a as a singer, as an artist, as a musician, as a writer and and I'm you know, I'd be two shows with him I was, I'm his biggest fan. It was just incredible. So much fun playing with John and yeah, missing you, with that's all the songs. I mean it's. It's funny because if you walk around CVS You're gonna hear at least three John weight songs, so many hits. It's just, it's just, you know yeah, it's, it's so impressive.
Speaker 1:You know that I mean to to have one Big, big song but then to continue that success and carry it on to you know, a dozen, that's Not a lot of people get that. Not a lot of people get that. Yeah yeah, well, hey, buddy, I know you've got some things. You've got actually rehearsal coming up real soon, because you go out with last in line next week, yeah, and then We'll see you in Texas in April and then Tulsa, oklahoma, two nights later.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I'm doing that. And then after this cruise I'm doing the 80s cruise. I'm playing the Sebastian Bach. Oh Wow, cool. Yes, yeah, he's asked me to do that cruise with him and I said I would. We're friends and stuff. I think it'll be fun. So I'm actually going to rehearsal with him this afternoon and I Figure I should probably run through the songs at least once.
Speaker 1:Were you, were you friends with Sebastian and Vince during the kind of wild days, the younger days, um?
Speaker 2:no, not really. I mean I met. I remember where I met him. It was just the Bon Jovi show at the giant stadium because they skid row was opening and the first time I met him was back then. But since then we've actually done shared stages together. You know, we did some runs with big noise, we did a South American run, we played in Eastern Europe and Bulgaria and Sebastian saying with us back then Um, so you know, we, we do things together here and there, and then, you know, he asked me to do this show with him and I said, sure, why not? You know it'll be fun.
Speaker 1:We barely even touched upon everything that you've done. Do you ever there were just have favorite stories that you're you're so sick of sharing, though? Like I mean, everybody asks you about shot in the dark and about Ozzy, and I remember you saying in an interview that you know, yeah, you get so sick of playing the hit, but it's what people want to talk about. People want to hear the hit. Does it ever, you know, get old talking about some of these stories?
Speaker 2:No, and and I'm not somebody who gets real sick of playing hits I really do respect that. People want to hear those songs and I think you know you, I'm very, you know, honored by that kind of stuff. If it comes down to a song that I had anything to do with, and that applies to just not Just songs I've written, but songs that you know been responsible for Bringing to the, bringing to the public in some form or fashion, but the stories, I mean there's just a lot of stories, I mean the whole, the whole thing about music, stories like this and success. We talked about success, is it? It? I never really got to a point where I said, oh my gosh, I've made it, because I never really felt that. I always felt that, you know, I did this and then I did that and then I did the other.
Speaker 2:And then one day, somebody who says something, and then you sort of look back and it's a retrospective thing. All of a sudden you see this, you know wealth of Experiences behind you and realize how each one has been a stepping stone to the next thing. But as a whole, as an aggregate, it's a huge thing. It's a, it's a, it's a huge career, and then, all of a sudden, maybe you look around and say, well, geez, I guess I, maybe I have made it. Really, think about it at the time. It's not something you see, it's not like an attainable thing, it's not like a goal. You say, oh, when I get to this point I will have made it. It's more like one from moment you stop and you look back and then you realize what you've done and you, if you've kept doing these things, it really amasses into some kind of big career is your autobiography out already.
Speaker 2:No, it's not, I just finished. Just finished writing it, and then I'm in the process of reading and rereading, and rereading.
Speaker 1:Okay, but rereading and rereading and rereading, because I remember in 2020, somebody asked you about it and I'm we're. Now we're four years later. At what point is it finished? It's like a song you could always continue when you're banding it.
Speaker 2:I'm back in 2020. I was still in the midst of writing it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I think I finished it Probably Mid last year.
Speaker 2:Okay and since then I've just been going over it and and then I have to figure out how to get it out, but it's pretty cool. Well, I can't wait. The reason it's I'm saying it's pretty cool is because it's not a typical autobiography. It's not like a gate, you know a Biological series of events. I did this idea that, which I can't think of anything less less interesting. But what I tried to do is I tried to talk a little bit about what was, what was the environment like, what was the world like, what was going on, what was the climate that was going on in music and some of these things, and I think for that reason it's interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that would be a very, very cool project to read that what's going on at the time, and here's the music that was being put out. Then I mean, music is timeless, you know, and it does mark time.
Speaker 2:Absolutely there's. There's reasons why I mean what, why punk happened and what punk meant, and I don't think those reasons are here today. I mean it was a different type of but that generated a whole type of music. But we've been dealing with a lot of. I mean I write, still write a lot of solo material. I put solo songs out, and a song last time I put out was called the world divided, like that. You can that, but you can guess what that's about.
Speaker 1:I, I certainly can.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the topic of conversation and everything today, right, Absolutely yeah, everybody has.
Speaker 1:Everybody has a side, and what bothers me about it? It's just okay to have a side, but don't just credit the other person's side just because you don't agree with that. That's not. You can't learn that way, you can't evolve that way.
Speaker 2:No, that's called the difference between free speech and suppression. It certainly is but the best of the best, new thought, new ideas comes from an exchange of Contrarian ideas, doesn't it?
Speaker 1:try and try and work that into a song and say April fast on stage. Contrarian indication. Well, phil man, this has been a pleasure. It really has, and I'm so glad that Jeff hooked us up. And just Congratulations on everything you've accomplished. I know you're not done, so continued success and everything you do, bro.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much, kevin. I'm my honor to be here, my pleasure. It's really nice to to meet you this way. I look forward to be able to see you somewhere close to where you are.
Speaker 1:Maybe we can tip back a pint or something, oh.
Speaker 2:Oh, for sure.
Speaker 1:Awesome buddy. Well, hey, be safe and we'll talk soon, Okay.
Speaker 2:Okay, thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Thank you, phil, and that was cool. I fanboyed so much, holy crap. My thanks to Phil, susan for joining me and also to my great friend Merce for the suggestion and introduction, and thank you for listening. I appreciate it beyond words when you share your time with the fuzzy mic and feel free to share the fuzzy mic with your friends and family. To stay connected with the fuzzy mic, you can follow me on Instagram, facebook and Twitter, or you can send me an email at the fuzzy mic at gmailcom. For video, please subscribe to the fuzzy mic YouTube channel. The fuzzy mic is hosted and produced by Kevin Klein. Production elements by Zach Sheesh at the radio farm. Social media director is Trish Klein. I'll be back next Tuesday with a new episode of the fuzzy mic Guests still to be determined and remember the world famous Tuttle and Climb podcast with new episodes every Wednesday. So grateful for you. See you next time, thank you. That's it for the fuzzy mic. Thank you, the fuzzy mic with Kevin Klein.