Episode 495 - Benmont Tench
Marc:are we doing this really wait for it are we doing this wait for it pow what the fuck and it's also what the fuck what's wrong with me it's time for wtf what the fuck with mark maron
Marc:All right, let's do this.
Marc:How are you?
Marc:What the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fucking ears?
Marc:What the fuck nicks?
Marc:What the fucksters?
Marc:What the fuckadelics?
Marc:What the fuck will Barry thins?
Marc:Can I just, can I do something really quick?
Marc:Hold on.
Marc:Can I just do something really quick?
Marc:Hang out a second.
Marc:How about a little of this?
Marc:You hear that organ?
Marc:How can you... That organ is unmistakable.
Marc:Everybody knows the beginning of this song because of that fucking organ.
Marc:Isn't that insane?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know who that is?
Marc:Wow, that was abrupt.
Marc:I should fade out.
Marc:Maybe I should learn how to do that.
Marc:Do a professional, like a radio guy.
Marc:That was Ben Montinch of the Heartbreakers.
Marc:That was Tom Petty, obviously, the beginning of Refugee.
Marc:But the guy who played the keys on that organ is going to be here.
Marc:That's who's on the show today, Ben Montinch.
Marc:I'm talking to a heartbreaker.
Marc:And I just got his new record.
Marc:They sent it to me, finally, on vinyl.
Marc:I had the CD, wouldn't listen to it.
Marc:Blue Note Records, Ben Montinch.
Marc:You should be so lucky.
Marc:It's his solo record on 180-gram vinyl from the original analog tape produced by Glenn Johns.
Marc:Good record.
Marc:It's nice that you're a dude that's got chops for years.
Marc:Come on, Tom Petty and the fucking Heartbreakers.
Marc:Where would any of us be without Tom Petty?
Marc:Lost, unable to process certain things like our adolescence and even things later, existential relief.
Marc:for so much Tom Petty offered.
Marc:So it's an honor today to talk to Ben Montinch here in the garage.
Marc:Tonight is the premiere of season two of Marin on IFC.
Marc:Starts at 10 p.m.
Marc:in most places, 9 p.m.
Marc:somewhere, some places in the middle.
Marc:But that's happening.
Marc:It's tonight.
Marc:Tonight is the night.
Marc:I think I've had a lot of stress about it, a lot of anxiety, a lot of, I don't know if I've had dread, but, you know, it's finally here.
Marc:So you can watch it.
Marc:Tonight's show features Chris Hardwick, Michael Ian Black, Sarah Silverman, Nora Zahedner as Jen.
Marc:I mean, it's the open.
Marc:Please watch or DVR it.
Marc:Marin on IFC.
Marc:Okay?
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Now let's go to my website and see where I'm playing.
Marc:I'll be at the Wild West Comedy Festival on Thursday, May 15th, interviewing Vince Vaughn in an intimate theater one-on-one.
Marc:And then on Friday night, I believe, if I'm not mistaken, I'll be at Zaney's in Nashville doing a 7 o'clock show.
Marc:OK, yes.
Marc:Friday, May 16th, Saturday, May 31st.
Marc:I'll be in Albuquerque, New Mexico, my hometown.
Marc:Saturday, May 31st at the National Hispanic Cultural Center.
Marc:You can go to WTF pod dot com for tickets to your info on this stuff.
Marc:Saturday, June 14th.
Marc:I will be in Chicago, Illinois at the 2026 annual first annual comedy festival.
Marc:And Thursday, June 26th through Saturday, June 28th, I will be at the Comedy Attic in Bloomington, going from the big room to the small room, doing the work.
Marc:I'm sorry I forgot to tell you I was going to be on This American Life, but I didn't know.
Marc:Last weekend, This American Life, Ira and I talked about drugs.
Marc:So you go find that wherever you find that, this American Life show, and listen to that.
Marc:I will be on Conan O'Brien tonight for my, I don't know how many times I've been on.
Marc:I don't, it's in the 50s now.
Marc:Excited to hang out with Andy and Conan.
Marc:They appear in this season of Marin as well.
Marc:The episode I directed.
Marc:The episode called The Joke.
Marc:I don't know when that's going to be on in the season.
Marc:I'll keep you up to date with this stuff.
Marc:I was in New York.
Marc:I was there for literally 14 hours.
Marc:I did Ron Bennington's Unmasked show.
Marc:I don't know when he's putting that up, but that was fun.
Marc:Did some other press stuff.
Marc:I don't fly first class, people.
Marc:I don't fly first, first class.
Marc:Occasionally, if somebody puts me in business, I will fly business.
Marc:But because I had to take the red eye and then know I was not going to get a lot of sleep because I had to get to New York and do press so I could be home in time to...
Marc:Go do midnight.
Marc:It's just a big week because the premiere of Marin is tonight.
Marc:So I sort of I don't know if I diva did up, but I said, look, you got to put me in first first class so I can lay down thoroughly and sleep a couple hours, a couple hours are going to be fucked on this press day.
Marc:So they put me on one of these new American planes where the first class, the first first class, it's like your own little pod.
Marc:It's like it's a very small studio apartment.
Marc:The only thing you don't have is, you know, like a gas stove and, you know, some cabinets for your for food and stuff.
Marc:You got everything you need right there.
Marc:It's just you.
Marc:And you have a bed.
Marc:It becomes a bed.
Marc:And you got a TV right there.
Marc:And you got like shelving.
Marc:You could bring a few books if you'd like and put them out if you want.
Marc:It was really something.
Marc:I'd walked by them before and judged people in there as being people who clearly have money to throw away or corporate accounts.
Marc:But I did demand it so I could sleep and be on the money.
Marc:for my press day.
Marc:So here, like, I don't know, is first class secret?
Marc:Is first class like Vegas?
Marc:Am I betraying trust if I talk about who is in first class with me?
Marc:Here's how little I know about about pop culture is that behind me is Randy Jackson from American Idol.
Marc:OK, fine.
Marc:I don't know what he's doing now.
Marc:I didn't know him.
Marc:I knew he was somebody, but I know he was because I don't watch that.
Marc:So then I'm sitting there, you know, getting ready to make my bed in first class.
Marc:And Joaquin Phoenix walks in with someone I believe might have been his mom.
Marc:And they're going to New York, too.
Marc:There's a red eye.
Marc:And I'm excited, you know, because this is why I don't take it for granted that I'm in first class.
Marc:This is why I don't fly first class all the time, because clearly in my heart, I don't deserve it because I'm such a fucking fanboy sometimes.
Marc:Like there's Joaquin and I'm having a struggle.
Marc:I'm like, there's part of me that's like, well, I wonder if he knows who I am.
Marc:Wouldn't that be exciting?
Marc:Then there's part of me, it's like, just be cool, dude.
Marc:This is first class.
Marc:This is where you are now.
Marc:This is not a big deal for them.
Marc:This is what they do, Randy Jackson and Joaquin Phoenix.
Marc:They sleep on airplanes comfortably wherever they go just because it's new and exciting for you.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I don't know if I was more excited about being able to sleep in the bed in my own cubicle, my own studio apartment in the first class cabin or that Joaquin was there.
Marc:Well, I don't know.
Marc:But then you sort of like, should I introduce myself?
Marc:Maybe I could talk to him on the show.
Marc:But first class, I'm trying to figure out what are the rules?
Marc:Do we just accept?
Marc:You know, OK, this is this is a this is a small party.
Marc:We're all part of a small class of people that travel in first class.
Marc:I'm not me.
Marc:I'm a I'm a I'm a carpetbagger.
Marc:I'm an intruder.
Marc:I'm a phony.
Marc:But I'm there, and I'm just being cool, just plainly cool.
Marc:And Joaquin Phoenix, he sits down in his seat, and the woman he's with sits over there.
Marc:And I'm like, all right, he's right up there, probably one of the greatest actors of, I think, my generation, really.
Marc:Isn't he my generation?
Marc:Maybe a little younger.
Marc:I kind of, you know, he's got very definitive physicalities, you know, in his role.
Marc:So you can even hear him breathing in the way he talks.
Marc:He's kind of mush mouthed a little bit.
Marc:And I just wanted to hear him mumble and breathe.
Marc:And then somewhere during the flight, you know, I made my bed and I had to get up and go to the bathroom.
Marc:I go to the bathroom.
Marc:I'm walking back.
Marc:And this is the weird thing about air travel.
Marc:And certainly when you're, you know, in the in the new first class, I guess it's my first time.
Marc:is that if I wanted to, which I did for a second because I was right behind him, he was sleeping, so Joaquin Phoenix was sleeping, so why not watch him sleep for a minute?
Marc:I mean, he's one of the greatest actors of my generation.
Marc:Why not just watch him sleep for a second?
Marc:Don't pause too long.
Marc:It was a little weird.
Marc:It was a little weird, and I don't know if anyone's gonna hear this who knows him, and I don't want to be the weird guy, but I got a cop to it.
Marc:I did stand there.
Marc:in first class and looked down into Joaquin Phoenix's pod.
Marc:And he was, you know, he's not completely reclined, but he was sleeping while the movie Lone Survivor was on.
Marc:And I watched him sleep for a minute.
Marc:Now, I don't know what would have happened if he had sort of woken up and looked at me just standing there watching him.
Marc:I guess I would say like, great job, man.
Marc:Great job.
Marc:Great sleeping.
Marc:You're really, you're one of the best.
Marc:Like I completely believed it.
Marc:And it looked very natural.
Marc:very natural sleeping i'm just saying i'm i'm new to first class and i don't think it's gonna stick because i you know i would never pay for it by myself because i'm not cheap i just don't what's the big deal it is a big deal it's fucking amazing i slept for two hours like a baby and i got to new york and i was wasted tired and just plowed through the day
Marc:Wow.
Marc:You hear that organ?
Marc:That's Ben Montinch.
Marc:Keyboard is for the heartbreakers from the beginning.
Marc:And you know what?
Marc:He's here with me today.
Marc:So let's talk to Ben Montinch now.
Marc:This is it.
Marc:Hot damn, I've been waiting for this.
Marc:Have you been waiting for it?
Marc:I have.
Marc:I know some of your friends have been on here.
Marc:Fiona was in here.
Guest:Yeah, you've had Fiona on here, and Booker, who I met once, met a few times, was on here.
Guest:I got to play back-to-back with him at Largo one time.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:You weren't able to sort of do an organ duel?
Guest:What we did was we had the Largo Piano where it always is and my Hammond and we were set up so that he would play piano and I'd play organ or we'd switch off and we were literally back to back backs touching.
Guest:And we both had like whatever the hats were we had on.
Guest:There's a couple of great pictures of it.
Marc:Oh yeah?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It was a real thrill.
Marc:I always get nervous with the guys that represent about 70 years of music.
Marc:And you're like, where do you start?
Marc:But he's such a level dude and real thoughtful and grounded.
Marc:And you know what he's got?
Marc:He's got that personality.
Marc:I think he said it on the podcast.
Marc:He's a band guy.
Marc:He's a band guy.
Marc:He's not an upfront guy.
Guest:It's the way to be, in my opinion.
Guest:He's a band guy.
Marc:When you first heard him, did he have an impact on your style?
Marc:Because he invented, in some ways, I guess him and who, Jimmy McGriff?
Marc:Who was the other massive Hammond guy?
Marc:Jimmy Smith.
Marc:Jimmy Smith, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, those were the guys.
Guest:Those were the guys, but for me, it was more Booker than anybody.
Guest:Booker and Matthew Fisher from Procol Harem.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Where I grew up, everybody who played organ played jazz, kind of like Jimmy Smith.
Guest:and i was a rock and roll guy or they tried to play like jimmy smith nobody could right and i was a rock and roll guy so i didn't relate to the point where when i heard time is tight or green onions or white or shade of pale on the radio i didn't realize it was the same instrument that i had seen people play around town right booker played it so differently than all these cats around town
Guest:It's an amazing sound.
Guest:It's like enchanting, man.
Guest:It's really special, and it's really seductive when you start playing it.
Guest:What is the name of that instrument exactly?
Guest:It's a Hammond organ.
Guest:There are several models.
Guest:There are A100s and M-somethings and B3s and C3.
Guest:I play a C3, and I think that some of that stuff might be an A100.
Guest:You know, it's just getting into little stuff, but they're basically the same thing.
Guest:So it's a Hammond organ.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:And what drives that?
Marc:Is it air making that sound?
Marc:Is it one of those things?
Marc:No, it's crazed.
Guest:It was a clockwork company, I think, that made clocks and alarm clocks and stuff.
Guest:And there's some kind of arcane system.
Guest:John Bryan would be able to explain it.
Guest:John Bryan can explain everything.
Guest:Ceramic wheels turning.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And some kind of electromagnetic magic field gets thrown off of the ceramic wheels and...
Guest:and makes this beautiful singing tone.
Marc:So when you first started playing, I mean, where'd you grow up?
Marc:You grew up in Florida?
Marc:Grew up in Gainesville, Florida.
Marc:How old are you?
Marc:You're a little older than me.
Marc:How old are you?
Marc:I'm 50.
Marc:You're 50?
Marc:I'm 50.
Marc:Dude, I'm way older than you.
Marc:I'm 60, man.
Marc:So you're 10 years old.
Marc:I'm 10 years older.
Marc:All right, I'm just trying to figure out what music was falling into your head and what Florida looked like at that time.
Guest:I'll tell you what.
Guest:But Florida was pretty magical at that time.
Guest:North Florida, I keep thinking of it as being like To Kill a Mockingbird.
Guest:Sure.
Marc:It is the South.
Marc:North Florida is the South.
Guest:It's the South.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And if you're wondering if Florida's the South anymore, just take a look at the way that Florida's been on certain issues lately.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's the South, but it was pretty glorious.
Guest:Tall pine trees...
Guest:The music that would come through, though, when I was a kid, Elvis made That's Alright Mama when I was three years old.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So the music that I remember from being really little is Bill Haley and the Comets.
Marc:Was it your old man was into it, though?
Guest:My old man wasn't.
Guest:I don't think my parents were into it.
Guest:I think they weren't against it.
Guest:right but you didn't hear it in the house you heard it in the world a little bit in the house yeah first records i remember hearing ever 57 was was rock around the clock i think right or something that sounds about right yeah the first records i remember hearing in the house are frosty the snowman when it was probably a brand new tune yeah and uh see you later alligator by bill haley in the comments yeah and see you later alligator drove me crazy it must have been about four when that came out yeah it had an impact
Guest:It had a big impact.
Marc:That record swings like mad.
Marc:So what kind of environment you grew up in?
Marc:Was it musical?
Marc:I mean, did your folks, were they musical people?
Guest:Yeah, absolutely.
Guest:My father played classical piano and... At home?
Guest:Classical guitar at home.
Guest:And he had apparently, before I was born, been the rhythm guitar player in some little combo that went and played jazz probably around the Caribbean when it was still, you know, before Castro.
Guest:That was his early life?
Guest:That's what he had done after the army, you know, like when he had free time because he was a lawyer too.
Guest:Oh, he was a lawyer?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:My mom was like, my mom had a degree in Spanish and wound up flying as a stewardess for, because they weren't called flight attendants.
Guest:Not then, no.
Guest:For Pan Am.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And she scored because, you know, she's in her early 20s probably.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And she got him.
Guest:And she got him.
Guest:But he got her.
Guest:And let me tell you, she was really, really something.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She could paint.
Guest:She was fluent in a couple of languages.
Guest:She was the deal.
Marc:Open-minded people?
Guest:You know, for that time and in that part of the country, relatively.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Relatively, I mean...
Guest:It's, you know, they might get thrown a little bit by the long hair because my father said it just reminded him of the Depression when the Beatles showed up with long hair, you know.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You couldn't afford a haircut?
Guest:Yeah, you couldn't afford a haircut or you'd just have your mom cut it at home and it'd come out ragged.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, so it just reminded him of, you know, like the Depression.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:did he have memories of that was he absolutely stuck in that oh yeah he absolutely i mean he wasn't impoverished by it but he was definitely affected by it's hard not it's hard to imagine just how devastating you know that that was for for everybody i mean even when we had the recession it seems like now because of the media you know you know things are hard for people but there's enough distraction yeah there was enough distraction not then no there wasn't any distraction just radio dude that's all you had
Guest:you had radio and you had your imagination yeah and things weren't spelled out for you things are spelled out for you now so much yeah to a to a detriment to a detriment so i don't want a video that's a literal interpretation of a song right you know right and i heard somebody i heard the handsome family talking on the radio about the theme song to true detective right and people saying what does it mean and
Guest:And they were saying, well, why would I write a song that it's so easy to know what it means?
Guest:If I could just say it, then I'd just say it instead of writing a song.
Marc:I remember when I saw you guys' first record, I was like, what is this?
Marc:I remember getting the first record.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And what was that, like 76 or something?
Marc:Yes, end of 76.
Marc:and you know then i remember seeing an article on on petty you know and something like you know he was the new guy and i gotta be honest with you i you know i still i listen to that record regularly oh cool i'm fucking like they're like and if and i when i talk to people i'm like well there's a few constants in the world of american music and and you know he's one of them and you're part of that great to hear
Marc:oh petty is an undeniable mountain well that's what i think is that he's just an undeniably great songwriter you know but you guys really cool singer but you guys as a band like did something i don't because like you came out at a time you know i didn't see that documentary so if they if this is repeated i'm sure you've talked about this stuff a million times but it was it was thoroughly like american music wasn't punk rock it wasn't no british it was almost like like it was almost like the band
Guest:We weren't just trying to play rock and roll.
Guest:We weren't even thinking about it.
Guest:We just knew that Tom had great songs.
Guest:We had come through a period where every band around us played.
Guest:In North Florida, everybody wanted to be the Almonds.
Guest:The Almonds were great, but we didn't want to be the Almonds.
Guest:So we just wanted to play songs that were really good songs.
Guest:And like, hey, here's these songs.
Guest:And we had a shit-hot lead guitar player.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So it was like, OK, that's that's what we want to focus.
Guest:He's good.
Guest:Yeah, he's good.
Guest:So that's what we wanted.
Guest:That's what we wanted to do is play Tom songs really, really well.
Marc:It's also fucking tasteful.
Marc:And, you know, I don't know, like even from the beginning.
Marc:But all right.
Marc:So let's go through that.
Marc:I mean, so were you trying to play like the Allman Brothers at some point?
Guest:No.
Guest:Never was.
Guest:No.
Guest:I mean, everybody dug the Allman Brothers.
Guest:Greg Allman's a wonder, and we all know about Dwayne.
Guest:The whole band, the rhythm section.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That wasn't where we were at.
Marc:Right, right, right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So where did you start playing?
Marc:You started playing your piano at home or what?
Guest:I started playing at home when I was like seven.
Guest:I took lessons.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I had a great teacher who had taught my dad.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so she was old enough that she didn't care about all this.
Guest:Okay, you're going to practice this really boring piece of scales and stuff.
Guest:She said, you go to the movies and you see a movie that has a cool theme, How the West Was Won or whatever, we'll find it and we'll learn that.
Guest:That's the way to go.
Guest:And she'd also, after a while, say, you know, I'd say, well, do you want me to play you this piece?
Guest:And she'd say, just play whatever you want to play.
Guest:Just play for me.
Guest:now she probably just wanted to sleep but she was it was really great because she made me love music it wasn't about drudgery right i loved music already but she made me love piano as a way to play music a way to make music right and and when uh did you spend your whole childhood in florida
Guest:No, actually.
Guest:I spent, until I was 10, I was in Florida.
Guest:Then we lived in the Republic of Panama for two years.
Guest:Why?
Guest:My dad wanted to, he thought you should serve your country and you should serve God and you should serve, you know, whatever his...
Guest:can't remember the exact number of them see he had been a deacon in the church he was a lawyer and then a judge and he thought that he'd work for the state department for a couple years now to me he'd already served the country because he'd been in the second world war yeah but i thoroughly respected where he was at yeah so he went to work for the state department for a couple years in the republic of panama and to his credit
Guest:He didn't send us to the canal zone to live in.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We lived in Panama and went to a Spanish-speaking school.
Guest:They threw me in the deep end, me and my sisters.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Did you learn Spanish?
Guest:Allegedly, because I made it, but I don't remember any of it, which is a real disgrace for me.
Marc:Do you have memories of that experience?
Guest:Yeah, it was great.
Guest:The school I went to was actually like a 20-minute bus ride up the hills into an outcropping on a hill on the side of the jungle, and you'd be eating your lunch.
Guest:You'd just take your lunch out on an outcropping.
Guest:I remember seeing a frog the size of a cat.
Guest:Oh, fuck.
Guest:I literally, the size of a cat, just kind of sitting there.
Guest:Dinosaur frog.
Guest:Yeah, dinosaur frog, just kind of staring at me.
Guest:And I was there when Jack Kennedy was killed.
Guest:I was there when the Beatles showed up.
Guest:Yeah, because a kid came into my class and said, hey, they shot your president.
Marc:What was that like at home?
Marc:What was your dad?
Guest:We were pretty horrified and shocked.
Guest:The Democrats?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they took us out of the school.
Guest:They didn't shut the school down.
Guest:And pretty shortly after that, there was some kind of...
Guest:There was trouble between the Panamanians and the U.S.
Guest:kids at a high school, and it turned into riots, and they had to take us into the Canal Zone for safety.
Marc:So that's a government zone.
Marc:Yeah, that's- U.S.
Guest:property.
Marc:The Canal Zone was the U.S.
Marc:property.
Marc:Right, right.
Guest:And then what, did you go back to Florida after that?
Guest:Went back to Florida.
Guest:Then they sent me off to boarding school in New England.
Guest:Where?
Guest:Exeter in New Hampshire.
Guest:The best one.
Guest:Yeah, it's a pretty good one.
Guest:The aristocracy.
Guest:I have no idea how I got in.
Guest:To this day, I have no idea how I got in.
Marc:That is like the prep school.
Marc:Who went there?
Guest:It's Exeter and Andover.
Marc:Right, right.
Guest:Well, everybody from Robert Benchley to Dan Brown, who wrote the Da Vinci Code, to I think Wim Butler from Arcade Fire went there.
Marc:It's weird because a lot of artists end up going there, you know, and then there's a lot of political types, a lot of world leaders.
Marc:I guess they're really.
Marc:It's strange.
Guest:Like Catch Secor from Old Crow Medicine Show went taxed at her.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, all these people like that.
Guest:But then I think a guy who was the head of the IRS a couple of years ago went taxed at her.
Marc:Right, it's really just the first rung on the Harvard, the next, the Ivy League, and then sort of integrating into the ruling class.
Guest:Yeah, I don't know what I was doing there.
Guest:I don't either, but you made it.
Guest:It was cool because I lived in the South, but my experience with black music would be Aretha or James Brown or Elvis on the radio.
Uh-huh.
Guest:I wasn't hip to all of the blues stuff that was going on until I went up to New England.
Guest:And the kids up there, you know, the kids from New York coming to school or whatever from Boston, they had like the John Mayle and Eric Clapton with the Blues Breakers records.
Guest:And they'd have blues bands.
Guest:They'd turn me on to this stuff.
Guest:And I would flip out and go, you think that's good?
Guest:check out Robert Johnson, check out Hollywood, check out Muddy, go all the way back.
Guest:And so that opened my eyes up about music that was happening in my actual back, out the back door of the house in Florida.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I had the same experience, but I was not fortunate enough to be 10 years older to where guys putting together blues bands in the mid to late 60s was a new thing.
Marc:White dudes playing blues was like, holy shit.
Marc:So that must have been exciting because by the time I got around to the blues, there's just bar bands doing it.
Guest:Well, don't you think that it's really interesting in an artist's career or a musician's career or a painter or a filmmaker or whatever when they're young and they're just discovering?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:It's great.
Guest:And so you had the Butterfield Blues Band showing up.
Guest:I just started listening to them again recently.
Guest:That East-West record is really something.
Guest:Get the vinyl on East-West.
Guest:Get an old vinyl.
Guest:It's not that hard to find.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I've been listening to the first one because I know, you know, because I got my... Born in Chicago and all that stuff.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I got my guys, you know, and I like Bloomfield enough.
Marc:But I was, in terms of white blues guys, Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac knocks me out.
Guest:It knocks me out.
Guest:I have a record of theirs called Boston.
Guest:I have the vinyl of that.
Guest:It's just called Boston.
Guest:And what it is, it's four volumes.
Guest:I've only found volume one.
Guest:And it is one night at the Boston Tea Party in 1970.
Guest:And it's Peter Green, Danny Kerwin, and Jeremy Spencer.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It is thrilling.
Marc:I can't understand where what he does comes from.
Marc:His voice and his feeling for the guitar transcends almost anything I've ever heard.
Guest:He's so special.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And the way that he plays off of Danny Kerwin is really special.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then you've got the wild card of Jeremy Spencer in there who is just doing a lot of things that are very, they're either Elmore James songs or very Elmore James until Peter Green leaves.
Guest:And then you get the Kiln House record.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And it's Kerwin and Spencer.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you get these Buddy Holly tributes and you get these country kind of semi-parodies and all this whole other side of Jeremy Spencer comes popping out.
Marc:Wild.
Marc:But like Butterfield, he wasn't really my thing, and for some reason the other night, it's weird that you bring him up, because I was driving to a gig, and I was anxious, and I turned on that one, I had it on my iPhone, and I just keep going back to it, and I finally...
Marc:I talked about it on the show.
Marc:It's like I finally connected with the fact that those fuckers meant it.
Marc:They were honoring something that they were brought up in.
Marc:I mean, they were at the lap of Muddy and that whole Chicago crew, and they wanted to make it like that.
Guest:They wanted to make it like that, but they're also really excited by it.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:This is not some kind of let's learn something because it's American and it's traditional and we're going to...
Guest:school ourselves in it right in order to present you a history lesson right because damn it this is alive and it excites the hell out of us so we're going to show it and i finally felt that just the night before last dude yeah that's congratulations congratulations that's a really wonderful wonderful thing what else have you been listening to
Marc:well uh i've been listening to like some i never was into metal yeah and uh and since i got into vinyl i went through a little bit of time with those first four sabbath records yeah it's good man yeah sabbath was a good band yeah
Marc:But I listen to Fleetwood Mac a lot.
Marc:I listen to Peter Green a lot.
Marc:I've been listening to some Albert King lately.
Marc:Oh, Albert King.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I've been listening to, I just listened to some Wilson Pickett this morning because I was talking to Patterson Hood about his dad.
Marc:Yep.
Marc:And I saw that documentary.
Marc:I'm like, holy fuck.
Marc:Yep.
Marc:And so I've been listening to that.
Marc:And then I got the box of stuff from that guy.
Marc:I listened to that first thing.
Marc:I'm going all over the map.
Guest:Grab the vinyl, the double Wilson Pickett, Greatest Hits.
Guest:I have it.
Guest:That record is all I listened to in like 1974, 75.
Guest:That record was on my turntable round the clock just for sheer joy.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Just for sheer joy.
Marc:I just cleaned it right before you got here.
Marc:I had it on the turntable.
Marc:I listened to Hey Jude.
Marc:We used to play that song, I'm In Love.
Marc:Yeah, we used to play that live.
Guest:It was just such a joy.
Marc:The Heartbreakers did?
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Absolutely.
Guest:Absolutely.
Marc:So what were the first bands?
Marc:Before I get there, I remember when I first had to reckon with Robert Johnson.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you're dealing with a quality of recording that's difficult right away, and you're dealing with a mythology that you've heard about.
Marc:Everybody talks about it.
Marc:So when you enter that record, again, you have to make that shift in your mind to sort past the age, to sort past the crackle, and feel the soul of that record.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Which song of that one did it to you?
Guest:Possibly Hellhound on my trail.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:It's like, what is that thing?
Guest:It's like not even a whole song.
Guest:Also, come on in my kitchen.
Guest:It's like all of that.
Guest:But when I put that on, the first time I put it on, I was like, I don't understand this.
Guest:What is it about this?
Guest:Right.
Guest:But I wanted to hear it again.
Guest:It's haunting.
Guest:It's haunting, but for me, it's the thing where however much older you get, you listen to certain music and it means something different to you.
Guest:And I'm a really slow study.
Guest:So I find out, I figure out what songs mean after listening to them for 20 years.
Marc:That's why they're magic.
Guest:The nickel drops.
Guest:It's like, oh, I know what he means here.
Guest:Oh, the payphone?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Is that it?
Guest:That's the old expression, the nickel drop.
Guest:It's like I finally understood it.
Guest:The signal went through to my brain that I got it.
Guest:But she's a kind-hearted woman, studies evil all the time.
Guest:What the hell is that?
Guest:And what is that?
Guest:I don't fucking know.
Guest:I think it's just women.
Guest:I think it's just, I think it's really incredibly deep and special, and you can spend, you know, it's Kabbalistic knowledge or something like that.
Guest:You spend more than a lifetime trying to study what that is.
Guest:Crack the code of the blues.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, I just learned recently what dropping a dime on, where that came from.
Marc:That's the same thing.
Marc:That's a payphone, but it means a different thing.
Marc:When you drop a dime on somebody, you rat them out, right?
Guest:You rat them out, yeah.
Marc:But it's still a payphone reference.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I assume The Nickel Dropped Me is a payphone reference.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Yeah, I would think so.
Guest:You drop a dime because you put a dime in the payphone and call up and tip the cops off.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:He's here, man.
Marc:He's across the street, dude.
Marc:Yeah, that kind of music.
Marc:I had another experience with that with Skip James not too long ago.
Marc:you know when i read a book called the devil and skip james and i was like i had not really reckoned with skip james but he was another one of those guys that made a handful of those recordings then had a resurgence in the 60s but but you know like you know i'm so glad you know that song the way he played it oh yeah it's nothing that's it's a masterpiece oh yeah like it'll never happen again he's a badass piano player he is that too right
Guest:Yeah, yeah, just unusual piano player, very unusual.
Guest:And guitar then, too.
Guest:Oh, guitar as well, and everybody thinks of guitar.
Marc:Yeah, but he was, yeah?
Marc:He was a badass piano player.
Guest:Who are your blues piano guys?
Guest:Otis Spann.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Whoever the guys are whose names I can never remember on all the Howlin' Wolf records, the piano on the Howlin' Wolf records.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Unbelievable.
Marc:And did you have that album with Otis Spann and Fleetwood Mac?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's good.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I've got-
Guest:Ian Stewart.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Ian Stewart was amazing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like, I learned to play the piano off of listening to The Beatles and The Rolling Stones.
Guest:The Fifth Stone.
Guest:Before I got into studying the older stuff.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And there's a rotating cast of characters on the Hell and Wolf records playing drums and piano and stuff, and they're always accepted.
Marc:And Hubert's always there.
Marc:Hubert Sumlin's always there.
Guest:Hubert's there almost all the time.
Guest:He's not always.
Guest:Buddy Boy Arnold or somebody was there at one point.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:but the feel on those records and there's some kind of scale that must come straight from africa that they play that it's it's bizarre and the drive is bizarre it's just honest human stuff that hadn't been near a right damn metronome in its life yeah you know yeah and you have you always had an appreciation for that or is you finding that more now
Guest:I think that's why See You Later Alligator drove me nuts from when I was a kid.
Guest:Too tight.
Guest:No, it's not too tight.
Guest:It actually swings.
Guest:It has more room.
Guest:It drove me nuts in a good way.
Guest:So it's not so broad.
Guest:That's why Heartbreak Hotel, when I was a little kid, was like, what the hell is that?
Guest:And to this day, it's like, what the hell is that?
Guest:I Only Have Eyes for You by the Flamingos.
Guest:The Beatles Twist and Shout.
Guest:It's like those things.
Guest:And that's a straight beat on Twist and Shout, but damn, that thing swings.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So what was your first band?
Guest:something terrible called the dimensions with my best friend from across the yard the dimensions yeah the dimensions it was very science fiction name oh it was awful i think it was largely a vehicle for my cousin to like get chicks yeah exactly yeah and how did you meet uh tom and the fellas
Guest:I saw him around a music store that I used to haunt when I was like 11 or 12.
Guest:And he was an older kid.
Guest:And the older kids that worked there had long hair.
Guest:And they clearly had a deal where they were in a band.
Guest:They had their stuff together.
Guest:And they were intimidating.
Guest:Because they're like three years older than me.
Guest:And if you're 12, three years is like 10 years.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Or 20 years.
Guest:And so they were the intimidating older kids.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I actually got to meet him and got to know him about four or five years later.
Guest:Because my friend from across the yard that I was in a band with.
Marc:The dimensions.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Him, Sandy, he was hauling gear for Tom's band.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Marc:At 13, Tom's got a gear hauler, 14?
Guest:Well, at 15, no, by the time I started hanging out with Tommy, he was probably 17, 18.
Guest:But yeah, you get somebody, well, it's more like, can I borrow your van?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Sandy had the van.
Guest:Right, got it, yeah.
Guest:So I started going to see them play, and they were so good.
Marc:And what were they, how many pieces?
Marc:It was just four of them?
Guest:It was a four-piece band called Mud Crutch.
Guest:Mud Crutch.
Guest:Yeah, don't know why.
Guest:What kind of shit were they playing?
Guest:Uh, it kind of sounded like the Burrito Brothers crossed with the Rolling Stones, crossed with Neil Young.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So he already kind of had his sound.
Guest:Well, it's just what everybody liked.
Guest:You know, they were listening to the Burrito Brothers.
Guest:They were listening to Porter and Dolly.
Guest:They were listening to Early Elvis.
Guest:They were listening to the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, and Graham.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:and um and bob and neil and the covers would come from that pool and then they play this stuff that tom had written at like 17 or 18 and i'd be like good lord that's as good as any of the songs y'all are doing by anybody else so what year is that this is like 1971 72
Marc:so they so they were completely out of the the southern rock allman brothers sir no it wasn't anything like right so they were already doing their own thing really absolutely and did they have a following they had a really big following then i joined oh come on and there went the following so okay so you joined the band mud crotch yeah mud crutch mud crutch sorry yeah
Marc:Where does that come from, Mud Crutch?
Guest:I have no damn idea somebody took some LSD.
Marc:You've never asked Tom in 40 years?
Guest:I don't even want to.
Guest:I've just known them.
Guest:I think somebody took some LSD and thought they had an idea for a weird name.
Guest:We got it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They were called the Epics before they were Mud Crutch, which I think is a much better name.
Marc:The Epics is good.
Guest:That's a good name.
Marc:So what happens?
Marc:You join up, and how did that change the face of things?
Marc:What did you bring to the table?
Marc:Who was leading the show?
Guest:Tom was leading the show, but everybody in the band was writing stuff.
Guest:And Tom also was, everybody had ambition and knew that there was a way to get out of town except me.
Guest:And I just kind of went, I'm coming along.
Guest:And so Tom figured out how to get the hell out of Dodge.
Guest:and had some record companies that kind of wanted to see what we were about lined up in California.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And at the last minute, Denny Cordell, who produced Go Now for the Moody Blues, produced Wider Shade of Pale, produced the early move stuff, the Joe Cocker great stuff, Leon Russell, had a record company.
Guest:And at the last minute, when we're already heading out to California, he calls, says, Stop in Tulsa.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And let's talk.
Guest:Because English guy in Tulsa.
Guest:Because, you know, you get English people sometimes get fascinated with the South.
Guest:Tulsa's not even the South.
Guest:Well, it ain't the North.
Guest:Said, come stop in Tulsa and let's talk.
Guest:And we stopped in Tulsa and we were like, this is the deal.
Guest:So we wound up signed to an independent label that had Phoebe Snow.
Guest:Alligator?
Guest:No, Shelter.
Guest:Shelter.
Guest:Shelter, that was it.
Guest:But that was Leon's label, right?
Guest:It was Leon and Denny ran it.
Guest:It was Leon, J.J.
Guest:Kale, Dwight Twilley, Phoebe Snow, and us.
Guest:And the Gap Band in early incarnation.
Guest:So it was a very cool label.
Marc:It was very cool, because Leon did his stuff, and he also did a lot of Freddie King, a few Freddie Kings later.
Marc:Yeah, absolutely.
Marc:All right, so now you're not there.
Marc:But before we get there, real quick, so you finished at Exeter, and you didn't go to college?
Marc:You bailed, or what?
Guest:I went two years at Tulane, and at the end of it, Tom was like, what the hell are you doing?
Guest:And I'm like, you're absolutely right.
Marc:So you'd already been in the band a little bit?
Guest:I was playing in the band in the summer, and when I was home on vacation.
Marc:And he's like why are you going?
Guest:He's like what are you doing in college?
Marc:But New Orleans did you get anything out of that?
Guest:Yeah, absolutely.
Guest:Two years of college in New Orleans, you get a lot.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it gets into your, it just gets into your system.
Marc:Because it was even a little more, it was probably very vital in a different city than it is, not post-Katrina, but like it was firing on all cylinders then.
Guest:Well, everything's different now.
Guest:Like New Orleans fires on its own cylinders in its own way, and I have been there several times in the last few years, and it's remarkable.
Guest:new orleans you talk about hellhound on my trail being a deep well that you're going to go back to before you ever figure it out right get a clue about it yeah new orleans there's so much depth in new orleans yeah in a single bar of music in new orleans nobody will ever do that right unless they're from new orleans
Marc:When you were there, were you able to see Professor Longhair, Dr. John, or any of those cats?
Guest:I didn't see Dr. John there, but I saw Professor Longhair, and I saw the meters from a distance.
Guest:And Clifton Chenier?
Guest:Didn't see Clifton, but Longhair was his mind-blowing, as you expect.
Guest:I saw him two or three times, and when I was in the worst band in the history of the world in college, we opened for Longhair.
Guest:really yeah and i was so embarrassed and ashamed because the rhythm section was fighting and arguing and had refused to work together and rehearse for for six weeks uh-huh and we have this gig open for my hero right and it's like so we hadn't practiced we done nothing and i'm the front man in the band right
Guest:Me and the drummer are the guys that are at the front.
Guest:Me and the drummer, and it was his fault he was arguing with the bass player.
Guest:But I wound up taking the hit because I'm the really weird-looking guy with the beard and glasses and stuff.
Marc:Oh, man.
Guest:That's embarrassing.
Guest:And then long hair comes on, and I'm just like, oh, I'm so ashamed.
Guest:Oh, fuck.
Marc:Well, I mean, on this new album, you should be so lucky.
Marc:Your soul album is the first one, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, you do that song.
Marc:What is it called?
Marc:Wobbles.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:That's straight up, right?
Marc:That's New Orleans.
Guest:That's meant to be straight up New Orleans.
Guest:And there's a lyric on it that I didn't sing on the record because I didn't write it until after the record was done.
Guest:Doesn't that suck?
Guest:But I put the lyric on the lyric sheet.
Guest:Oh, you did?
Guest:It's called Wobbles because I know this girl from New Orleans.
Guest:And when I met her, she said, come down and visit sometime.
Guest:I'll introduce you to Wobbles.
Guest:And I'm like, who's Wobbles?
Guest:Is that your dog or something?
Guest:She's like, no, Wobbles is me when I've had a few.
Guest:and so the lyric is actually about a girl wobbling down esplanade at dawn after a wild night yeah oh and you so you didn't you didn't get to lay the vocal track down no but i played at largo a couple weeks ago and i uh i sang it oh yeah yeah it seemed to go over pretty well oh that's good man yeah but long hair yeah that i wrote that specifically to try to get some get my hands around it
Marc:But that must have, you know, not unlike whatever your experience was with those records you're listening to or I imagine that that had to shape you musically to some degree, you know, to be there at all.
Guest:It gave me the understanding that I needed to go deeper.
Guest:It showed me just how incredibly much depth there was to go to, not on an intellectual level, but on an emotional level, like to get into the music like that emotionally and to relax like that.
Guest:Alan Toussaint, you will never see a pianist like Alan Toussaint.
Guest:You never will.
Guest:If you get a chance to see him, especially if he's playing entirely solo, go see Alan Toussaint.
Guest:yeah amazing because it's so gentle and it's so relaxed but it rolls and it thrills and it drives and it it swings and it's just it is lovely and it will move you so much i'm gonna i'm gonna do that because he's not a guy that i've really tapped into at all get a record called our new orleans he's got a couple of pieces on that uh-huh and um
Guest:If you can find any old vinyl that's history of New Orleans, there's some anthologies.
Guest:There's stuff from the 50s and 60s.
Marc:I got one of those.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's great music.
Guest:And Toussaint wrote a lot of those songs.
Marc:I got a... Who released those?
Marc:I don't think it was Rhino, but it was one of them.
Guest:Rhino put some out.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So you quit Tulane.
Marc:You go back to Florida.
Marc:Now you're playing with Tom and you guys...
Marc:have been summoned to Tulsa.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And are you the heartbreakers yet?
Marc:No, we're still Mud Crutch.
Marc:Mud Crutch is summoned to Tulsa to meet with shelter records.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And what happens?
Marc:It was love at first sight on all accounts.
Marc:How many of the songs from the first album did you have in place at that time?
Marc:Zero.
Guest:We had zero.
Guest:But you weren't playing covers.
Guest:We were playing a few covers when we played clubs, but what we would play is, you know,
Guest:relatively obscure Dylan stuff and things like that.
Guest:Which ones?
Guest:We'd play You Go Your Way, I Go Mine, Five Believers, that kind of stuff.
Marc:I respect the fact that you put Dylan's version of Karina Karina on the new record because that's one of those songs that moves me all the time.
Guest:I love that song, and when Glenn Johns said, let's have a couple covers, I thought, Karina, Karina.
Marc:I so respect that, because I play that song, and it kills me, that song.
Guest:It's a wonderful song, and also, you know David and Gillian, or do you know David and Gillian?
Guest:I think I've met them maybe once.
Guest:You're playing with them?
Guest:to play with them is such a joy and i thought that and the other cover is a dylan original dylan robert hunter called duquesne whistle and i thought lord it'd be such a joy to play these two bob dylan songs uh-huh with um with gillian and david so that's what we wound up doing and then who else is in the band who else is on the record
Guest:blake mills on guitar ethan johns who's also a producer and a great multi-instrumentalist on guitar uh british drummer named jeremy stacy uh-huh uh don was on bass petty on bass on one song because petty was the bass player in mud crutch and i love the way he plays bass
Marc:Does he play a good bass?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Ryan Adams on acoustic and harmony on one song.
Guest:He's powerful.
Guest:Yeah, he is.
Guest:And a guy, do you know Joel Jerome?
Guest:He lives around here.
Guest:Uh-uh.
Guest:Local guy, really good.
Guest:Who does he play with?
Guest:He's got his own thing that he does, but he sings harmony a little bit.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Ringo.
Guest:Ringo played tambourine on a song.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Marc:Well, you know everybody, right?
Guest:I know a couple of people, but it's like nobody slings a tambourine like Ringo Starr.
Guest:So it's like needs a tambourine.
Guest:Well, you know.
Guest:And he was willing to do it.
Guest:He was down for it.
Guest:Really?
Guest:You just said, Ringo, will you play some tambourine?
Guest:He was going to play drums on the song, and we got the dates mixed up.
Guest:And so he called saying, you know, like...
Guest:I'm ready to cut that track, and we said, damn, we couldn't find you, or we didn't know where you were, so we cut it without you, but it needs a tambourine.
Guest:He said, I'm there, and he was there in 20 minutes.
Marc:Where'd you tape it?
Guest:We taped it, and it is tape.
Guest:We taped it at Sunset Sound in Hollywood.
Marc:That's an old place, right?
Guest:Yeah, it's an old great place.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Just really great studio.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:All analog.
Guest:Well, our room was all analog.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Did you have to bring shit in?
Guest:No, I think they had the tape there.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:But we brought some tape in.
Guest:They had the machines there.
Guest:Who were the goats in that place?
Guest:The ghosts in that place, the ghosts that I think of first off and always are the Rolling Stones, because I think that they did some of Sticky Fingers in Exile.
Marc:Oh, remix.
Marc:They did the mix on Exile there, I think, right?
Guest:I think they'd cut some tracks or vocals or whatever.
Marc:Right, right, right.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:That's where they're right.
Marc:That's where they went after they got back with the tapes from the mansion.
Guest:Did they go back or did they do that stuff beforehand?
Guest:It's funny because some of the stuff on that sounds to me like it's leftover from Sticky Fingers.
Marc:I think if I remember correctly, they had the tapes from France and then they laid the background vocals in.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:After.
Guest:But I noticed that there's some stuff.
Guest:Why don't we just call them?
Guest:Let's call the Rolling Stones.
Guest:Let's ask Keith.
Guest:I figured you'd have a line on the Rolling Stones.
Marc:I've got his book up there.
Marc:We can go through it.
Marc:It's all in Keith's autobiography, man.
Marc:That book kills me.
Guest:Yeah, I haven't read it yet.
Guest:Oh, it's fucking great.
Guest:I like to have things that I haven't read yet so that when I need something, it will be there for me.
Guest:Dude, it'll blow your mind.
Guest:I know it will.
Marc:It's like the Bible.
Marc:I know it'll blow my mind.
Marc:Because I don't know Keith Richards, and you have an idea of a guy in your head, and he turns out to be this very sophisticated, highly intellectual storyteller.
Marc:All his memories are there.
Marc:Everything's there.
Guest:Yeah, I know him just a bare little bit, and he's a remarkable guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's a great guy.
Guest:Growing up with The Stones.
Guest:I know he's just the tiniest man.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But growing up with The Stones, you're thinking he's just a fucking... Nah.
Guest:Look at all the songs he wrote.
Guest:Look at all the music he made.
Guest:He couldn't just be some idiot.
Guest:Well, that was my mistake.
Guest:Not an idiot, but just a... There's too many rock and roll bands that have some idiot in them who didn't need to be an idiot, but chose to be an idiot.
Guest:Publicly.
Guest:He assumed that Keith was an idiot.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Which is really a foolish assumption.
Guest:Same with Iggy Pop.
Guest:I had Iggy Pop in here.
Marc:Oh, Lord.
Marc:You can't write those words.
Marc:And he remembers everything, though.
Marc:That was my fascination.
Marc:Because the idea that you get of them is like they're fucked up all the time.
Guest:I can't remember nothing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, the two king junkies can.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Maybe I should have leaned toward junk more than the booze.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You still drink?
Guest:Oh, no.
Guest:Long time, right?
Guest:Long, long time.
Guest:I got 14.
Guest:Yeah, I got 26 in a couple of weeks.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It had to be done.
Guest:It was a public service that I stopped drinking.
Marc:But you had a good run.
Marc:You stopped around the time I did, the late 30s, right?
Guest:Mid-30s, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So you got some time in.
Guest:Oh, I got some.
Guest:Unfortunately for the world, I got some time in.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Is it unfortunately?
Guest:I'd say it's unfortunately.
Guest:oh yeah you got nothing good out of it I got something good out of it I'm sure if only I could remember what it was so so through like through how many records were you fucked up
Guest:i don't know like the first uh i was fucked up for the first 10 years of the band wow or eight years of the band sounded good well thank you you know sometimes you sometimes it can lead you down the right path on its way to the irrevocable wrong path sure got ugly yeah inspiration turns to expiration uh-huh yeah what was that last night like
Guest:Just sad.
Guest:A friend of mine called up, said, let's record.
Guest:And I said, dude, I can't.
Guest:I'm too hungover to even walk to the car.
Guest:And I'm like, I can't make music because of this stuff?
Guest:Oh, no, man.
Guest:That's wrong.
Guest:And that really drove the nail in.
Guest:Oh, good, man.
Guest:All right, so you're at Shelter Records.
Guest:You signed the deal.
Guest:we sign a deal we make a record the first record yeah no we make a mug crutch record where's that at can i get that that's a good question there is no mug crutch record it didn't never got released there was a single and it didn't do very well and there was an album that chose not to get released because i think uh the powers that be the record company which is denny
Guest:thought the strong guys in the band are Campbell and Petty, and the rest of it's too many cooks.
Guest:So they broke the band up and broke my heart in a million pieces, and I wound up in a multiracial soul band called the Nasty City Soul Review in Altadena.
Guest:Here?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We were out in California with Mug Crutch making a record here and in Tulsa.
Marc:So he breaks the band up and within what, months, weeks, you're playing in a soul band?
Guest:Well, you had to make a living some way and they wouldn't even hire me at Taco Bell or a record store.
Marc:Oh, this is heartbreaking.
Marc:So this is what, 75?
Marc:This is like 75, yeah.
Marc:And then what happens?
Marc:Does Tom pull it together or what?
Guest:Stan Lynch, who wound up being the Heartbreakers drummer, moved out from Florida.
Guest:We're hanging out.
Guest:We love the Faces.
Guest:The Faces have a bartender on stage.
Guest:We figure we'll start a band called The Drunks.
Guest:It's built in.
Guest:And my friend Tim Kramer is working at Village Recorder as a tape operator and assistant.
Guest:And they say...
Guest:Get somebody to record so you can learn and we'll give you the studio from like 10 till 6 a.m.
Guest:And he calls me, says, I like your songs, come down.
Guest:So me and Stan put a band together and the band was basically the Heartbreakers without Tom.
Marc:Campbell was there too?
Guest:Campbell was there too.
Guest:Campbell had been working with Tom on Tom's solo record.
Guest:Campbell was there too.
Guest:And I just said, Tom, come on down.
Guest:I don't know how to sing on a microphone.
Guest:Give me some advice.
Guest:And he said, okay.
Guest:So he comes down, and we cut a bunch of tracks.
Guest:And within a day, I get a call from somebody from Tom's camp going...
Guest:Tom likes that banjo recording with, and he doesn't want to be a solo guy with session players.
Guest:And I'm like, I'm in.
Guest:I like his songs quite a bit, you know?
Guest:That was the original idea.
Guest:And that was the, yeah, it's like, okay, you know, like y'all kind of going the wrong way around.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But, and that's what happened.
Guest:We got the band together.
Guest:The only song that, there's one song on the first record called Hometown Blues, and that's Mud Crutch with Duck Dunn on bass.
Guest:and um really i didn't know that dunn's on hometown yeah and um and we had don't do me like that yeah that we recorded for the mud crutch record that never came out uh-huh and then when we did damn the torpedoes years later i i was one of the voices going i think i was the only voice going hey what about don't do me like that so we redragged it out and recut it that was that old huh that was that old that was from 74 i think
Marc:That's unbelievable, man.
Guest:I tell you, he was writing really good songs from the get-go.
Marc:What's amazing about him is they're simple kind of classic fucking pop songs, man.
Marc:Yeah, well, that's what we like.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We like all sorts of things.
Guest:You can go into The Grateful Dead or you can go to VMC5.
Guest:Sure.
Marc:but he knows how to hook man oh absolutely i mean it's like it's it's it's amazing to look at the catalog when you really sit down with it you know as a guy who's 50 who grew up with it and you're like holy shit every song in this i know every song on this fucking record well there's rarely a song also that sounds like i have a clever idea for a song title right it's he's writing songs that are you know like they're emotionally grounded in something real
Marc:It's earnest.
Marc:It's like uniquely American.
Marc:It's sort of like there's something eternally teenage or about longing.
Marc:There's a longing about it.
Guest:Yeah, there's a hopeless romanticism.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, and that's great stuff.
Guest:Absolutely.
Marc:For the boys and girls.
Guest:Well, yeah, and I'm one of the boys.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Well, I mean, so that first record was a monster, right?
Guest:no that first record they wouldn't even play on local radio for a long time i think k-rock played it once or twice really but the rest of the stations were like we don't play that that shit what what what did they mean by that shit i don't know um after the 70s like you know after the early 70s they decided that the
Guest:I think that it didn't fit into the California singer-songwriter thing out here.
Guest:It didn't sound like the Eagles.
Guest:And it wasn't in Jackson Brown's camp.
Guest:And it was like, I don't think it was the thing.
Guest:So what we did was we toured a bunch.
Guest:And then we went over to England because the English got the record when it came out.
Guest:over there, and they loved it from the get-go.
Guest:And so we got a gig opening for Nils Lofgren over there.
Guest:And we went over there, and it took off well enough that right after the Nils Lofgren opening slot, we did a headlining tour of England, and the word got back over here, and people started saying, well, maybe we're going to take them seriously.
Guest:The promo guys over here have been working their ass off.
Guest:John Scott had been working his ass off.
Guest:So there was a lot of dedication and a slow build, but England put us on the map.
Marc:It's hilarious because you were opening for a guy that really couldn't give it away here.
Marc:But they loved him in England, too.
Marc:It's wild, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, Wolfgren is a great guitar player.
Marc:He ended up with Bruce, but as a solo act, he couldn't get traction here.
Guest:He wasn't getting much traction here.
Guest:He was getting a little bit, but not much.
Guest:But over there, they really were interested in it.
Marc:They dug him.
Guest:Yeah, absolutely.
Marc:But you guys blew it up in England.
Marc:They got it.
Marc:They got it.
Marc:They love good pop.
Guest:Yeah, they do.
Guest:And they kind of got it.
Guest:I think they got that, oh, it's not going to be all about long guitar solos and Baroque compositions.
Guest:Tight.
Guest:It's going to be direct.
Marc:Yeah, direct.
Marc:That's the word I'm looking for when I say tight.
Guest:It's going to be direct.
Marc:Direct.
Marc:Yeah, because one of my favorite songs on there is like laid back.
Marc:I mean, isn't Mystery Man on there?
Marc:Mystery.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Mystery Man.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Love that fucking song.
Marc:I love that song.
Guest:And Wild One Forever.
Marc:Wild One Forever.
Marc:That fucking song kills me.
Marc:I used to listen to Wild One Forever when my heart was broken when I was in high school.
Marc:Yeah, it's one of those, isn't it?
Marc:Yeah, the girl that you just couldn't hold on to, man.
Guest:Yeah, it's one of those.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Look, you know, it's like to grow up with a guy from like, I sat with them for the first time, maybe I was 17.
Guest:Tom.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:With him and Mike in Mud Crutch.
Guest:I sat with them for the first time when I was 17, maybe 18, but probably still 17.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so my entire life I've been around a guy that can write Wild One forever.
Yeah.
Guest:yeah i can't i can't and shows up and to this day he shows up and it's like he's like i got this song and he plays it for you just like what the hell is i went over to mike campbell's house when they were recording the solo record right moon fever record right just i was curious yeah and did that hurt your feelings at all yeah it did but you know i got over it
Marc:What was the idea there, if Mike was on it?
Marc:I mean, I never understood that, the difference between- They're a team.
Guest:They're just a team.
Guest:Tom and Mike are, like the Heartbreakers are a team, but Tom and Mike are a really deep team.
Guest:That's a really deep team.
Guest:And I'd been playing with all these other folks, with different players who played different rhythms and stuff.
Guest:So if Tom wanted to go play with Jeff Lynne, my feelings were hurt because I'm a human being, but why shouldn't he go play with Jeff Lynne?
Guest:Go have some fun.
Guest:Go play with some other kids.
Marc:Yeah, but the weird thing about it is that I didn't love it.
Guest:I didn't love it.
Guest:I'll tell you what, Free Fallin' is a really great song.
Guest:Great song.
Guest:And I walked into that studio.
Guest:No doubt.
Guest:I walked into Campbell's Garage Studio.
Guest:And they said, hold on, we're doing a vocal.
Guest:And I stood there while Tom sang, she's a good girl.
Guest:I went, the fuck?
Guest:And he sang Free Fall.
Guest:And I said, let me play on this song.
Guest:And they said, no.
Guest:Oh, fuck, man.
Guest:I'm like, dude, let me play on this song.
Guest:And Jeff Lynn's like, no, I don't think so.
Marc:But that's like the best song on that record, right?
Marc:What else is on that record?
Guest:Running Down a Dream, a great lullaby called Alright for Now.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:That's a great lullaby.
Marc:But Free Fallin' is a fucking sweet song, man.
Guest:Free Fallin' is a fabulous song.
Marc:Do you guys play it, though?
Marc:You play it in concert.
Guest:Yeah, we play it at shows.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But you're the guy on Refugee, right?
Marc:Yeah, that's me.
Marc:That's it.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:Like, you know, you're one of those cats where it's like, you know, that's that song, man.
Marc:You know, that's going to be that song forever, that organ.
Guest:Well, that organ's prominent in the song, They Turn Me Up.
Guest:Forever eternally grateful.
Marc:But you hear that first organ chord and you're like, that's... Yeah, you know it's that song.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:You know it's that song.
Marc:I mean, I talked to Hunt Sales.
Marc:Oh, how's Hunt?
Marc:He's all right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, but he's hanging in there.
Marc:Good.
Marc:He's in Austin.
Marc:But he's like, that's lust for life.
Marc:That's that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's it.
Guest:It's that.
Guest:You got one of those.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:All I knew was they were counting to four and I'm going to hit the right chord.
Guest:But you got one of those.
Marc:You got one of those, though.
Guest:That's you, man.
Guest:I'm glad they've got one of those.
Guest:Got something somewhere.
Marc:You got a few, I think.
Marc:Maybe.
Marc:But when you guys were doing, I mean, what's the story behind American Girl?
Marc:Because I can listen to that once or twice a month.
Guest:He said he had this song, American Girl, and they'd cut the track without me because we were working in such a small homemade studio at Shelter Records that if the song was loud, you couldn't play piano at the same time.
Guest:So they'd call me up and say, we got this track, come down and play piano.
Guest:I'd go in and it's like...
Guest:damn it's like a bow diddley beat but the drums aren't playing bow diddley yeah and it goes forever and ever and ever without rhyming uh-huh that's bitchin yeah yeah yeah and it was it was the fourth of july 1976 so it was the bicentennial 1976 and by coincidence we cut american girl huh you know it's a sweet-ass song man man he he could write those suckers but you didn't it didn't pop big until the second one
Guest:I think it popped big after England.
Guest:Like, you know, San Francisco and Boston caught on straight away.
Guest:San Francisco and Boston were our friends from the second we put the record out.
Guest:But, you know, a lot of records come out.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And you got to get some attention.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And we were a little bit different, and Tom's singing voice was a little bit different.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So it's, you know, what do you do with this?
Guest:It doesn't sound like Bohemian Rhapsody.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And it doesn't sound like Hotel California.
Guest:It doesn't sound like anything that Ronstadt's doing.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But the quality of the songs was like something that we all believed in.
Guest:What was the first one that charted?
Guest:I think eventually Breakdown charted.
Guest:Breakdown may have been the first single, but I don't really know.
Guest:I don't really remember.
Guest:I don't think I was paying that much attention.
Guest:I was just drinking and playing shows.
Marc:And you guys are all friends.
Marc:Are you still friends now?
Marc:Yeah, we're still friends now.
Marc:Were there times where that wasn't the case?
Guest:no not really not really no you know you my closest friends in the band were howie epstein and stan lynch yeah now he went and died on me and i'm told him that i was going to kill him if he did that so at some point i'm gonna have to follow through and stan how he was the bass player yeah how he was the bass player and stan's gone and stan and stan left the band like 20 years ago he's all right though
Guest:yeah he's great okay he's great is he still playing he's playing some and he's like co-producing don henley records and stuff like that so he's doing all right don henley's another monster dude i mean that dude can write a fucking song he can write a song god damn so i can write a song yeah he's got something he wants to say yeah he does so you and tom are good oh totally yeah oh absolutely you hang out
Guest:We don't all hang out that much anymore.
Guest:Sometimes I have, Campbell will come over to my house sometimes just to pick a little.
Guest:And Ferroni I see quite a bit.
Guest:But Tom's more of a homebody out in Malibu, and I'm more of a social guy.
Guest:But when I played these shows for my record over at Largo a couple weeks ago,
Guest:Everybody came except Ron Blair was out of town.
Guest:So Tom and Mike and Scott and Steve, everybody came to the show.
Guest:I was so touched and I was so intimidated because it's like your older brothers are coming to see how cool of a party are you throwing.
Guest:But they were so supportive.
Guest:It was really, really sweet.
Marc:It was good.
Marc:Well, I think the album sounds great.
Marc:Thanks.
Marc:And it's a lot of variety, man.
Marc:Yeah, well, it's... You're tackling all your musical tastes.
Guest:Well, you don't want to do the same song over and over and over.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And this is actually your first bonafide solo record.
Marc:Yeah, first time I've done anything remotely like this.
Guest:And what was the biggest fear in doing it?
Guest:The biggest fear was about, well, you don't know if the songs are going to strike other people and you don't know if your voice is going to carry it.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:But...
Guest:I kind of like my voice.
Guest:I'm used to it, but I kind of like it.
Guest:And I had enough encouragement from enough people about the songs that I always liked the songs, but when you're that close to something, you don't really know.
Guest:You need somebody to tell you.
Guest:But I had enough outside encouragement about the songs that I finally decided, let's put them on a record so that they stick around because you never know when you're going to walk around that corner and there's that bus.
Guest:The songs have a right to it.
Guest:the last ride yeah the big the big kaboom oh you meant getting hit by a bus i thought you were seeing death as a bus one gets on well that's that's a good one too there's a great movie called look this up it's called um dead of night uh-huh and there's a twilight zone episode taken from it uh-huh and uh where the the woman or the guy is dreaming of a morgue all the time and the morgue is room 101 uh-huh
Guest:Anyway, death as a bus, yes, dead of night.
Guest:Don't get on the damn bus.
Guest:Don't get on that damn bus.
Guest:I won't get on the bus.
Guest:If the conductor looks like that, do not get on the bus.
Marc:Now, how did Glenn Johns get involved in this?
Guest:We're friends for a long time.
Guest:Because he's produced some of the guys you love, right?
Guest:Yeah, and I was driving over here and some Small Faces record comes on.
Guest:Yep, that's Glenn engineering that.
Guest:He did that?
Guest:Which one?
Guest:It was Tin Soldier, which I'm pretty sure it sounds like him.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:he did ishiko park i believe and all of that stuff you know the faces that what's the one i got with the one uh it's the small faces with all them just sitting on the cover yeah glenn didn't do that record i can't remember who did that record that's a great great record man yeah i would have been listening to that recently too yeah that's a great record
Guest:i love that and he did that who else did he do the who yeah like he he did a lot of the who and he he i mean hell he did who's next oh really yeah i just listened to the first two who albums it comes in that double album package yeah and he very well may have engineered but i had no idea that that how diverse they were early on they were and that's my favorite period
Guest:Like they were doing James Brown songs.
Guest:That's my favorite period, Who, is that just whacked out.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You try it all.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So it was great working with him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But that's why the early Who stuff, their slogan was maximum R&B, because it was.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It was all R&B.
Guest:It was.
Marc:It's crazy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I had no idea.
Guest:yeah but glenn had said years ago let's make a record sometime and i was intimidated so it was like glenn johns it's like yeah he's my friend but he's glenn johns right so somebody shows glenn johns a song it's going to be mick and keith with sympathy for the devil it's going to be actually the beatles it's going to be george harrison saying here's a song called something yeah did he engineer this
Guest:I think he engineered those solo demos that came out.
Guest:Sympathy, though?
Guest:Sympathy he engineered, absolutely.
Guest:Holy fuck.
Guest:Absolutely.
Marc:That thing, that fucking thing seared its way into my heart and mind.
Marc:It stayed with me forever.
Marc:When it comes on the radio now, I get chills.
Guest:No shit.
Guest:So, you know, you're going to show your songs to Glenn Johns.
Guest:It's like-
Guest:Look, I know he's my friend and everything, but are you really going to show your songs to Glenn Johns and the way that you sang to Glenn Johns when he has recorded the Beatles, when he has recorded Daltry and the damned Rolling Stones?
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, it's like, okay, I will.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Sheepishly.
Guest:You've got to do stuff that scares the shit out of you.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:You've got to.
Guest:And he was in, right?
Guest:He was in.
Guest:And he was totally in.
Marc:That's sweet, man.
Marc:He was totally in.
Marc:Now, what about your experience as a guy that plays with other people?
Marc:Because I got that Muscle Shoals documentary on my brain.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you're a guy, like we talked about at the beginning, about Booker T, who's a member of the band.
Guest:Yeah, that's the deal.
Marc:And you play behind the guy.
Guest:You'd be a band guy, and the bands that I like, they're all members of the band.
Guest:I mean, Jagger may be up front, but he's a member of the band.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:The Beatles are a damn band.
Guest:It's not Paul McCartney, you know, like with a bunch of people.
Guest:But the really great records like the Beach Boys, the Ultimate Session stuff is the Beach Boys.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Spectre stuff.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then for the other end of it, you get the Muscle Shoals stuff and the Stacks stuff.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Those guys...
Guest:are a band because they play together all the time right but when they play with people they play like they're a band and so every time i did a session for somebody else you think like you're in a band but you know that guy you know his music you don't necessarily know the person whose music you you come into play you may never have met him before
Guest:really oh yeah quite frequently it's you know the producer the producer's got something that he wants to do right and you say okay i'm in right and uh you go down and somebody you meet somebody they show you their song and to you it's like you go in for six hours and work on a record to them they've been writing this stuff their whole life
Guest:right and it's dead it's really important to them and you have to take it seriously and you have to put all the care you can into it and if somebody calls you up to work with an artist whose music you actively dislike unless you really really badly need the money which is valid yeah don't do it because it's not fair to the guy or woman who's making the record because it's you know it's her heart that's in this and she deserves to have somebody whose heart is in it playing on her record
Marc:Yeah, well, I mean, it seems to me that if the list I have here is real, I mean, you've played with very definitive fucking people.
Marc:Like, you know, when you enter a session with John Fogerty or Elvis Costello, and then you play with Waylon, too?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So you can sort of lock into just about anything.
Marc:Well, all those people, I knew their stuff, obviously.
Marc:Right.
Marc:No, I know.
Marc:But that to me must be, I mean, is that more rewarding or is it like the experience of being part of someone's vision who you have no idea what the vision is?
Guest:If the song is really good is how rewarding it is.
Guest:If the song is really good, it doesn't matter if it's somebody you've never heard of before.
Guest:If they've got a really good song, that's going to be really rewarding.
Guest:And you work with Johnny Cash.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:A lot.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Now, that experience for you, because those were the Rick Rubin records, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And what was your role in that?
Guest:My role in that was to be really quiet and try to understand what Rick and John wanted.
Guest:You know, just listen as close as you can with your ears and with your heart and just go, what do they want for these songs?
Guest:Because it's Johnny Cash.
Guest:He's going to...
Guest:Talk about Robert Johnson.
Guest:Well, Johnny Cash as well.
Guest:So you want to do right by Johnny Cash as much as you ever want to do right by anybody.
Guest:You owe Johnny Cash.
Guest:You bloody owe Johnny Cash.
Marc:And what kind of relationship did you have with him?
Marc:I mean, where was that at?
Guest:He was always totally nice and kind to me and very friendly and wonderful, but it was a professional relationship.
Guest:You know, I'd come in and play the music.
Marc:He could go real deep.
Guest:Yeah, that's, like I said, Robert Johnson.
Guest:That's some deep, deep, deep stuff.
Guest:And that whole family experience, you know, like June's pretty damn deep.
Guest:Roseanne is very deep.
Guest:Roseanne is very, very deep.
Guest:Smart, deep woman.
Marc:And you've worked with her a few times?
Marc:A few times, yeah.
Marc:And with Johnny, did you feel like you nailed it?
Guest:generally i felt like i did yeah that's good generally i felt like they did yeah but we played we went down to a church on wilshire and cut danny boy with just me and him and a church organ yeah and in the whole church there was the recording engineer rick rubin june carter johnny cash me and the church organist because i didn't know what all the knobs did and he was helping me out uh-huh
Guest:And they had, you couldn't see over the top of the organ to see the preacher.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Johnny's sitting in the preacher's chair and there's a mirror system.
Guest:So you look in the mirror and you can see the preacher.
Guest:So you're the church organist and you know what he's about to do and when to start the choir.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And I spent that thing looking through the mirror at a direct reflection of Johnny Cash, hunched over a microphone, sitting in the preacher's chair with headphones on with a June stand and a few feet away from him, just singing this beautiful, beautiful old song.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:I was, I mean, what are you going to do?
Guest:You know, what are you going to do?
Guest:Be in it.
Guest:You're going to be in it.
Guest:That's the story.
Guest:Whenever you play music...
Guest:You want to find a way through surrender or effort to just be in it.
Guest:And the best time is when you surrender.
Guest:And you could just fall into it.
Guest:And then it'll show you where it wants to go.
Guest:Then it'll show you where it wants to go.
Guest:It's like a river or something.
Guest:It's going to flow the way it wants to.
Guest:And if you can be the leaf, I guess if you know how to surf what you don't, if you can catch that wave and ride that wave, it's going to take you to shore.
Marc:yeah yeah yeah that is a beautifully put thing you just did there oh yay and I think it's a great way to end and I love the new record and it was fucking great talking to you thank you it's really great talking to you thanks buddy alright music music
Marc:Okay, that's it.
Marc:That's our show.
Marc:That was nice, man.
Marc:He's groovy.
Marc:Go pick up his record if you like the sound of it.
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Marc:I shit my pants.
Marc:Just coffee.
Marc:Alright, do what you gotta do, man.
Marc:I'm tired.
Marc:Fucking tired and my hands are tingling.
Marc:I'm going to neurologist on Monday.
Marc:Fuck, I hope there's nothing wrong.
Marc:I'm just doing all the doctor stuff, man.
Marc:I'm at that age.
Marc:You go do it.
Marc:My feet and hands are tingly weird.
Marc:They feel weird.
Marc:They feel like they're going to blow off my body.
Marc:My hands and feet feel like they're going to explode.
Marc:Tonight I'll be on Conan.
Marc:Alright?
Marc:Boomer lives!
Boomer lives!
you